Along with the cry rooms, bean bag chairs, and safe spaces needed to shelter college students from the vagaries of real life, there is also apparently a need for climate counselors. Yes, you heard that right: college students need help emotionally coping with climate change.
In a story in the Washington Post, “eco-anxiety,” also known as “climate distress” or “climate stress,” is an actual thing. Sarah Stoeckl, who is, incidentally, the director of the Sustainability Office at the University of Oregon, believes that in order to enable young people to fight climate change, they also need to be provided with emotional support. She wants more of the school’s resources to address the problem, including access to counselors.
Office of Sustainability? Do they need an entire office and a director for that? No wonder college costs are so high.
But the problem isn’t just climate stress/distress. Within that problem lies yet another issue that needs to be sorted out. I’ll give you one guess what it is. Time’s up! If you guessed “privilege” you’re right! Please contact the editors at PJ Media to claim your prize. Actually, I don’t think prizes are in the budget. Sorry. Maybe we have some pencils or staples lying around that you could have. Or paperclips. Everyone can always use paperclips.
You see, according to psychologists not named in the article, the people who are the most afflicted by eco-anxiety come from backgrounds of privilege. However, people of color are “disproportionately affected by climate change” (emphasis mine). The chairwoman of the American Psychiatric Association Committee on Climate Change and Mental Health (that is also a thing, apparently) Elizabeth Haase, says that people of color are essentially too busy dealing with the socio-economic issues which preclude them from seeking counseling for climate change. According to Haase, these people need time and energy to also worry about climate change.
Related: Left-Wing Website Takes a Stand Against Kids’ ‘Climate Anxiety’
So to recap:
Rich, white college kids who are majoring in Non-Binary Balloon Animal Theory need counseling for climate change. But not as much as people of color, who don’t have the time to stress about it.
I smell budget hearings! And tuition increases.
I dunno, maybe we could concentrate on things like the massive companies who engaged in crony capitalism that upped the cost of housing. Or we could focus on lowering the skyrocketing cost of groceries and gas and doing something about the crime that plagues blue cities. That might make life easier for people of color. And everyone else for that matter. By the way, there are also people across the globe who are living in war zones and poverty that is unknown in the U.S. and who don’t have the luxury of finding new things to feel anxious about.
The issue here is not climate change or the causes thereof. The issue is that colleges are concentrating on turning out people with zero coping or real-life skills who honestly believe that the world revolves around them. And those colleges will probably demand and waste more money in the process by creating new programs for the sake of creating them. Think about that when you are paying higher taxes to offset student loans. Better find a reason to hire a climate-stressed person with a degree in Non-Binary Balloon Animal Theory. You might as well get your money’s worth.
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