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Environmental Optimism & Environmental Pessimism

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Published October 24, 2024

Young people increasingly report feelings of climate anxiety and environmental pessimism. There is a growing sense of climate doom. Yet the evidence points towards environmental progress – from air and water quality to increases in biodiversity, there is every reason to be optimistic about the environmental future. Why then is there such a disparate disconnect between the environmental evidence and people’s pessimistic attitude?

Dominic (Nick) Parker is the Ilene and Morton Harris Senior Fellow (adjunct) at the Hoover Institution and the Anderson-Bascom Professor of Applied Economics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he has won several awards for research and teaching. He is a senior fellow at the Property Environment Research Center and a regular lecturer for the Ronald Coase Institute and the Elinor Ostrom Workshop.

Check out more from Dominic Parker:

  • Watch episodes from the series Renewing Indigenous Economies from Dominic Parker and Terry Anderson here.
  • Watch "Nonuse Rights: An Innovative Way to Conserve Natural Resources" featuring Dominic Parker here.
  • Read the Q&A with Dominic Parker on the untapped potential renewable energy on tribal lands here.

The opinions expressed in this video are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Hoover Institution or Stanford University. © 2024 by the Board of Trustees of Leland Stanford Junior University.