When children in rural Hayward, Wisconsin, suffered abuse, the small community of 2,500 people was ready with an important resource: a child advocacy center with a team of experts prepared to guide them through the trauma.

For nearly eight years, the Marshfield Child Advocacy Center satellite clinic was the only place in a more than 100-mile radius where law enforcement officers, prosecutors, medical professionals, and child protective service workers joined forces to support the child’s wellbeing and pursue a criminal case against the abuser. An average of 50 children a year have spoken here to a trauma-informed, specially trained forensic interviewer, with law enforcement listening from another room. The interviews were recorded, and often played later in court, to minimize the amount of times the children had to repeat details of abuse. 

These were critical services for kids who may have otherwise ended up answering questions in a police interrogation room, or not reporting at all. But in October, the Hayward satellite office was forced to close its doors. 

It was one of more than 960 child advocacy centers nationwide that have become essential for communities and law enforcement, and they rely heavily on public support to serve kids and families free of charge: Federal funds accounted for an average of 35 percent of centers’ budgets nationwide last year, according to the National Children’s Alliance. 

Much of that money comes from a fund created by the 1984 Victims of Crime Act (VOCA), which redirects financial penalties levied in corporate criminal cases to domestic violence shelters, rape crisis centers, and child advocacy centers nationwide. But as prosecutions have declined, the government’s payout from that fund has been plummeting for years, throwing the already underresourced organizations that rely on them into disarray. 

The final straw for the Hayward facility came this year, when it saw an 80 percent cut to its federal funding.

Rural areas like Hayward “have limited resources all around, but when it comes to be child abuse and neglect, there’s obviously a paucity of those,” said Kristen Iniguez, director of the Marshfield Child Advocacy Center, which oversaw the Hayward satellite clinic from its headquarters about 150 miles southeast. “To have a law enforcement officer, for instance, or a social worker drive a patient three hours for a forensic interview—chances are, that’s not going to happen.”

Now, this is the reality facing abused children near Hayward. As I recently reported in a months-long investigation, domestic violence shelters and rape crisis centers have seen devastating cuts to their hotlines and legal advocacy services, among others, as a result of the declining VOCA funds. 

Leaders of centers in five states told me the VOCA cuts are also forcing them to cut personnel or left them unable to fill vacant positions, leading to longer wait times for children in need of services and burnout for existing staff. And even for organizations that have managed to avoid the worst-case scenario—closing their doors—they are bracing for more funding cuts to come. 

The funds mostly come from financial penalties levied in corporate criminal cases. But as federal prosecutors have pursued more deferred and non-prosecution agreements—which allow defendants more time to pay up or avoid charges entirely if they cooperate with the government—deposits into the Crime Victims Fund have shrunk from about $6.6 billion in 2017 to $2.5 billion this year. (Because of caps set by Congress since 2000 to manage fluctuations in the fund, the amount of money disbursed has been even lower.) The funds are distributed to states based on their population size, and then to eligible programs. 

There have been efforts to shore up VOCA funds, but they’ve so far been inadequate. President Biden signed the VOCA Fix Act into law in 2021, diverting revenue from deferred and non-prosecution agreements to the Crime Victims Fund, but it has yet to fill the gap. The Crime Victims Fund Stabilization Act, a bipartisan bill introduced in both chambers of Congress this year, would divert additional funds collected through the False Claims Act, which penalizes defrauding of the government. Since fiscal year 2017, $1.7 billion from the False Claims Act has gone into the General Fund of the Treasury—money that could otherwise go into the Crime Victims Fund under the new bill. But the prospect of the bill becoming law before the end of this session looks increasingly unlikely.

More cuts without a solution enacted at the federal level means that future child abuse victims like those in rural northern Wisconsin will be less likely to see their cases prosecuted and to have a sense of closure, according to Iniguez. 

“It’s kind of just unfair for the victim—and a child victim, at that,” she said.

While the House version of the bill introduced by Missouri Republican Rep. Ann Wagner now has nearly 200 bipartisan co-sponsors, it hasn’t yet gotten a needed committee hearing. Spokespeople for House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) didn’t respond to questions. 

Wisconsin’s GOP Rep. Tom Tiffany, whose district includes both Hayward and Marshfield, has not signed on to support the bill. His office did not respond to requests for comment. Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.) supports the Senate bill and is waiting to be added as a co-sponsor, according to a spokesperson. Wisconsin’s Republican senator, Ron Johnson, has not signed on and did not respond to a request for comment. That bill, too, is still waiting for a committee hearing.

While politicians in DC dawdle, advocates fear the worst. Last year, VOCA funds supported more than 1,000 child abuse service organizations, according to DOJ data; support for victims of child sexual and physical abuse and neglect were among the most common services the funds supported, that data also shows. “Millions of victims, including abused children and battered women, will be left without access to safety, justice and healing,” more than 700 prosecutors wrote in a letter to Congress earlier this year, urging them to act. As Chris Newlin, the CEO of the National Children’s Advocacy Center in Huntsville, Alabama, the first-ever child advocacy center, told me, “My fear is that with the lack of funding, more and more CACs are going to be forced into making really difficult decisions about their ability to continue providing services, and to what degree in their communities—it’s a crisis.”

The hallmark of child advocacy centers, experts say, is the multidisciplinary team—the collaboration among the group of officials who determine how to best support the child going forward. 

The National Children’s Advocacy Center was established in 1985 with the help of former Democratic Rep. Bud Cramer, who saw firsthand how the system failed child abuse victims during his time as district attorney of Madison County, Alabama. In a 2013 column for Roll Call, Cramer wrote that he realized the system needed an overhaul when the grandmother of a child abuse victim told him the girl had to recount her allegations of abuse 11 different times during the course of his prosecution. “I had to ask myself, why aren’t we talking to each other—social workers, law enforcement, prosecutors and victims advocates? We all touched the case at some point, but had yet to coordinate any part of the investigation,” Cramer wrote. “So, I decided to change that.” 

This approach has proven effective: Research has shown that child advocacy centers lead to higher rates of felony prosecutions of child sexual abuse, faster processing of cases, and greater satisfaction among both children and their caregivers.

The goal is always to ensure “that that child is always the first priority in that room, and that their needs for comfort and safety guide that process,” says Emily Perry, a forensic interviewer in Indiana. Susie’s Place—the child advocacy center she founded in 2009, which now has three locations throughout Indiana—is designed to feel like a cozy living room, outfitted with couches, toys, televisions, and books. In the interview room, kids sit in overstuffed armchairs with weighted blankets and an easel in between them and the forensic interviewer. (Drawing is among the techniques used to elicit information from kids.) 

This sense of comfort is the point, and a personal priority for Perry, who has seen firsthand how victims struggle without the support offered by the centers. As a child protective service worker in the 1990s, Perry recalls walking a 5-year-old child sexual abuse survivor through the halls of a sheriff’s department—housed in the same building as the local jail—to a sterile detective’s interrogation room to be interviewed by someone without specialized training about their experience of abuse. “I knew that the trauma of the investigation,” she says, “was sometimes more harmful than the abuse itself.” Now, at centers like Susie’s Place, “we can gather reliable information to guide an investigation, but also springboard [children] into healing and recovery while that’s happening,” she adds. 

The work of these professionals doesn’t end with the forensic interviews. They often also offer medical exams conducted by child abuse pediatricians, mental health counseling, and advocates, who explain the criminal justice process and help connect kids and families with other resources. 

Perry said she hasn’t had to slash her facility’s services yet, as the state has done a good job minimizing the impact of the declining funds. But at some child advocacy centers, even additional state support hasn’t prevented casualties.

In West Virginia, federal VOCA funds have dropped 58 percent since 2017, even as the need is rising. Last year, more than 4,800 children in West Virginia received services from a child advocacy center for the first time—a 10 percent increase compared to the previous five years, according to the statewide child advocacy network. Maureen Runyon, coordinator of the child advocacy center at Charleston Area Medical Center Women and Children’s Hospital, lost one of her three VOCA-funded advocates last month and she is not planning to rehire due to the uncertain funding picture. Even though the West Virginia legislature allocated funds to offset the VOCA cuts over the last several years, there’s no guarantee they’ll do it again next year, when the state’s 21 child advocacy centers are expected to face a $2.5 million cut.

Runyon expects the impacts of losing an advocate will be felt by other staff who have to pick up the slack—and by the 450 children they serve on average each year, whose families will have to wait longer for the help an advocate offers. “At the end of the day, helping this child get what they need so they can grow up and be an emotionally healthy adult is the most important thing we do,” she said, “and our advocates are the ones who are primarily responsible for trying to make sure that happens.” 

Only one of West Virginia’s federal lawmakers, Republican Rep. Carol Miller, has supported the bill. Neither of West Virginia’s senators—Republican Shelley Capito and outgoing Independent Joe Manchin—have signed on to the Crime Victims Fund Stabilization Act; nor has Republican Rep. Alexander Mooney. Their offices did not respond to requests for comment.  

Cuts to federal funding for child advocacy centers in Alabama have “created a mass exodus” of specially trained staff from the state’s three dozen centers, said Lynn Scott, executive director of the Alabama Network of Children’s Advocacy Centers. And while the state has provided some funding to support the centers, it has not kept pace with the 57 percent drop in VOCA funds the state received since 2017, Scott says. 

Since Scott joined the statewide group in 2019, half of Alabama’s executive directors have left their positions, mostly “due to the burnout and stress of having to do multiple roles because the funding for direct services has been cut.” Two centers have not rehired leaders, she said, and all centers have seen increases in wait times for forensic interviews and counseling sessions and even higher caseloads. Further cuts, Scott added, “would really close some doors”—likely at a half dozen or so centers in rural areas of the state, she believes. 

Yet support for new funding from the state’s federal lawmakers has been mixed. Four of the state’s seven House representatives and GOP Sen. Tommy Tuberville are supporting the bills. Alabama’s other Republican senator, Katie Britt, frequently advocates for “protecting kids,” including, famously, through misrepresenting an anecdote about a child sex-trafficking victim during the State of the Union rebuttal. But she has yet to sign on, and a spokesperson did not respond to repeated inquiries about why. 

To advocates like Scott, the inaction is confounding. Fighting “child abuse is bipartisan,” she said. Increasing funding, she added, “should be an easy ‘yes.’”

When I asked advocates to share their message for lawmakers about the need to support these services, several emphasized that early intervention can reduce the likelihood that child abuse victims will face challenges later in life, including substance abuse, post-traumatic stress disorder, and becoming perpetrators of violence themselves.

“We can’t keep children from being abused at a child advocacy center,” said Runyon from West Virginia, “but once they are, we’re their best chance for having good quality intervention, and having a healthier, happier adulthood.”

Even if the Crime Victims Fund Stabilization Act were to pass Congress this session, advocates say it would not solve the entirety of the funding crisis facing the centers: The funding mechanisms still rely on unpredictable criminal penalties. It would take some time before centers saw the increased funds. And the bill is only written to be valid through 2029. “This stabilization bill is just a band aid,” Perry, from Indiana, says. “If there isn’t more of a steady, consistent flow of funds into the Crime Victims Fund, then we’re just going to be revisiting this time and time again.”

Some state and local governments have tried to offset the federal funding cuts for their local centers, but many of those appropriations are temporary, and the facilities can’t plan for them to continue. There are a couple notable exceptions: One is Maryland, where officials passed a law last year compelling the state to supplement federal VOCA funds to ensure $60 million is available annually. Wendy Myers, executive director of the Maryland Children’s Alliance, which represents two dozen centers, said the new law helps “stabilize services for the most vulnerable Marylanders, including child victims of abuse,” and that the funds support training for forensic interviewers, trauma therapists, and language translation for direct services at all child advocacy centers across the state. Another exception is Colorado: The state passed a ballot measure last month that will provide tens of millions of dollars annually to 19 child advocacy centers and other VOCA-funded organizations through a 6.5 percent excise tax on firearms and ammunition. 

Advocates say these kinds of long-term solutions are necessary to stabilize needed funding—but federal and state lawmakers largely continue to punt the issue. Biden’s budget recommended a $7.3 billion infusion into the Crime Victims Fund, but Congress has so far left it out of the relevant appropriations bill. As the National Children’s Alliance pointed out in its brief on VOCA cuts, private donors are unreliable, and relying on fundraising events leads to more overhead costs for nonprofits. “No other source offers the stability and scale that federal funding can provide for critical services for child crime victims,” the brief says of VOCA. 

In the meantime, children are suffering without services, and centers in need are losing qualified staff. Iniguez, from the Marshfield CAC in Wisconsin, will leave the state to run a center in Ohio in the new year, she said. Ohio’s last federal award was almost double Wisconsin’s—and Iniguez hopes that means she won’t have to fight as hard to provide the services children need.

“The community I’m going to,” Iniguez said, “is very responsive to the needs of children who have been victimized.” 

Donald Trump’s Cabinet appointees are not the only source of controversy in his transition back to the White House.

On Thursday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) wrote the Administrator of the General Services Administration (GSA), which manages the functioning of federal agencies, to warn that the Trump transition team has refused to sign memoranda of understanding with the Biden-Harris administration. All prior presidents-elect have signed the agreements, which outline how the administrations will work together; one of them, for example, would allow the FBI under the current administration to conduct background checks on Trump’s nominees. Another would facilitate the Trump team’s national security clearances required to receive classified intelligence briefings before he assumes office. “The Trump team’s unprecedented refusal to sign agreements with the outgoing administration threatens the American public by hamstringing incoming officials’ ability to govern responsibly,” Warren writes.

On top of that, Trump’s transition team has yet to publish a full ethics code on the GSA website addressing how he will deal with his conflicts of interest, as required by a law that Trump himself passed in 2020. Warren’s letter notes that while the Trump team has published its own ethics code, “it includes nothing about how President-elect Trump will manage his own extensive financial conflicts of interest—which experts anticipate will be one of the most alarming corruption challenges of the incoming administration.” The refusal to publish the ethics code, Warren says, heightens “the risk of the incoming administration governing for the benefit of special interests rather than the American public.”

As the New York Times reported Sunday, it’s possible these “special interests” could, in fact, be helping to fund the Trump transition: Because the Trump team has not signed a memorandum of understanding with the GSA that was due Sept. 1, they have been able to shield the names of donors to the transition. If the Trump transition had entered into the agreement, they would have to publicly disclose donors, each of whom would have an individual giving limit of $5,000—but the Trump team would have been able to access $7.2 million in federal funds to help with the costs of the transition.

Trump is also reportedly the first president to circumvent this agreement, which seems to suggest his team thinks he can raise more from donors without being limited to the $5,000 cap per individual donor. But as one expert told the Times, it could come at a serious ethical cost:

“When the money isn’t disclosed, it’s not clear how much everybody is giving, who is giving it and what they are getting in return for their donations,” said Heath Brown, a professor of public policy at John Jay College of Criminal Justice who studies presidential transitions. “It’s an area where the vast majority of Americans would agree that they want to know who is paying that bill.”

In her letter to the GSA, Warren asks them to respond by December 5 to questions about how the agency is engaging with the Trump transition and the impacts of the Trump team’s lack of compliance with federal law. Spokespeople for the Trump transition team and the GSA did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Mother Jones on Sunday morning.

Donald Trump’s Cabinet appointees are not the only source of controversy in his transition back to the White House.

On Thursday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) wrote the Administrator of the General Services Administration (GSA), which manages the functioning of federal agencies, to warn that the Trump transition team has refused to sign memoranda of understanding with the Biden-Harris administration. All prior presidents-elect have signed the agreements, which outline how the administrations will work together; one of them, for example, would allow the FBI under the current administration to conduct background checks on Trump’s nominees. Another would facilitate the Trump team’s national security clearances required to receive classified intelligence briefings before he assumes office. “The Trump team’s unprecedented refusal to sign agreements with the outgoing administration threatens the American public by hamstringing incoming officials’ ability to govern responsibly,” Warren writes.

On top of that, Trump’s transition team has yet to publish a full ethics code on the GSA website addressing how he will deal with his conflicts of interest, as required by a law that Trump himself passed in 2020. Warren’s letter notes that while the Trump team has published its own ethics code, “it includes nothing about how President-elect Trump will manage his own extensive financial conflicts of interest—which experts anticipate will be one of the most alarming corruption challenges of the incoming administration.” The refusal to publish the ethics code, Warren says, heightens “the risk of the incoming administration governing for the benefit of special interests rather than the American public.”

As the New York Times reported Sunday, it’s possible these “special interests” could, in fact, be helping to fund the Trump transition: Because the Trump team has not signed a memorandum of understanding with the GSA that was due Sept. 1, they have been able to shield the names of donors to the transition. If the Trump transition had entered into the agreement, they would have to publicly disclose donors, each of whom would have an individual giving limit of $5,000—but the Trump team would have been able to access $7.2 million in federal funds to help with the costs of the transition.

Trump is also reportedly the first president to circumvent this agreement, which seems to suggest his team thinks he can raise more from donors without being limited to the $5,000 cap per individual donor. But as one expert told the Times, it could come at a serious ethical cost:

“When the money isn’t disclosed, it’s not clear how much everybody is giving, who is giving it and what they are getting in return for their donations,” said Heath Brown, a professor of public policy at John Jay College of Criminal Justice who studies presidential transitions. “It’s an area where the vast majority of Americans would agree that they want to know who is paying that bill.”

In her letter to the GSA, Warren asks them to respond by December 5 to questions about how the agency is engaging with the Trump transition and the impacts of the Trump team’s lack of compliance with federal law. Spokespeople for the Trump transition team and the GSA did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Mother Jones on Sunday morning.

This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

A new study delving the emotional and psychological impact of climate change on 16,000 young Americans provides crucial empirical evidence for what until now “we’ve been relying on our intuition to tell us,” the study’s first author says.

A clear majority of young Americans between the ages of 16 and 25 are either very, or extremely, worried. 

Eric Lewandowski, a psychologist at New York University, focuses on the mental and emotional effects of climate change and co-authored a 2021 paper on the subject but still felt there was more to be studied in the United States. 

His new paper, “Climate emotions, thoughts, and plans among US adolescents and young adults: a cross-sectional descriptive survey and analysis by political party identification and self-reported exposure to severe weather events,” was published October 17 in The Lancet Planetary Health.

The bottom line nationally: Young people are overwhelmingly concerned about climate change. The study found that nearly 60 percent of respondents said they were either very or extremely worried when asked, “How worried, if at all, are you about climate change and its impacts on people and the planet?” and more than 85 percent said they experience some level of climate anxiety.

“This was a chance, in such a big country, to try to get a better feel across the country, where the impacts of climate change are so heterogeneous, to try to get a feel for the emotional and psychological impacts of climate change,” said Lewandowski. 

To get a sense of how both geography and politics impact the perceived mental toll of climate change, the study compiled survey data on approximately 400 youths from each state or state cluster (states with smaller populations and similar geography and political landscapes were grouped together during data analysis, with the exception of Hawaii which had a sample size of around 100, but was considered too dissimilar from other states to be clustered).

Though this study still only provides an “emerging picture” of the mental impact of climate change on American youth, it provides crucial empirical evidence for what until now “we’ve been relying on our intuition to tell us about the emotional and psychological impact of climate change,” said Lewandowski. 

There was similarity in responses across dramatically different geo-political regions of the country. The responses never differed by more than 25 percent across all surveyed populations. 

The survey also tracked the emotional and psychological impact of climate change across the political spectrum. “Endorsement was high regardless of political identification, and yes, it was lower in the Republican group…One of the widely recognized features of thinking about climate change in this country is the political divide, and that’s also documented in the research,” said Lewandowski. 

“It was very striking,” he said, that endorsement of climate issues was above 50 percent no matter political affiliation. 

“We also asked people to report which of a range of seven severe weather events they had experienced in the area where they lived,” said Lewandowski. “As people endorsed or reported that their area had experienced more and more of these things, there was correlated increased distress and increased desire for action.”

On both a hopeful and tragic note, the slope of that increase in distress and calls for action, stayed static between people of different party identification. “It really seems that this increase is happening, and we suggest the increase will happen across the political spectrum as there are more and more impacts,” said Lewandowski.

To Olivia Ferraro, a 25-year-old climate activist and member of the Climate Mental Health Network Gen Z advisory board who lives and works in New York City, this is just more evidence of right wing politicians being out of touch with their Gen Z constituents. 

This is exciting news to Ferraro. “Many of those respondents might not have ever participated in the democratic process before. So it’s very encouraging to see to me that it’s not really a partisan issue for young people,” said Ferraro. “Everyone’s worried about this, and so it’s like, what does that mean for policy outcomes in places like Texas or Missouri or Florida over the next five to 10 years, as these young people age into voting age groups?”

Overall Ferraro found the study results validating. For her, climate change is not just terrifying, but also personal. In 2022, Ferraro found herself unhealthily obsessed with climate change while feeling like she could do nothing after taking a deep dive into the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on the comprehensive state of the climate and the outlook of climate change. Then she got heat stroke one summer afternoon while on vacation in Florida. 

“I just passed out,” said Ferraro, who had to be taken to the hospital by ambulance and received stitches for a head wound. “It was very stressful, and I was just existing in the hot weather. I wasn’t even doing anything particularly exerting,” she said.

Given her own experience, she understands how going through an extreme weather event can be a catalyzing moment. “All of these factors together over months were a cocktail of distress,” she said. 

She expects concern over climate will only grow as more people feel the impact of extreme weather first hand. Ferraro just hopes that the effects of climate exposure on increased calls for action carries across generations.

“I feel like data won’t be what changes the minds of older generations,” said Ferraro. “I honestly think that a lot of the empathy and understanding about how distressing climate experiences are will most likely come from a close personal connection, who is thoughtful enough to share a first hand experience, or someone living through a serious weather event.” 

Caroline Hickman, a researcher and senior lecturer at the University of Bath, welcomes the latest research on climate change and young people in the US. 

Much of the current data on regional variation in youth response to climate change comes from the 2021 paper she, Lewandowski, and numerous other authors published in The Lancet.

One thing Hickman wishes would get more attention is the way climate distress waxes and wanes at various stages of life. When the results of the 2020 British Association of Counseling and Psychotherapy survey on the mental health impact of climate change first came out, she was struck by how much concern over climate change decreased during midlife. While approximately 60 percent of people aged 16 to 34 and around 55 percent of people over the age of 55 experience some level of climate distress, only 44 percent of people aged 45 to 54 experienced any form of climate distress.

While we can speculate, said Hickman, “You could say, midlife, you’re busy trying to pay the mortgage…maybe getting divorced, separated, maybe trying to keep your head above water financially, right? You’ve got a lot of pressure all around from every direction, at midlife, particularly generationally, you’re taking care of aging parents and children, so you’re sandwiched.” But, she said, “the trouble is that is also the age of most industry CEOs and politicians, right? These are the people with the power to do something about this.”

Saahitya Uppalapati, a PhD student and climate communications researcher at George Mason University in Virginia, thinks the climate crisis has a PR problem. “People think, ‘Oh, it’s a luxury to be concerned about [the climate], but that’s not true,” she said. 

Her research has shown that it’s “people from Gen Z, with fewer economic resources and people of color who are experiencing the highest levels of climate distress,” especially when compared to the level of climate distress among “white Boomers.”

Uppalapati’s research has shown that 3 percent of Americans are already experiencing clinically significant climate anxiety, and 3 percent are so distraught over climate change, they meet the diagnostic criteria for depression. 

While this 3 percent is already a significant number of Americans, the percentage of Latino Americans experiencing climate anxiety and depression is much higher, with 10 percent reporting clinically significant anxiety and 10 percent reporting climate triggered depression. 

This holds true across other vulnerable communities. “There’s also some research to say that they’re also more likely to report that they’re involved in climate change activism, and more environmentally engaged than white people, and they also feel more confident about taking action,” said Uppalapati. “I think the historical and the systemic challenges that people of color have experienced, be it wider situations that have been exacerbated by climate change, like living close to highways because of zoning and the heat that comes with it, I think that has really fostered a sense of concern among people of color. You tend to see that they’re more concerned and anxious and depressed about it, but they’re also more engaged.”

Uppalapati’s work is the first of its kind. By modifying some of the existing diagnostic screening questions, she was able to use well established screening criteria for anxiety and depression, but specifically geared toward climate change.

The true number of people experiencing climate-triggered anxiety and depression may be much higher, said Uppalapati. “I think there’s hesitation to use that word [climate], but people might be experiencing it and not realize it, especially if they’re hesitant or reluctant to acknowledge climate change.”

“It’s okay to have some level of anxiety and depression. It’s a very normal response, but we don’t want it to get to a stage where it truly impedes your life. And we saw that over 3 percent are likely experiencing distress that is limiting their everyday life. That’s concerning, and it’s important that they provide mental health resources,” said Uppalapati.

That said, some climate distress is beneficial for climate action. Uppalapati co-authored another paper that showed the people who are experiencing the most climate distress are the ones most likely to take action. Another forthcoming paper looks at the connection between race, climate distress, and climate action. 

“You can’t shake off the fact that exposure to higher climate harms and social inequities stem from some level of systemic racism, And I just think it’s interesting that despite having the highest exposure, they’re also the people who are doing the most,” said Uppalapati. “They’re able to channel that distress into action.”

An education reporter turned climate organizer, Anya Kamenetz, of the Climate Mental Health Network, knows the importance of a good communication tool in helping gauge the emotional toll climate change is taking on the young—and old.

That was the idea behind the so-called climate emotions wheel, which Kamenetz created with the Network to help find new ways for people to voice their feelings around the climate crisis. 

A riff on the traditional emotions wheel common to therapists the world over, the climate emotions wheel features the 27 emotions most commonly associated with climate change. Laid out in a tiered rainbow pattern, there are four core emotions— anger, positivity, fear, and sadness—with secondary feelings radiating off of the central emotions. The 23 secondary emotions range from inspiration to indignation with everything from loneliness to panic to the old standby, hope in between. 

The wheel is available under a Creative Commons license, so anyone can use it. Since its creation a year ago, “it’s traveled all over the world. It’s been translated by volunteers into 15 languages. It’s been presented in classrooms and libraries. It was presented at the last UN conference at the cultural pavilion, and at a talk there,” said Kamenetz. 

There is even an emoji climate emotions wheel. Designed to be used with small children experiencing climate distress, the emoji wheel has since become a hit with people of all ages. 

Panu Pihkala, the Finnish interdisciplinary environmental studies researcher whose work the wheel is based on, was actually hoping to create something like the climate emotions wheel when he set out to work on his 2022 paper Toward a Taxonomy of Climate Emotions. But it was “so complicated and I was so busy that I never did it. So I was very glad that somebody was doing it, and I enjoyed the cooperation!” said Pihkala, who was a member of the working group that translated his paper into the climate emotions wheel. 

In addition to trying to identify what feelings are most commonly associated with climate change, in his 2022 study, Pihkala also asked about people’s self recognition of stronger, more psychosomatic symptoms. But, he said, “a major issue in this kind of research is that it may be difficult for people, first of all, to recognize what they are feeling at all. And second, to recognize what they are feeling exactly in relation to climate change.”

This emotional disconnect can cause people to shy away from acknowledging their feelings and taking any subsequent action on climate change, especially when they stem from political alignment or potential for social alienation. 

“Fundamentally, the whole range of emotions can be constructive if the energy in these emotions becomes channeled in constructive ways,” said Pihkala. “For example, guilt can lead people to just distance themselves problematically from these issues, or it can lead people to change their ways.”

Enlarge / A man helps a boy look at a handgun during the National Rifle Association's Annual Meetings & Exhibits at the Indiana Convention Center in Indianapolis on April 16, 2023. (credit: Getty | Jeremy Hogan)

Gun-owning parents who teach their kids how to responsibly handle and shoot a gun are less likely to store those deadly weapons safely, according to a survey-based study published Monday in JAMA Pediatrics.

The study, conducted by gun violence researchers at Rutgers University, analyzed survey responses from 870 gun-owning parents. Of those, the parents who responded that they demonstrated proper handling to their child or teen, had their kid practice safe handling under supervision, and/or taught their kid how to shoot a firearm were more likely than other gun-owning parents to keep at least one gun unsecured—that is, unlocked and loaded. In fact, each of the three responses carried at least double the odds of the parent having an unlocked, loaded gun around, the study found.

The survey responses may seem like a paradox for parents who value safe and responsible gun handling. Previous studies have suggested that safe storage of firearms can reduce the risk of injuries and deaths among children and teens. A 2005 JAMA study, for instance, found lower risks of firearm injuries among children and teens when parents securely store their firearms—meaning they kept them locked, unloaded, and stored separately from locked ammunition. And as of 2020, firearm-related injuries became the leading cause of death among children and teens in the US.

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Enlarge / A US child infected with measles during a 2024 outbreak. The child’s cheek shows the characteristic rash associated with this viral infection. (credit: CDC)

With one of the highest vaccine exemption rates in the country, Oregon is experiencing its largest measles outbreak in decades. This year's count is now higher than anything seen since 2000, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared the highly contagious virus eliminated from the US.

Since the start of the year, Oregon has tallied 31 cases of measles, all in unvaccinated people. The cases have been accumulating in sustained waves of transmission since mid-June.

Last month, when the outbreak tally was still in the 20s, health officials noted that it was nearing a state record set in 2019. There were 28 cases that year, which were linked to a large outbreak across the border in Washington state. But, with that record now surpassed, the state is in pre-elimination territory.

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