Abstract
Climate change is arguably the most significant issue of our time. Its large spatial and temporal scale mean that to different people at the same time, climate change may feel temporally distant, and simultaneously be felt as a disruption in the present. This phenomenon is sometimes referred to as a discontinuous temporality. Climate scientists warn that the worst impacts are likely to occur in the future and that the choices made today will shape the possible trajectories of young people’s lives. Therefore, the aim of this research was to explore how young people imagine the future in the context of climate change. This research asked three questions. First, ‘how do young people relate to the dominant discourses of climate change presented in mainstream media?'. The second question asked, ‘how do young people imagine the future in the context of climate change?’. Finally, the third research question was ‘how do young people’s temporalities influence their imaginations of the future in the context of climate change?’. To begin to answer question one, a discourse analysis was undertaken to uncover the dominant discourses of climate futures in mainstream media. Drawing from the results of the media analysis, a survey was undertaken to examine whether young people’s imaginations of the future are influenced by the dominant discourses of climate change in the media. The results showed that young people’s imaginations of the future are influenced by the dominant discourses of climate change presented in the media. For some, their imagination of the future is clearly associated with narratives of progress (i.e., technological optimism), while others imagine an apocalyptic future. Others struggle to imagine a future different from the present, despite understanding the likely impacts of climate change. Interviews were also undertaken to offer a more in-depth understanding of why participants imagined the future in certain ways. The results demonstrate the complex relationship between young people’s hopes and concerns about the climate-changed future. Another important factor shaping how young people imagined the future was their temporalities (how they understand the relationship between past, present, and future). The interviews provided insight into how young people’s temporalities shape their visions for the future in the context of climate change. In doing so, this research unsettled conventional temporal imaginaries of ‘the future’ by exploring how alternative understandings of futures invoke time. The research found that the temporalities of neoliberalism constrained young people’s futures literacy, revealing a need to advocate for multiple futures literacy which teach young people about more-than-linear temporalities.