See “A stunning new alternative narrative” just below… Also, Michael Shellenberger on Yiyang Zhuge’s interview of Christopher Nolan (“The Odyssey”).
To any leaning into alarmist narratives of some sort… Wendell Krossa
Consider what you are doing when you push an alarmist narrative in public, whether religious, secular/ideological (Marxist/socialist), or environmental alarmism versions.
Most of us will nod affirmatively that child abuse is bad. Then add this to your list of the differing forms of child abuse- i.e. the undermining of the natural optimism of children with end-of-life apocalyptic scenarios will devastate their hope to engage life, to grow up and offer some contribution to making our world better. Pay attention to the surveys that reveal how widespread this hopelessness is among children and young adults (“eco-anxiety”).
AI Overview
Global survey data confirms that climate change and apocalyptic scenarios are causing widespread “eco-anxiety” and a profound loss of hope among children and young adults. Landmark research reveals that over half of the world’s youth believe humanity is doomed…
A breakdown of the prominent surveys, data points, and emotional impacts highlights this growing phenomenon.
1. The Landmark Global Survey (The Lancet, 2021)
The most comprehensive data on youth eco-anxiety comes from a study published in The Lancet Planetary Health, which polled 10,000 young people aged 16–25 across 10 countries.
• Global Worry: 59% of respondents reported being “very” or “extremely” worried about climate change.
• Loss of Hope: 56% explicitly stated they believe “humanity is doomed.”
• Frightening Future: 75% agreed that the “future is frightening.”
• Functional Impairment: 45% stated that their climate-related anxiety directly disrupted daily functioning, including sleeping, studying, and eating.
• Institutional Betrayal: Over 80% felt adults and governments failed to protect the planet, transforming existential worry into feelings of abandonment.
2. Emerging Trends Among Younger Children (Under 12)
While older teens have been heavily researched, recent surveys show that apocalyptic anxiety has trickled down to primary school-aged children.
• Greenpeace UK / YouGov Poll (2025): A survey of over 600 primary school children found that 78% of children under 12 are worried about climate change, with 27% describing themselves as “very worried.”
• Clinical Despair: Qualitative studies tracked by the National Library of Medicine indicate that young children frequently express outright “despair.” Researchers noted that children are increasingly tired of “overly upbeat messages” from adults and require safe spaces to voice their genuine existential fears.
3. Regional and Biological Fallout
Data indicates that kids are translating this loss of hope into concrete, long-term biological and lifestyle changes.
• Hesitation to Have Children: A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) found that 20% of U.S. youth aged 16–24 are hesitant to have children due to the state of the world. This number jumps to 30% if they have personally lived through a climate event.
• More Than Eco-Anxiety: A study by Simon Fraser University tracks what researchers call “eco-paralysis”— a state of helplessness where young people feel individual action is completely insignificant, resulting in emotional withdrawal.
Summary of Youth “Eco-Emotions”
Surveys consistently identify a core group of overlapping emotions driving the mental health shift:
Emotion… Core Manifestation in Children
(1) Eco-Grief- Mourning the literal or expected loss of species, landscapes, and a stable future.
(2) Betrayal- Intense anger aimed at corporations and older generations perceived as indifferent.
(3) Doomism- Obsessive tracking of “end of the world” news, leading to physical symptoms like headaches and stomach aches.
Conclusion- Eco-Paralysis
(End of AI Overview)
Even worse is the inciting of fear in people that renders them susceptible to embracing irrational and destructive salvation schemes like the socialist push to bring down free market societies and replace them with collectivism, or the environmentalist fighting the fossil fuel use that powers our societies and generates the some 6,000 fundamental products (fossil-fuel derivatives) that are essential to making our lives better.
The myth of looming apocalypse (i.e. looming collapse and ending of capitalism) is a critical element that drives Marxist/socialist crusades to coercively force their repeatedly destructive and failed collectivism approaches on societies (Kristian Niemietz, “Socialism: The Failed Idea That Never Dies”).
Looming apocalypse also drove Nazi madness to slaughter those they blamed for bringing on what Hitler proclaimed would be the imminent end of German culture and society- i.e. the Jewish Bolsheviks.
The outcomes of these panic-generating crusades for salvation through destruction have been endlessly horrific- i.e. Marxist revolutionary deaths, Nazi mass-murder, environmental ruin of societies through Net Zero decarbonization, etc.
In regard to the above, I think often of what motivates us to go out into life to study and work to improve our lives, families, and hopefully to offer something to make life and the world better for more than just ourselves. Apocalyptic narratives devastate such motivations.
Don’t irresponsibly undermine that hope and drive in people, especially as it tries to flower and grow in young people.
There is a lot of commentary now on the damage that has been done to young people through Covid lockdowns, but the past decades of climate alarmism have done far more severe damage to their psyches/minds/spirits.
Here’s an example of the daily fare of climate madness and hysteria propagated on sites like “MSN homepage Canada”, a general news clips page. The video clip in the link below shows entire cities underwater that these prophets predict will happen in just over 20 years:
“If climate change doesn’t stop this will be our world in 2050:
“This is what the world will look like in 2050 when climate change has raised ocean water levels to the point of submerging entire cities. The images are a recreation carried out by Climate Central, an NGO that fights against the climate crisis. The first image is of Havana swallowed by the waters of the Caribbean Sea.
“Then other cities appear that would become ‘new Venices’: in order, we see Washington D.C, London, Seville, Hong Kong, Paradise Island, Dubai, Antwerp, Adelaide, Melbourne, Bordeaux, Copenhagen, Rio de Janeiro, Cape Town, Nice, Dublin, Victoria (Canada), Quebec, Stockholm, Guangzhou, Taipei, Anglet, Split, Barcelona, The Hague, Tunisia, Palm Beach, San Francisco…”
And another a bit later on same page:
“US and other regions that may become uninhabitable by 2070 (or earlier)”, Story by Stars Insider
A good source of general principles to evaluate and to counter contemporary environmental apocalyptic narratives: My number one choice is Julian Simon’s “Ultimate Resource”. While the data is dated (published around 1980s) his basic principles for understanding the true state of life are still the most helpful. Notably, look at the best data sources on the main indicators for life- i.e. forests, ocean species, land species, agricultural soils, etc.
Also, check the good follow-up studies such as Bjorn Lomborg’s “Skeptical Environmentalist”, Greg Easterbrook’s “A Moment On The Earth”, Ronald Bailey’s “The End of Doom”, Indur Goklany’s “The Improving State of the World”, Matt Ridley’s “Rational Optimist”, Desrocher and Szurmak’s “Population Bombed” (good as a specific follow-up to Simon’s principles), and many more. Humanprogress.org is another good source.
Sources to specifically counter the climate alarmism narratives- i.e. co2coalition.org (atmospheric physicists good on the warming influence of CO2 that is now “saturated”), Wattsupwiththat.com (has the reports of Javier Vinos), etc.
Wattsupwiththat.com and co2coalition.org both carry the reports of Javier Vinos on “The Sun-Climate Effect: Winter Gatekeeper Hypothesis” that argue “meridional transport” is the main influence on climate change- i.e. the great atmospheric and ocean convection currents carrying tropical heat to the Arctic to then return to space (hence, the Arctic naturally warms more than the rest of the planet). His reports give some sense of the complexity of climate and the many natural factors that overwhelm any human influence.
Here’s a sample report from Vinos:
https://co2coalition.org/2022/09/08/the-sun-climate-effect-the-winter-gatekeeper-hypothesis-vi-2/
As these scientists state, based on the best of evidence- There is no “climate crisis”. To the contrary, the mild warming of the past century and small rise in CO2 has benefitted life immensely in many ways.
Contributing factors to child abuse, Wendell Krossa
The apocalyptic Declinism that dominates public narratives today, both religious and secular/ideological is, as Arthur Mendel says, the most violent and destructive idea in history inciting exaggerated and unnecessary fear of others as threats to be eliminated (i.e. unbelievers, political opponents, Jews) in order to save your world, or demanding the destruction of entire societies (capitalism, industrial civilization) as the proposed evil and existential threat to be eliminated (e.g. Marxist apocalyptic demanding the purging of capitalist civilization) in order to prepare the way for restoration of an imagined lost paradise or installation of utopian future.
Apocalyptic is the most damaging lie that irresponsible adults beat into young minds. And then we wonder why so many suffer fear of life and the world in general as a dangerous place, with widespread anxiety and depression. The apocalyptic narrative is a major contributing factor to childhood suffering and it is highly irresponsible of adults to be terrorizing and traumatizing children with such mental deformity, whether through religious versions, the environmental alarmism versions, or the Marxist versions (note the latest collectivist variant in far-left Woke Progressivism with DEI that divides people into oppressor/oppressed categories based on skin color).
The apocalyptic millennial complex of themes continues to structure our main religious traditions with themes of fallen people who have ruined an original paradise world, hence the trajectory of life is now declining toward something worse, even toward collapse and ending. Humanity must now, under divine threat, make some great sacrifice (i.e. give up the good life in modern civilization) and then engage a “righteous” war that purges some demonized threat (i.e. differing, opposing others, or the “corrupt” society of the unbelievers).
Apocalyptic Declinism narratives corrode the spirits of young people. There is nothing more important when we are young than to have some personal interest and inner drive that motivates us to go out and explore life, to engage life, to learn about our world and then make a contribution, along with billions of others, to improving life and the world. Apocalyptic decline narratives undermine and deflate human motivation to engage life and we see the outcome of that as many young people fear growing up in our world (i.e. Julian Simon, young people are taught “to view the world as a dangerous milieu”), and young couples don’t want to have children, etc.
Additionally, as psychologist Harold Ellens cautions us, bad theology not only deforms human personality with resignation and fatalism but also incites/energizes people to violence- i.e. stirring many to “righteous/heroic” defense by appealing to the fundamental human urge to heroism for one’s tribe, to battle against what, or whom, are presented to them as threats to life or the world.
The latest outburst of apocalyptic lunacy is now focusing on the “extinction of humanity by AI”.
These madness-promoting narratives dangerously incite fatalism and resignation (i.e. passivity in face of state crusades of salvation through destruction) or they incite the self-fulfilling prophecy impulse that energizes people to actively support salvation through destruction projects like Net Zero decarbonization. Yet others are energized further even to violence in the belief that they must help spark the final catastrophic destruction and then God, as promised in apocalyptic millennialism narratives, will come down and finish the job of purifying the world and restoring the lost paradise, granting extra reward to any martyrdom zealots as especially heroic. According to such mental deformity, God waits for his true believers to start the crusade, inciting his followers with threats of punishment in hell (Quranic verse- see below), or rewards in paradise.
Note (from AI Overview): Several verses in the Quran specifically warn the faithful that they will suffer painful punishment in hell if they do not join the military battles/jihad called by Muhammad. This threat drove Islamic conversion by sword, similar to Constantine’s centuries-earlier edict threatening death to those refusing conversion to Christianity.
This theology of threat urging incitement of apocalyptic destruction drives the current Iranian theocrats as it drove ISIS in Syria (2014). Zealous true believers must commit themselves to spark the beginning of destruction and then the Madhi, God, and Isa/Jesus will come and finish the purging destruction in a great final Armageddon battle. Much like Hitler, the Marxists, and now environmental alarmists have proposed and are proposing salvation through destruction crusades.
These crusades appeal to the natural human impulse to join some true and noble cause, to heroically fight on the side of the true God or crusade against the evil others who are demonized as evil enemies and threats to all that is good and hence must be defeated and eliminated. Many find emotional satisfaction in such Zoroastrian cosmic dualism themes and crusades. It fulfills the human need to virtue-signal for status as morally good or righteous in one’s preferred tribe/group. To be acting justly and to rectify some great wrong in society.
The great tragedy is when apocalyptic millennial themes deform the hero’s quest, as above, and the result is societal destruction and mass-death as in the outcomes of Marxist/collectivist revolutions and environmental Net Zero ruin of societies.
Entire generations of young people can become caught up in such madness as Richard Landes warned at the conclusion of his chapter on the Nazis (“Heaven On Earth: Varieties of the Millennial Experience”).
More coming on the alternative to this “most violent and destructive idea of apocalyptic” (Arthur Mendel, Vision and Violence).
Here is the “More coming”...
This site takes the above material in the direction of theology/spirituality as part of a bigger project to “defeat the idea” (General Nagata) that dominates everywhere in narratives today and incites/energizes and validates the worst of impulses in people, impulses to tribalism, defeat and domination of others, and punitive destruction (mercilessness) of differing others, etc. And more than just defeating the idea that drives salvation through destruction crusades, this site presents the powerful and liberating alternative given to us by that long-ago wisdom sage from Israel/Palestine, the one recognized/respected by Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Unfortunately, all three missed, ignored, dismissed, and outright contradicted his central theological discovery with their entirely opposite threat theologies.
A stunning new alternative narrative, Wendell Krossa
The basis on which to reassure everyone that everything is going to be alright in the end, is the Jesus insight/message that ultimate reality is no conditions love. And to get past any sense of abstractness of terms (“unconditional, no conditions”) read some of the NDE accounts to get more of an emotional feel for what they experienced. They are trying to express what is transcendently inexpressible in human language, that the creator/sustainer of all reality is a stunningly wondrous love and is present here and now upholding every atom in existence.
Because the ultimate Mind, Consciousness, Intelligence, Source, Spirit/Deity is present everywhere upholding all reality, both metaphysical and physical/material, the “God is love” is present everywhere. There is no place anyone can go that God as love is not present. Meaning that transcendent unconditional love is the real essence of all reality. That’s the true TOE if you really want to know.
Most critical- This Divine reality is inside us, closer than our own atoms or breath, present as light and love. This ultimate Love that is God is inseparable from us. The second great discovery from the NDE movement is that of human oneness with the divine. In some mysterious sense “we are It”, though also retaining our distinct personhood, personality, or self. Immanence and transcendence as both elements of one.
The Psalmist, among many others, tried to communicate the omnipresence of deity, stating:
“Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there” (139).
There has never been any such reality as a “sky god” up above in some distant heaven looking down on the world. God has always been immanently present throughout all reality and life as the sustaining essence of all reality. And most critical to our understanding- God has incarnated in all humanity inseparable from our human spirit, the very essence of us.
Bob Brinsmead (in the section below) comments on the presence of God in all humanity as the only way that we know what the character of God is like, i.e. that God is love.
“The special revelation (of God) does not come in any religious or theological dogma as many theologians have said (implying that God has only spoken to Hebrew prophets and the Christian Church!). It is not given in any holy book buttressed with theories of its inspiration. It does not appear in any of the Creeds of the Church. Special revelation comes in human flesh, that is, in the arena of human existence. This incarnation of God is as broad as human existence.
“If that is not amazing enough, consider this: If living as human– not super-human or sub-human – displays the image and likeness of God, then God must be supremely human…
“We could never know that ‘God is love’ or even know what the word love means unless we had encountered it in the human arena of a mother’s care, a friend’s stickability, or some fellow human asking, ‘Jack, are you alright?’”
Bob later adds,
“One of first implications of mankind being created in the image and likeness of God is that all humans bear that sacred imprint which gives every person an equal value, as Jefferson contended. The human order was created to be an egalitarian or horizontal order in which there are no superior humans or inferior humans. Every human life is precious and every person is irreplaceable. It makes no difference if a human person has come to look more like trash than a treasure, because beneath any amount of dirt and grime the divine imprimatur will remain indelibly etched.”
Bob concludes that God is present in our neighbors, and I would add, even present in our enemies, and that is why we are urged to “Love your enemies”.
It is accurate and truthful to recognize that God present in us all then means that God shares this human experience with us, looking out through our eyes, feeling our emotions with us, intensely involved in every detail of our lives. There has never been any absent sky god separate from humanity but always within all humanity. Just as Jesus stated- “The kingdom of God is within you.”
Paul expressed the omnipresence of God throughout creation and humanity in his speech to the Athenians, as recorded in Acts 17:
“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.”
Takeaway? We don’t need to enter temples or churches to access or get closer to the presence of God. God is present giving life and breath to everything and everyone. We are never far from this omnipresent God as “we live and move and have our existence in God”.
And to conclude, I would highlight the point that the best of human experiences and insights (i.e. the central theme of Historical Jesus) tell us that God is present as unconditional love and light.
And most people know from firsthand experience with spouses, family, friends, neighbors, etc. that unconditional love is the highest and truest form of love. As others add, unconditional is self-validating as the best of humanity and love. It needs no outside religious authority to validate it. Further, Bob’s point that the best of humanity reveals the true nature of the indwelling/incarnated God in all humanity. That’s the best way to do theology, basing it on this behavior/belief coupling.
Moving along…
The article below on Yiyang Zhuge’s interview of Christopher Nolan speaks to the current fad running through western academia of guilt over western civilization. Shellenberger notes that Chinese grad student, Zhuge, held Odyssey director Christopher Nolan’s feet to the fire for shaping his movie to accommodate the apology for greatness as the product of modern woke self-inflicted guilt and felt need to make atonement for greatness.
A few quotes from the article:
“The Chinese, she added, “are not burdened by the philosophical self-criticism and guilt-laden in the current Western tradition…
“The guilt Zhuge describes goes back to Rousseau. In his Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men, Rousseau argued that human beings in their natural state were equal, peaceful, and good, and that every distinction imposed by society, culture, law, tradition, and religion introduced corruption and domination.
“People in the West came to see civilization itself as traumatizing.”
Further, Zhuge rightly notes one secular ideological version of this deformity:
“Treating civilization as a trauma rather than as an achievement runs through Marx, who located the corruption in property relations, through Mao and through today’s scholars influenced by Jacques Derrida, who advanced a method of deconstructing foundational Western texts and values.”
But this current academic apology for Western greatness that Shellenberger quotes in Zhuge as going back to Rousseau is actually something far more ancient in its origin in human narratives. It is part and parcel of a larger narrative complex of mental deformities descended from primitive mythologies that we have inherited in an unbroken line of historical descent that this site summarizes in “bad ideas” lists, or the “salvation through destruction” complex of themes.
The complex of bad religious ideas includes- (1) The idea of a better past that has been ruined by corrupted, fallen humans. Consequent to (2) the loss of original humanity as “noble savages” in a communal paradise, (3) life has been declining since, heading toward (4) collapse and apocalyptic ending. Salvation now (under divine threat and demand) requires (5) some form of sacrifice/atonement and (6) the purging of the corrupting element (i.e. human or societal/civilizational as in corrupt capitalism as the evil threat to life). Then the (7) promised salvation will be accomplished in the restoration of the lost communal paradise with humans restored to their noble savage original state. In the Christian and Marxist versions of this, humans will be free of private property ownership, sharing all things in common (Acts 2-4, and WEF slogan- “you will own nothing and you will be happy”).
These are profoundly religious/mythical themes that have long been deeply embedded as archetypes that continue to give people “emotional satisfaction” as they repeatedly choose them to affirm new contemporary versions of Marxist collectivism like Woke Progressivism with DEI, along with varied versions of salvation through destruction in environmentalism.
This framework of themes still dominates major world religions like Christianity that has been most responsible for shaping the master narrative/story of western civilization.
Historical Jesus presented the alternatives to this complex of bad ideas beginning with his radical transformation of the theological core- i.e. the stunning new image of God as unconditional love.
His main themes affirm the basic principles, laws, and institutions of liberal democracy. Don’t let the Christ myth of Paul continue to muddy the diamonds that Jesus presented.
“It’s Embarrassing It Took This Chinese Grad Student To Ask Christopher Nolan Hard Questions About ‘The Odyssey’: Yiyang Zhuge’s interview forced the Hollywood director to admit he changed the meaning to satisfy politically correct audiences”, Michael Shellenberger, Aug 05, 2026
https://www.public.news/p/its-embarrassing-it-took-a-chinese
I generally appreciate Michael’s journalism as he is among the best today. But Shellenberger has a tendency to urge the revival of an undifferentiated Christianity as the solution to the contemporary demonization of western civilization and drift into materialist meaninglessness that he concludes is due to the loss of the moralizing influence of Christianity.
He appears unaware of the most important research for understanding Christianity and Jesus- i.e. the “Search for Historical Jesus”, “Jesus Seminar”, and “Q Wisdom Sayings” research, etc. Bob Brinsmead has done some of the best work on clarifying all this and how Christianity was Hellenized. We in western civilization inherited the oxymoronic Jesus Christ merger of two entire opposites, diamonds with dung, as Jefferson said.
Shellenberger advocates for reviving undifferentiated Christianity (the Christ-ianity of Paul that was a rejection of Jesus’ message and theology). Shellenberger sees revived undifferentiated Christianity as somehow key to sustaining liberal democracy. That only confuses differing issues. As Bob Brinsmead notes, the Christ religion of Paul did not affirm the principles and institutions of liberal democracy:
“The whole substance and spirit of the historical Jesus was to pour scorn on the expectations of an apocalyptic messiah who would achieve rule and dominion over others. That, he said, was a common Gentile delusion, for greatness is not about acquiring dominion over others, but about serving them (Mattthew 20:25-27).
“The apocalyptic visionary called Daniel “saw” the heavenly judgment session take the dominion away from the destructive beasts (symbols of the Gentile powers) and give that dominion to the “people of the saints of the Most High” (Daneil 7:26-27). This is what the Hellenists claimed had happened when Christ was given “all power and dominion” after his resurrection. Alas, the rule of Christian Rome martyred more people than were ever martyred by the Pagan Roman Empire. Western Civilization never enjoyed religious tolerance or democratic rights until the birth of the Enlightenment and the rise of liberal democracy in the 18th Century.”