‘It's beautiful, living without fear that the world will end soon’ – digital storytelling, climate futures, and young people in the UK and Ireland

Abstract

ABSTRACT This research explores two questions: how do young people imagine futures shaped by climate change and our collective response to the climate crisis, and what is the impact on young people of creatively engaging with the future? The participatory action research method of digital storytelling was adapted to explore climate futures, with thematic, visual and narrative analysis of the resulting videos. Young people articulated positive, negative and more complicated visions of the future, including counterfactuals, discontinuities, and living with loss and change. They also described a process of positive reappraisal over the course of the speculative digital storytelling workshops, with emotions about the future shifting from being predominantly negative to a more balanced spectrum including acceptance, curiosity and hope.