What Kids Think Of Climate Change

Welcome back to The Cary Harrison Files. Here we don’t serve comfort food. We serve raw meat. We take the headlines, wring them out like a wet rag, and show you the stains underneath. The politicians, the profiteers, the holy men with dirty hands—they all end up here, dangling in our little gallery of absurdity.Why Upgrade? When government funding dries up, so does journalism that bites back. This weekly Substack is your last stop for unfiltered insight, irony, and the kind of reporting that refuses to kiss power’s ring. Corporate coffers can’t buy integrity, but your subscription can. Support this Substack and keep sharp, fearless commentary alive while polite PBS and public radio fade into a memory (the Corporation for Public Broadcasting will begin shutting down for the first time in its 57-year history). This Substack is where the conscience goes rogue: messy, satirical, and not beholden to anyone but the truth!Above, is one of my students at Institut Montana in Switzerland — a young mind staring down the next 80 years on this battered planet. When your lease on Earth runs that long, you tend to think about climate change a little differently.Meanwhile, back in Washington, the problem’s been solved — with a pen stroke, naturally. One executive order, and voilà: climate change has been outlawed. FEMA? Gone too. After all, if natural disasters are a hoax, why fund the cleanup crew? Fires, floods, famine — imaginary! A bold strategy, if your plan is to win an argument with physics.But Europe didn’t get the memo. Over here, the glaciers refuse to follow presidential orders, the forests remain stubbornly flammable, and the scientists — those pesky contrarians — keep measuring things. As we stumble into fall, the continent is roasting under a sun that’s gone feral. Wildfires have slipped their old borders and now torch their way into Madrid, Athens, even little Podgorica, sending entire capitals scrambling for escape routes.Scandinavia — that polite refrigerator of Europe — has become a sauna. Norway, Sweden, Finland: two weeks of unbroken heat so vicious it turned forests to ash and hospitals into steam rooms. Scientists say these odds have gone up tenfold thanks to us, which is their polite way of saying we’ve hacked the thermostat and smashed the controls.Thinking of fleeing to the UK? Don’t pack your umbrella. Britain’s marching straight into its worst fire season ever, with blazes up a third since 2022 and the seas around Yorkshire warming into something between a hot tub and a science experiment.And yet, while the flames lick the edges, Brussels still dreams big. High-speed rail projects are rolling out — a shiny, steel-winged promise to slash emissions by 93% if you choose trains over jets. But there’s more than infrastructure here; there’s a growing chant for “just resilience.” Translation: adapting to the collapse without abandoning the poor, the exploited, and the ones sewing our cheap T-shirts in the Global South. Build smarter, they say. Fairer. Stop rebuilding the systems we’re already burning down.Up in the Alps, I saw it firsthand this summer — engineers carving a 100-meter channel into a glacier lake to keep an entire village from drowning when the ice finally gives way. Four hundred thousand dollars in preventive heartbreak, spent today to avoid tomorrow’s obituary.And still, we pretend there’s time. Washington waves its magic paper wand and declares the crisis over, while nature laughs in wildfires and heatwaves and glaciers melting into rivers. These aren’t “hot summers.” They’re tipping points — and we’ve got both feet on the pedal.If you want many adult men to do anything about these issues, it must affect them personally and directly. So, let's tackle the apocalypse from an angle no one saw coming: climate change and erectile dysfunction. Yes, the melting ice caps aren’t the only things going soft.See, it turns out your romantic life might be collateral damage in humanity’s slow roast. Research suggests that exposure to soaring temperatures, pesticide-sprinkled produce, and air thick enough to chew isn’t exactly nature’s aphrodisiac. Climate change, in its infinite generosity, seems to be sabotaging not just your lungs, but also your love life.The science gets darker. Rising global temperatures force your body to fight harder just to cool itself, which puts extra strain on your cardiovascular system. And since your heart and your… ambitions share the same plumbing, let’s just say the heat isn’t helping morale in either department.But wait — there’s more. Climate anxiety, eco-dread, the low-grade panic hum under every headline — it’s not just eating your sleep; it’s wrecking your hormones too. Stress, depression, existential despair… all proven accomplices to a certain, shall we say, lack of enthusiasm when the lights go out.Why Upgrade? When government funding dries up, so does journalism that bites back. This weekly Substack is your last stop for unfiltered insight, irony, and the kind of reporting that refuses to kiss power’s ring. Corporate coffers can’t buy integrity, but your subscription can. Support this Substack and keep sharp, fearless commentary alive while polite PBS and public radio fade into a memory. This Substack is where the conscience goes rogue: messy, satirical, and not beholden to anyone but the truth!And lifestyle? Forget it. As climate chaos upends agriculture, diet quality tanks, gyms close under heat advisories, and substance use spikes. If you thought the six-dollar lettuce was a turn-off, try finding passion while sucking down wildfire smoke.Now, Washington would love to reassure you that none of this is happening. One executive order and voilà — climate change is officially a hoax. Problem solved. And erectile dysfunction? Probably fake news too. But unfortunately, nature isn’t bound by press releases. The thermometer doesn’t care who’s in office, and neither does your circulatory system.So, here we are — glaciers collapsing, forests burning, temperatures spiking — and apparently, even our most intimate functions are waving the white flag. The dystopia won’t just be televised; it’ll be personal. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit caryharrison.substack.com/subscribe