By Ryan Johnson

It’s the second most pressing issue facing British youth today

If you haven’t already heard, young people are freaking out about climate change, and a new report by YouGov has made it official.

According to the public opinion specialists, 45 per cent of young Britons aged between 18 and 24 say the environment is the second most pressing issue facing the country at the moment – behind Brexit at 57 per cent.

As for the general public, stats reveal that a quarter of Britons cite the environment in their top three in the UK concerns, third only to Brexit and health. As recently as mid-April this year, the number of people naming the environment as a major problem in the UK was down at 17 per cent, marking a major increase.

YouGov attributes the sharp rise in stats to the increased awareness surrounding climate change, as a result of the Extinction Rebellion protests that took place across London at the end of April and Swedish teen Greta Thunberg’s environmental activism, which has consequently sparked a global youth movement.

Given that a recent UN report says we have just 22 years to turn our environment around before an environmental doomsday, the above figures are unsurprising.

Last month, the UK became the first parliament in the world to declare a climate emergency, while research into the effects of climate change on our mental health has shown that environmental stressors resulting from climate change are very real.

Mark Raven, the UK spokesperson for 350.org, previously told Dazed about the need for new frameworks when approaching climate change activism, and how we look after ourselves through it: “Providing support mechanisms for people coming to terms with an existential crisis like climate change, especially those campaigning on it like the school strikers, is a need that I am hearing being raised more and more across the climate movement in recent months.”

So if you want to avoid famines, drought, flooding à la apocalyse, get on it, people!