Millennials, we put our good life on your tab.

Thanks!

The advantages of simplicity. Buddy’s life is a model of simplicity. Except, perhaps, when there’s a ball around.

CAN OUR FAMILY PROTECT ITS KIDS IF OUR NATION DOESN’T?

Analysts have thought for a while that young people will be paying significant hidden costs from climate change.

A 21-year-old in the class of 2015 earning a median income will lose $126,000 in lifetime income, and $187,000 in wealth. That’s if we take no action on climate change. These losses will be substantially greater than the damages from other economic challenges (on which America has also been taking no action) such as student debt costs, child-care costs, and earnings lost to extreme inequality. [Report by NextGen Climate and Demos: The Price Tag of Being Young]

These losses are attributed to the effects of heat, extreme weather, sea level rise, drought and other climate threats. The losses, to 72 million millennials, are invisible, of course. They can’t see what they would have earned.

These financial damage figures are old news, based on that big study five years ago which got a lot of attention. The authors called this

a massive betrayal of young people by our political leaders.

If political and corporate America are doing little to protect its kids from unseen climate-driven costs, that doesn’t mean that our own family can’t do the opposite.

HOW WE CAN HELP MILLENNIALS PROTECT AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE
Here are some steps we can take to help.

A climate-proof career We can guide them toward one of the many careers that are predicted to be increasingly in demand, thanks to climate change. For those with a bachelor’s degree, lots of advisors place a big emphasis on becoming an engineer - hydrology, environmental, chemical, civil and many more. Healthcare careers also have good job security, and this may be increasingly so over the coming decades, especially in growing fields like asthma, children’s mental health, and social work.

For those with a graduate degree, another evergreen profession is likely to be the law, especially environmental law . Or, given the conflicts that climate change is fueling, litigation!

There will also be plenty of crafts and skills opportunities, no degree needed: urban farmer, energy auditor, solar or wind installer, weatherization advisor and worker, power grid monitor, high-voltage electrical worker and lots more. We can find lots of ideas by putting “climate warming careers” into our search engine.

Kids are more likely to become interested in climate-proof careers if we help them grow up exposed to science - for instance reading books and playing games on technical subjects or tinkering away with STEM kits.

A climate-proof hometown We can research with our kids the problems or advantages of the family's current location, and perhaps even more effectively, we can guide them to choose where to live in the future by understanding which are relatively climate-proof hometowns and which are doomed. Considering that a significant proportion of college graduates take their first jobs and settle in the area of their alma mater, helping them select a college in a climate-proof area can give our chilldren a push in the right direction.

A habit of simplicity Americans have become increasingly rich and self-indulgent over the last fifty years, thanks to prosperity and lack of big negative events. The next fifty years will clearly not be the same. New and increasing costs will take their toll. We’ll find ourselves wanting to keep down with the Joneses.

It pays to nurture a comfort with simplicity early in life. But let’s face it, simplifying means downsizing. Some families can reduce their current spending, develop simplicity habits, and create a long-term financial cushion to defend against the cost squeezes and income disruptions predicted. (Buddy and I will be writing a future letter with some little-known tips on how to create a simple life.)

Mobility If we can encourage our children to enjoy relatively simple needs and tastes, those habits can help them navigate the climate-distorted future. With lower expenses producing higher savings, and with fewer possessions - plus portable high-demand skills - they can be far more mobile. The ability to relocate could be important not just for a prosperous career but to avoid the serious deterioration of many localities as climate changes begin to really bite.

A feeling of unity We can urge our millennials to join organizations like SustainUS, NextGen America and the Climate Reality Project, all focused on protecting the interests of their generation in the face of climate change.

Oh, and Buddy says he’s expecting the long-term prospects for climate journalism to remain strong! Please let us know what you are expecting.

---

LEARN, THINK, ACT

In addition to lost income, a lot of costs from climate change are invisible. One example is property values in floodable areas. Prices are still rising, so the problem is hidden, but those prices are in fact rising much more slowly than non-floodable properties, so their owners are losing out on everyone else’s growth.

We can read the full Demos report, and the financially-worse-off-than-their-parents survey.

There’s also a chapter about helping kids make climate-wise decisions in my book, Climate-Proof Your Personal Finances.