By Carol Maddock and Merryn Thomas
Climate change is the single greatest health threat facing humanity today, and older adults are especially vulnerable to its impacts. As the UK’s population ages—nearly a quarter of us will be over 65 by 2030—this vulnerability becomes more pressing. Older people are at greater risk from climate-related health issues such as heatwaves, floods, and the spread of tropical diseases, with the UK Health Security Agency (2023) warning that extreme heat alone could cause up to 10,000 additional deaths annually by the 2050s.
But what if older people can be part of the solution rather than the problem to be solved? The OPTIC (Understanding Older and younger people’s PercepTions and Imaginaries of Climate Change) project revealed just that. By harnessing the wisdom and experiences of older adults alongside younger people, we can not only prepare for the future but also reimagine how our communities can thrive amidst climate change. The challenges of climate change are significant, but so is the potential for innovative, age-friendly solutions. In this project we explored how older and younger voices together can imagine and begin to shape a greener, more resilient Britain for all generations.
The OPTIC Project: A Creative Approach
The OPTIC project engaging older and younger people in conversations about climate change in the places they call home. Public participation in these discussions is not just a democratic right; it’s essential for making informed decisions and gaining widespread support for environmental initiatives. However, gathering intergenerational perspectives and understanding behaviors regarding climate change, especially in relation to the environments that matter to them, has been limited. It’s time to change that!
Our interdisciplinary team at Swansea and Aberystwyth Universities conducted the OPTIC project to address this knowledge gap. We used a range of creative and participatory methods to include those aged over 65 and younger people (mainly under 25s) in five workshops across the Swansea area, as summarized in Figure 1.
Figure 1: The OPTIC workplan
Our creative approaches (comic creation, mobile interviews, cut-ups and collage, and storyboarding) offered ways of tapping into our experiences and feelings and provide a vehicle for expressing them. They allowed participants to explore and depict complex situations, and imagine alternative futures for sustainable environments. These stories were then brought to life The Climate Comic, illustrated by Laura Sorvala, which captured the essence of the workshops.
Following the workshops, we organised a series of outreach and engagement events, culminating in a shared learning event that brought together older participants, policymakers, businesses, and charities. During this event, we conducted two design sprints (quick collaborative activities to find solutions to a challenge) to generate ideas for creating environments that better reflect both older and younger people’s perspectives on climate change. The design sprints were structured around three key goals drawn from the comic: fostering communities that live, work, and learn together; ensuring healthy land, sea, and air for all; and designing streets that prioritize people and nature.
Each breakout group added a unique element by including a non-human participant, such as a globe or an oak sapling, and using a spinner with options like ‘child,’ ‘tree,’ or ‘older person’ to inspire thinking from alternative perspectives.
The Power of Participation: Engaging Older Voices in Climate Action
At the heart of the OPTIC project lay a fundamental principle: the importance of public participation for addressing complex societal challenges. By prioritizing participation and employing various creative methods, the OPTIC project was able to uncover nuanced perspectives on climate resilience and ageing. From nostalgic reflections on past sustainable practices to innovative ideas for community-driven solutions, these participatory approaches revealed the depth and breadth of older and younger people's engagement with environmental issues. A summary of insights identified across four main themes is shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2: Summary of climate aspirations identified during OPTIC workshops and learning event.
The OPTIC project provided time and space for older and younger people to identify and voice the climate aspirations summarised in Figure 2. A key theme was the promotion of community driven action and collaboration. Indeed, perhaps the most striking outcomes from the project were a) new and strengthened relationships between communities and stakeholders, and b) the development of methods with which to foster these (Thomas et al., in press). This has inspired us to continue this work to create an engagement activity pack alongside schools and care homes in South Wales. Watch this space for updates!
For more details about the OPTIC project, please get in touch at optic@swansea.ac.uk.
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