There are massive bodies of critical sociological research focusing on climate change or on aging, but less frequently on both at once. Understanding the intersecting dynamics of climate change and aging is a complex task that overlaps with the quickly emerging field of climate gerontology (Haque et al., 2020; Smyer, 2022). This entry introduces key themes within recent aging and climate change scholarship and charts potential areas for further research. It is organized around four themes: uneven vulnerabilities to climate change; support for meaningful adaptation; (inter)generational grief and responsibility; and advocacy/activisms.

Taking as a starting point that experiences of aging are not solely physical/biological, nor are they determined by individual commitments to health and fitness, research suggests that the unequal conditions structured by various combinations of capitalism, colonialism, heteropatriarchy, white supremacy, ableism, and/or ageism influence people's lives in different ways at different times and in different contexts (Calasanti and Giles, 2018; Aubrecht, Kelly, and Rice, 2020; Changfoot, Rice, and Chivers, 2021). This entry thus raises such complex questions as: How do overlapping systems of privilege and oppression impact aging? Why are different people unevenly vulnerable to climate change? How do dominant systems and underlying assumptions influence climate change adaptation strategies? How do people of different ages feel about the climate crisis? How are older adults from different backgrounds, regions, and communities engaging in the climate response?

Older Adults' Uneven Vulnerabilities to Climate Change

Most of the existing research on climate change and aging investigates older adults' disproportionate vulnerabilities to climate change compared to younger cohorts (Rhoades, Gruber, and Horton, 2018; Nelson, 2011). According to the 2022 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, “people living in poverty, racial minorities and those ageing are more vulnerable to climate-induced water hazards” (IPCC, 2022: 656). Earlier IPCC reports describe vulnerabilities to climate change as the interplay between three factors: exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity (IPCC, 2007). Each of these factors manifests differentially across geographic areas and social groups. Thus, while older adults are disproportionately vulnerable overall, some are more vulnerable than others.

In this context, disproportionate vulnerabilities are a result not of passive, predetermined social characteristics but of policy choices that devalue certain lives.

To date, most research has focused on older adults' physical susceptibilities to climate change, with fewer studies investigating societal factors that increase vulnerabilities (Smith and Wodajo, 2022). Older adults' uneven vulnerabilities in the global south remain less well researched, despite these regions contributing least to climate change while being disproportionately impacted by climate disasters (Barnwell and Wood, 2022). There is a clear need for more research that considers aging and ageism while examining how compounding systems of power create vulnerabilities in different contexts across the globe. What are different groups of older adults experiencing during extreme climate events, and why? What, specifically, is putting some older adults in harm's way more than others? These remain key questions for future inquiry.

Supporting Meaningful Adaptation

In some climate adaptation literature and policy, older adults are identified as requiring support in situations of climatic stress (Harvison, Newman, and Judd, 2011; Krawchenko et al., 2015). “Adaptation” in this literature refers to strategies for reducing present-day vulnerabilities to climate change in order to reduce future harms. Adaptation strategies highlight areas of vulnerability and suggest ways to build capacity and readiness for future climate events. While many identify older adults' vulnerabilities (e.g., Environment and Climate Change Canada, 2021; World Health Organization, 2013; United States Environmental Protection Agency, 2021), fewer explicitly prioritize support for those who are most medically precarious, most impoverished, and least able to access services (exceptions include European Environment Agency, 2022; European Commission, 2021).

Critical scholars highlight complexities surrounding climate adaptation discourses, call for accessibility and equity in adaptation policies, and bring attention to ageism and other forms of discrimination (Sykes, 2021). For instance, Rice, Long, and Levenda (2022) consider what the former South African archbishop Desmond Tutu calls “adaptation apartheid” – assumed disposability of certain lives within adaptation policies, including the lives of older adults. They call for an intersectional social justice lens that prioritizes the most vulnerable and marginalized instead of widening already massive global gaps. Connecting adaptation, colonialism, racism, and climate injustice, they note that there are economic disparities between groups of older adults, while older adults overall also need significant adaptation support (Gutterman, 2022a; Jaffee and John, 2018; Osborne, 2015).

Resilience is a widely used and increasingly contentious concept in adaptation discourse, with implications for the most vulnerable populations, including some older adults (Kaika, 2017). Some scholars critique the ways in which “building resiliency” in older adults is often framed as individual responsibility (Paterson-Cohen, 2017). Ranganathan and Bratman explain that resilience as a solution to climate vulnerability tends to “subtly validate embedded processes … that have historically dehumanised and endangered residents and their environments in the first place” (2021, 115). They contend that socially just adaptation should support existing practices of care and healing among communities that are most at risk (Sultana, 2022b). Paterson-Cohen argues that resilience rhetoric is part of a larger pattern of placing responsibility on older adults for their own well-being, “thus detracting from socially structured causes and collective responsibility in finding solutions” (2017). Kaika argues that resilience language justifies upholding and perpetuating injustices against marginalized communities in which people are “conditioned to be resilient” by continual exposure to violence, discrimination, lack of basic services, and other indignities (2017, 95).

Some climate adaptation literature leans on “active aging” and “age-friendly” frameworks and policies (Hunter and Avila-Palencia, 2022; Krawchenko et al., 2015). While social programs, services, and meaningful inclusion do decrease older adults' vulnerabilities to climate stresses (IPCC, 2022), these aging frameworks do not always lead to such. Rather, aging studies scholars suggest that they also tend to place the onus for “aging well” on individuals without addressing the structural inequalities that condition how people age. These frameworks are rooted in oppressive assumptions: People who remain able-bodied, able-minded, hetero-coupled, connected to offspring, and contributing to the economy are aging with the most “success” while people who do not meet these criteria lose value as they age, becoming a drain on society (Sandberg and Marshall, 2017; Martinson and Berridge, 2015; Changfoot, Rice, and Chivers, 2021). These frameworks often center the well-being of already privileged older adults, making invisible the vast inequalities within aging populations.

In contrast to resiliency-building approaches, the IPCC (2022) calls for adaptation strategies that take the onus off the individual; prioritize robust social programs and structural responses that center the most vulnerable; and recognize intergenerational connection as a key component (Mendola and Ha, 2022). Malak et al. (2020) explain that, in Bangladesh, older adults who live interdependently with younger people are less precarious and vulnerable to the devastating effects of cyclones because they are more likely to be connected to social services, to have support getting to emergency cyclone shelters, and to have support recovering afterwards. Elsewhere, scholars point to numerous examples of intergenerational skill sharing, knowledge exchange, and mutual support as crucial forms of climate response (Theodorou, Spyrou, and Christou, 2023; Spiegel, Thomas, and O'Neill, 2020). Such intergenerationality depends on dismantling ageism and valuing interdependence.

Sociologists and other critical scholars are exposing underlying inequities and assumptions embedded within climate adaptation policies and discourses. Advocates are calling for meaningful, inclusive adaptation that values all lives and practices the principle of “no one left behind” (European Environment Agency, 2022). There remains an urgent need for ongoing critical analyses of age and ageism to support these efforts.

(Inter)Generational Grief and Responsibility

There has been a proliferation of scholarship on the affective dimensions of the climate crisis, addressing concerns around mental health, future life, and sense of responsibility. Growing interest in eco-anxieties and climate grief since the late 2010s has inspired research into the effects of climate change on mental health and environmentally conscious behavior (Skeirytė, Krikštolaitis, and Liobikienė, 2022; Geiger, McLaughlin, and Valdez, 2021). Work in this field that incorporates an analysis of age more often focuses on youth than on older adults.

Swim et al. (2022) offer a large-scale analysis of the level of concern for climate change among respondents aged 18 to 80 in the USA, with comparison across age cohorts. They conclude that, in a representative sample of 22,000 respondents, older generations feel the least worry, grief, and guilt around the climate crisis. This aligns with the tendency in popular discourse to depict youth as passionate about mitigating further harms and older adults as shirking responsibility (Roy and Ayalon, 2023). Compelling evidence suggests that such depictions might be overstated and in some cases misleading (Murphy, 2021; Chazan and Baldwin, 2019). Indeed, a variety of smaller-scale studies suggest that many older adults care deeply about the climate, worry about future generations, and feel a sense of responsibility to act (Norman, 2017; Caney, 2014).

From a survey of 752 participants in China, Zhang (2018) found that older adults were the most concerned about the causes of climate change, compared to younger cohorts. Globally, many older adults are struggling with climate change and experiencing emotional and mental health challenges in the face of extreme climactic events (Malak et al., 2020; Chen, Bagrodia, and Pfeffer, 2020). Barnwell and Wood (2022) note that the violent targeting of Indigenous lands and land defenders (including Elders) can have devastating effects on mental health. Spiegel, Thomas, and O'Neill (2020) explore the strains on the physical, mental, and spiritual health of Indigenous Elders of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation as climate collapse threatens the lands central to their sovereignty and identity (see also Marchand, 2022).

Sometimes researchers describe older adults' commitments to future generations as connected to legacy or to their own descendants (du Bray, Wutich, and Brewis, 2017; Chen et al., 2022). Other times, this future-oriented responsibility appears to be far more expansive. Cunsolo and Ellis (2018) explore how, among Northern Inuit and Indigenous populations, older adult experiences of climate grief connect with the loss of Indigenous environmental knowledges and practices among younger people. Chazan and Whetung (2021) explain that older and younger activists alike describe commitments to the future, including responsibilities to past and future generations of human and nonhuman life. Clearly, some older adults are guided by a belief in intergenerational justice, whereby they have an obligation toward the well-being of future generations.

It does appear that, despite divisive generational rhetoric, many older adults around the globe are feeling grief, worry, and concerns for the future, and a sense of responsibility to act. Still, more research is needed to better understand perceptions and feelings toward the climate crisis within and across diverse communities and geographies (Murphy, 2021; Theodorou, Spyrou, and Christou, 2023), and to ask how factors such as gender, race, class, ability, and age associate with climate-related grief, depression, anxiety, future orientation, and sense of responsibility.

Aging, Advocacy, and Activisms

Older adults are not only vulnerable in the face of climate change; many are also actors in climate responses – globally, regionally, and locally (Gutterman, 2022b; Pillemer, Tillema-Cope, and Nolte, 2021). Some older adults are well suited to contributing time and labor to volunteer initiatives (Pillemer and Filiberto, 2017), at times deriving mental health benefits from their involvement (Chen et al., 2022; Bushway et al., 2011). Others are contributing financially and promoting social and environmental sustainability (Götmark, Cafaro, and O'Sullivan, 2018). In addition, older adults often offer significant contributions and unique solutions to climate responses (Diehl, 2022; Pillemer and Filiberto, 2017). Many with experience in policy-making, civic engagement, and social movements become motivated when their skills are required (Chang et al., 2022; Diehl, 2022). Others mobilize their positions of influence (Olson, 2021; Moody-Stuart, 2017; Gutterman, 2022c). To date, there is limited intersectional analysis of older adults' voluntarism and advocacy within the climate crisis; it remains unclear which older adults are most engaged, and how factors such as gender, class, race, and ability combine with age to shape their work and experiences.

There is a small but growing body of critical scholarship on older adults' activist roles in climate justice movements (Chazan and Baldwin, 2019; Frumkin, Fried, and Moody, 2012). While ageist public discourse frequently assumes activism to be the domain of youth, ageism often deters older adults from involvement in climate justice work (Salma, Ali, and Tilstra, 2022; Ayalon and Roy, 2022). Nevertheless, scholarship suggests that older adults' perspectives, knowledges, connections, and influence can be invaluable to these movements (Ayalon et al., 2022; Gutterman, 2022b; Blanche-T. and Fernández-Ardèvol, 2022). Chazan and Baldwin (2019) explore how older women activists engaged in a multifaceted effort to block Shell Oil rigs from traveling through Seattle harbor en route to the Arctic. They explain that these Raging Grannies, in solidarity with younger Indigenous and racialized activists, strategically mobilized their age, white privilege, and gender. For example, knowing they were the least likely to be subjected to police aggression, many placed their bodies between younger racialized activists and police lines. They practiced radical, antiracist, intergenerational solidarity in a profoundly effective way. Indeed, just as with climate adaptation, intergenerational solidarity is crucial to affecting political change (Theodorou, Spyrou, and Christou, 2023), as well as to motivating and sustaining hope (Estes and Dhillon, 2019).

A prominent example of intergenerational resistance to climate destruction, the #noDAPL protests at Standing Rock in the USA were well documented as intrinsically intergenerational, “with grandparents organizing alongside grandchildren” (Estes and Dhillon, 2019: 4). The sharing of knowledge, memory, and caring across generations was key to this historic movement (Estes and Dhillon, 2019). Indeed, Indigenous land defense often models radical intergenerationality, with a strong emphasis on responsibility to future generations (Norman, 2017; Dennis and Bell, 2020). As Spiegel, Thomas, and O'Neill note, an “intergenerational lens of connectedness to nature and sustainability” is vital to sharing knowledge of territorial changes and skills for restoration and sustainability (2020, 2).

Clearly, older adults, engaged as volunteers, influencers, advocates, and activists, are a key part of a co-ordinated and inclusive global response to climate crisis. Unfortunately, their contributions and assets are, at times, undermined by an emphasis on their vulnerabilities (Oostlander, Champagne-Poirier, and O'Sullivan, 2021; Salma, Ali, and Tilstra, 2022). The coming years will almost certainly reveal many other ways in which older adults are engaging in climate change response. Sociological inquiry can help by exploring how different histories, life experiences, societal factors, and systems of power determine which older adults are active and how they are engaging. Further study could also illuminate intergenerational dynamics within civil society mobilizations.

Directions for Future Research

There remain many directions for future sociological research on aging and climate change that engage with intersectional feminism, decoloniality, critical disability, queer theory, and critical race perspectives, focusing on those who are most impacted. Sociologists can play a role in better understanding which groups of older adults are more at risk, and what underpins their vulnerabilities. While older adults are beginning to be identified within climate adaptation frameworks, meaningful adaptation must center the needs of the most vulnerable with proactive and robust social programming. By undertaking critical research that centers lived experiences, sociologists can inform such equitable adaptation strategies.

Contrary to assumptions of disengagement and generational divide, many older adults are emotionally affected and engaged as volunteers, advocates, influencers, and activists in climate change movements. Future sociological research could offer critical analyses of how age intersects with systems of oppression within climate justice movements, and how intergenerationality is occurring in different contexts. Sociologists can play an important role in exposing underlying ageism and ableism in all aspects of climate change discourse, policy, and research.

Given growing global disparities and increasingly frequent climate emergencies, it is urgent that any future research do more than enumerate tragedy. Emergent analyses demonstrate how intersections of capitalism, colonialism, heteropatriarchy, white supremacy, ableism, and ageism create vastly unequal experiences of both aging and climate change. Such analyses must be amplified and used to guide the dismantling of oppressive systems. Sociologists can play an important role in exposing underlying assumptions, challenging the idea that marginalized older adult lives are disposable, and amplifying the creative responses of those most impacted.

SEE ALSO: Aging, Mental Health, and Well‐Being; Aging, Sociology of; Aging and Health Policy; Aging and Social Policy; Climate Change; Collectivism; Cyberlibertarianism; Cybernationalism; Debunking; Doing Gender; Environmental Movements; Gender, Development and; Gender Oppression; Gerontology; Gray Zone; Intergenerational Relationships and Exchanges; Simulacra and Simulation; Social Movements; WikiLeaks