In the summer of 2018, the author interviewed 10 senior high school students in Nelson, a small city of 15,000 located in the West Kootenay Mountains of southeastern British Columbia that is known for having progressive politics. Nelson is also known for having a unique history -- situated in the heart of the traditional territories of the Sinixt and Ktunaxa peoples, it has experienced waves of radical dissidents from early 20th century Wobblies, to mid-century waves of pacifist Quakers and Doukhobors, followed by several hundreds of American and Canadian adherents to the anti-war counter-culture of the 1960s and 1970s (Rodgers, 2014). There is no question that this distinctive past and demographic influenced the adolescents who participated in this study. It is significant that the summer of 2018, when the interviews took place, was the second consecutive summer in which this region (as well as most of the BC Interior) was experiencing numerous forest fires, many massive in size (Lindsay, 2018). The aim was to inquire into the thoughts of adolescents around climate change and economic uncertainty. This article describes the author's analysis of the thoughts of the 10 student-participants. This article also includes an overview of related studies and other relevant scholarly work. The overview is necessarily longer than most because of the complex interplay between climate science, an apparent fragile global economy, human psychology, and the roles of right wing politicians and corporate media pundits who support the neoliberal agenda.