The Politics of Play: Why the Climate 200 Ad Crosses the Line

There’s something deeply unsettling about watching a six-year-old parrot the line, “coal is good for humanity.” Not because of the politics, but because of the performance.

A new YouTube ad from Climate 200 is doing the rounds. It features primary school–aged children reciting quotes from Liberal and National Party politicians, dramatic pauses, knowing expressions, and all. The message is clear - children’s futures are at stake, and this ad wants you to feel morally compelled to vote accordingly.

But while the ad is slick and provocative, it raises a far more important question.

Why are we using children as political mouthpieces in the first place?

As a child psychologist, I’m not here to debate climate policy. I’m here to defend childhood, and this ad crosses a line we should all be paying attention to.

Childhood as a Stage for Adult Politics

Let’s be clear, these children are not expressing their own views. They are reading adult scriptwriting, laden with sarcasm, fear, and political weight they cannot possibly comprehend. The intent of the ad is not to give children a voice, it’s to use their innocence as a weapon of moral persuasion.

This is emotional manipulation. Of the viewer, yes, but more worryingly, of the children themselves.

When we use children in this way, we politicise their developing identities. We make them participants in ideological battles they are not developmentally prepared to understand, let alone consent to.

The Psychological Cost of "Activism"

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: children are not miniature adults. They are not capable of holding the weight of global problems like climate change, and they should not be made to feel they are responsible for fixing them.

Even if they appear confident and articulate on camera, the process of internalising adult fears, climate catastrophe, political failure, environmental doom, can have long-lasting effects. It may manifest as anxiety, helplessness, or a skewed view of the world as fundamentally unsafe.

Children deserve to feel safe. They deserve to be shielded from the intensity of adult conflicts, especially when those conflicts are being repackaged into scripts and camera-ready moments for viral distribution.

A Broader Trend: The War on Childhood

This ad is part of a much broader cultural trend, one I’ve spoken about frequently. We are witnessing a steady erosion of the boundary between childhood and adulthood. Children are being brought into adult conversations, adult ideologies, and adult fears at younger and younger ages.

From climate anxiety to gender politics, children are increasingly used as spokespeople, not because they understand, but because they’re effective. There is something uniquely confronting about a child repeating a line they don’t understand. And that’s precisely why it works. It disarms the audience and lowers our critical defences.

But just because it works doesn’t make it right.

Where Do We Draw the Line?

If this is considered acceptable, what comes next?

Are we comfortable with children endorsing candidates? Appearing in attack ads? Delivering partisan policy statements under the guise of innocence?

The line should be clear; children should not be used in political advertising, full stop. Their presence should not be exploited to amplify a message, no matter how worthy the cause may seem.

Childhood should be a time of play, exploration, and wonder, not performance, pressure, and political persuasion.

If we genuinely care about children’s futures, we should start by protecting their present.

Let them be children. Let them play. Let them build emotional resilience through secure relationships and childhood experiences, not scripts and slogans.

Because the real danger isn’t whether they inherit a planet with problems.

The real danger is that we teach them to see the world only through the lens of fear, crisis, and blame, long before they’ve had a chance to grow up.