‘‘Part of me admires the adolescent climate strikers... although the cynic in me thinks their idealism will soon meet the responsibilities and burdens of adulthood.’’
The climate strike last week made me reach far back into my memory files. I tried to put myself in the striker’s shoes. What made me feel fearful as an adolescent? It wasn’t climate change. Nor Bastion Point or abortion debates, issues du jour when I was 16.
No, if I’m honest there was only one fear, the ballot for military service, and that had passed by the time I was the striker’s age. It was abolished in 1972 by Big Norm, when I was 11, but I remember being terrified before then that in a few short years, if my birthdate was drawn, I’d have to kit up and risk life and limb.
An aversion to following orders, with a pinch of cowardice, lingered into adulthood. The chance to obtain Danish citizenship before turning 22 was rejected as compulsory military service came with the passport.
The only youth-led protest I recall in my adolescence was when a neighbour protested against his high school suspension for having long hair. That did not light a fire underneath an entire generation.
Meanwhile, Cold War anxiety, the domino theory, the threat of nuclear annihilation and indigenous and civil rights floated above any ability I possessed to understand what a chaotic and troubled world I was part of. That would come later, through life, experience and education.
My less than heroic adolescence therefore makes the climate strikes confronting. Part of me admires the idealism and passion of the adolescent strikers. Long may it last, although the cynic in me thinks that when no longer under the economic protection of their parents, adolescent idealism will soon meet the responsibilities and burdens of adulthood. Then we’ll see.
Part of me is turned off by their certainty and singular prism for viewing a future that some of them believe will end in 12 years. One 14-year-old striker, voicing her anger at the status quo, told her
interviewer, ‘‘When I was 12 it all became so clear to me.’’ Yikes.
I’m not sure anything has ever become clear to me. In fact with each passing year the only certainty I now possess is doubt.
Life and education stripped me of certainty. Everyone’s education experience is different, to be sure, but here’s what I learned.
You gain deep knowledge about your specialty, which never leaves you. Mine is leadership. I studied it for 10 years, taught and kept learning about it for another 15, then learned more when working in the coalition.
Education gives you a better appreciation of just how much you don’t know. That is its gift, an awakening of your own ignorance, which is humbling.
My favourite title of any New Zealand book is The Certainty of Doubt, a collection of tributes to Victoria University’s great historian, Peter Munz. He said he never knew with certainty he’d reached the right answer to a problem. That drove his intellectual curiosity.
When teaching at Victoria University I used to tell my students I didn’t care what they believed, but that over the course of their study I hoped they’d challenge their own beliefs. That’s what learning is.
Today’s adolescents and young adults access vast stores of information instantly while I had two newspapers and, until 14 years old, one TV channel. They are accordingly far more socially conscious than me at their age. But they are also far more anxious, far less resilient.
That information overload is their blessing and curse. It’s a blessing because they are more aware of the world about them and want to do something about it. It’s a curse because they have no sense of trade-offs, let alone nuance, to filter all that noise. Both were on display on strike day.
Was the strike misdirected? Mightn’t several of our local embassies, representing highcarbon emitting countries whose actions would make a material difference to warming projections have been better targets than a country that contributes 0.17 per cent of global emissions?
Demands for ‘‘free’’ this and that are easily made, but in a few years’ time these same young people are going to face the adult reality that choices involve trade-offs, and they always come with costs. And the bigger the choice the more complex the trade-offs and costs.
So rather than be taught more about climate change, as the strikers demand, learning more history might help balance their pessimism for the future. Learning about the way humans have adapted to threats in times past at least leaves some room for doubt, and it may even lead to a question or two.
These same young people are going to face the adult reality that choices involve tradeoffs, and they always come with costs.