Living under shadow of apocalypse

Rallying children impress Dan Tipping with their sense that the tide is turning

NOTHING is more dangerous than an angry teenager who knows that they are right. I’m not as clear any more. I’m 21. Clarity is the gift that kids have.

On Friday, I was one of the 22,000 people who turned out for the Climate Strike. Every one of us had abandoned our tools and/or books in favour of expressing our anger over our government’s current climate policies.

I’ve lived my whole life under the shadow of climate catastrophe. I’d given up hope that anyone would make any meaningful change to save us. I’ve trained myself not to think about it. And, to be honest, I was a bit ashamed to be going to a rally organised by kids younger than me.

But I felt an obligation to go, and, once there, this is what I saw.

While school strikes have expanded to include people of all ages, it was difficult not to notice the disproportionate number of children. There were primary schoolers sporting hats, sunglasses and plenty of sunblock, but it was mostly teenagers.

Teenagers who held crudely made signs sporting such slogans as “no planet B”, “Stop Adani” and the fantastically to-the-point “F--Scomo”. They talked, laughed, clapped, enjoyed the sun and thought hopefully about the future of the planet. How could they not? Friday’s climate strike was the biggest rally in Tasmania’s history, with nearly one in 10 Hobartians blanketing the parliament lawns.

I was 16 when Australia signed the Paris Agreement, 14 when the carbon tax (now repealed) was introduced, a baby when John Howard’s government first established the Australian Greenhouse Office. I’ve lived my whole life under the ever-growing shadow of climate change.

So have these kids. But it seems that somehow living in the first days of a climate apocalypse hasn’t jaded them.

They see what I couldn’t see. They see that the tides are turning; that we are on the cusp of change. They don’t see in shades of grey; they see in black and white. They see it as us versus them, and it is “them” who are losing.

I wonder how can these kids can be so hopeful. Perhaps it is the tension that hangs in the air — the hot friction of hopeful solidarity colliding with the anger of several thousand righteous schoolchildren.

It was best expressed by poet Amelia Neylon, Hobart high school student, apologising with ferocious sarcasm for not being able to subsist off the rubbish in the seas. She finished, and the crowd burst into applause of such magnitude and duration it felt as if rioting might ensue. Unfortunately, it didn’t. Instead everyone slowly started to depart. Back to work for many, and for the luckier to the nearest pub.

But for me the feeling of hope didn’t end with Friday’s rally. And while the Government didn’t acknowledge it happened, let alone act in response, it still seems to be the beginning of something.

A new generation is taking the reins and attempting to correct the failures of the last.

Though it may be too late, they have shown that hope persists. These kids, who have so much at stake, continue to march into possible extinction with their heads (and signs) held high.

These kids, who have so much at stake, continue to march into possible extinction with their heads (and signs) held high