Be proud of our youth, fighting for their planet

It is gratifying to witness a global youth movement uniting around the cause of reversing global warming. In a world in which almost every issue of consequence deeply divides societies, and politicians behave like spoiled children, young people express their concerns on this issue with a maturity that belies their age. In the Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg they have found an exceptional, if unlikely, leader. A chorus of climate deniers and the brigade of the climate-change ignorants have turned against her with the vilest of personal attacks, reflecting not only who they are, but also how scared they are of Thunberg’s energy.

Young people have discovered a unifying cause worth fighting for; climate change requires urgent attention and a long-term strategy with a vision beyond the here and now. It is about something, something on which they can act and make a difference, even by just altering their own behavior. Thunberg and the millions who protest in the streets pose a genuine challenge to politicians who appear either unwilling or unable to think beyond the next election or immediate threats to their position.

The only way they know how to respond is to mock or dismiss the young people’s case. They do so at their peril, and should look no further than the mass rallies against global warming just before the UN Climate Action Summit this month in New York. Protests in 185 countries against inaction by governments and international institutions sent a clear message that young people are not only organized, but also have the concentration span to continue pressurising world leaders to do what is necessary to stop the insane march toward the extinction of the planet.

These are not the anarchists of old, more interested in smashing windows than fixing the world. Youthful political protests have long been associated with an excess of testosterone, and there is almost an expectation of mayhem and violence, but over the past year a new type of climate activism has emerged. It was especially pleasing that on this occasion young people urged adults to join them, and in many countries they did so.

These young people, mostly of school age, put the older generation to shame by expressing their anger with determination, sophistication and excellent organizational skills. Many of their banners sport witty slogans that beautifully express their concern for the future: “1.5 to stay alive,” “If climate can change, why can’t we?” and, in homage to their heroine, “Make the world Greta again.”

This type of grassroots activism is new and striking, not only because of the participants’ age, but also because of their grasp of one of the most complex scientific issues of our times. It beggars belief that after hundreds of years during which humanity has embraced science and the progress it has brought, when it comes to climate change and its disastrous consequences, which will include extreme heatwaves, droughts, floods, famine, and all the resultant social strife, there are governments that refuse to take the necessary measures to avert this impending cataclysm.

There are few subjects in the scientific world on which there is such broad consensus. Report after report warns us that time is running out. Only last week a new UN report concluded that to counter the negative impact of greenhouse gas emissions and reduce them to the level set by the 2015 Paris agreement, mainly to ensure that the global temperature rises no more than 2°C above that of the pre-industrial era, there is a need to triple, at the very least, the main polluting countries’ reduction commitments. At last week’s UN summit there was no evidence of such a move, and worse, the US and Brazil, two countries central to any plan to tackle climate change, didn’t even bother to participate.

It was no surprise, then, that Thunberg, in her address to the summit, did not mince her words, and berated participants with genuine and justified anger. “You are still not mature enough to tell it like it is,” she told them. “You are failing us. But the young people are starting to understand your betrayal.” And she gave a clear warning to world leaders: “If you choose to fail us, I say we will never forgive you.” If those who invited Thunberg to the UN thought that by giving her a world stage she would become timid or co-opted, and thus the sting would be taken out of the movement she has founded, Fridays for Future, and the momentum it has given to the campaign to halt global warming, they should think again.

Greta Thunberg may be the leader and the face of this movement, but when millions of mainly teenagers across the globe, from the Solomon Islands to South Africa, from Australia to Europe, from America to India, join together with the same aim and the same message, governments would be foolish not to listen. The rage of these young people is genuine, as is their fear for their future and what horrors it will hold for them if there is no immediate and exhaustive effort to save planet Earth.