Commentary: Time Person-of-the-Year Greta Thunberg is just the tip of the iceberg.
We need an all-out WWII-style commitment to fight climate change. Some U.S. politicians deny that publicly – until their constituents experience floods, fires, or drought.
Young people may break the logjam. It's their future, not ours.
Consider the Sunrise Movement. Days after the Democrats took back the House last year, 150 young people sat-in at Nancy Pelosi's office to urge her to push forward with promised climate-change legislation. It became a bigger news story when Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez stopped by. Suddenly D.C. was full of young people wearing black T-shirts with a rising sun.
As rallies and protests attract increasing numbers, a group called Momentum has started conducting training sessions based on careful study of the civil rights movement to make eager recruits more effective in generating greater numbers. (Echoes of the '60's “Teach-ins?”)
Meanwhile, College Republicans nationwide are urging fellow Republicans to back a conservative climate action plan, arguing that continued denial will hurt both our Earth and the Party. The Young Conservative Climate Campaign lobbies Republicans to back a free-market “Carbon Dividends” plan to reduce emissions. “This really is a generational issue,” said Kiera O’Brien, a Harvard senior who founded YCCC and is its President. “Especially given the rise of the Green New Deal, we need to have our own alternative policies, because we can’t just complain about the problem and not propose a solution.”
“Students have a very strong incentive to see effective and actual legitimate policy enacted,” said a former College Republicans chairman from Utah. “This is something that’s going to directly impact us, so we have a strong motive.” Internationally, the U.N. Framework on Youth and Climate Change works intensely with many youth-led NGOs.
Aside from Thunberg, who started by skipping school and protesting outside Sweden's Parliament on Fridays, there's Canadian Autumn Peltier (15) of the Wikwemikong First Nation in Northern Ontario who's been advocating for clean water since she was eight, and was nominated in 2017 for the Children's International Peace Prize; and Leah Namugerwa (15) who's spearheading the climate change movement in Uganda, urging the government to take action on environmental issues. Floods that killed 5,000 people in India in 2013 inspired Ridhima Pandey (now 11) who sued the Indian government in 2017 over its climate-change inaction. Fluctuating drought and heavy rainfall in her small Mexican town inspired Xiye Bastida (17) to protect the environment. Now in New York, Bastida's spoken at the U.N. and helped organize a Global Climate Strike. (See my blog post for more detail.)
Trump and others gleefully mock these young people. I honor them. I don't say they're right about everything, or have a detailed scientific understanding of climate-change details. But we need them. Bees and trees and seas need them, too. All hands on deck!
It's far too late to “win” as we won WWII. Decades of dithering and denial have made serious changes inevitable. But to mitigate the damage, we need youth's energetic commitment, and these young folks' abilities to persuade other youth and their loving families.
Is it wishful thinking, or do I see today's youth developing the sense of purpose we saw in young people in 1849, 1941, and 1968? Coming of age when there are huge problems to solve, and helping convince the nation – or the world – to solve them, can be transformative.
Let's help these “kids” help us all.