In partnership with Climate Change Newmarket-Aurora, NewmarketToday brings you a regular series of columns aimed at creating awareness and engaging our community to take action on climate change.
The kids are all right?
Twelve-year-old Licypriya Kangujam, founder of India’s Child Movement, recently pleaded for the world’s leaders to get more real and urgent with climate action. Do we blame her or anyone under 30 for feeling betrayed, angry and anxious?l
It’s been five years since Greta Thunberg made headlines with her first School Strike for Climate and speech to the U.N., calling out politicians and industries, so why years later are youth still feeling like not enough is changing?
It’s no wonder that they are especially vulnerable to mental health issues over climate change and their futures given the response of many officials when they speak out. (Martinez Garcia, D. & Sheehan, 2016). Moreover, while 40 per cent of the planet is at high risk to feel the worsening effects of the climate crisis, global Indigenous Peoples and children are likely to feel it the most (Farrell, J. et al. 2021).
Youth have so much more access to information than ever before. Do a search on ‘climate.' Quick clicks lead to the receding glaciers, the dying coral reefs, wildfires, carbon emissions thresholds coming sooner than first thought, millions of children impacted by floods, mudslides, rising tides, poor air and water, and extreme weather. We must face reality to be part of the solution but rarely is good news reported to give hope.
‘Eco-anxiety’ is very real and adults, who may even be experiencing it themselves, can acknowledge and support youth through validation: No, the previous generations did not do as First Nations and consider the impact of actions on the next seven generations; yes, certain industries and governments have hidden the facts; yes, it is one of the biggest challenges youth of today will face; and yes, there is still a small percentage of loud people who disregard the science and pleas. But yet, yes, climate voices are beginning to count and be louder than the naysayers. Positive change is happening.
To be more resilient, youth need more evidence that their efforts mean something. They are change makers but mainstream media and the general public are slow to acknowledge this. More air time could be given to youth protests and their work in schools, local youth councils, initiatives like YOUCAN in Atlantic Canada, Green Girls in Burundi, UNICEF’s The Green Rising that highlights young entrepreneurs, activists and lobbyists around the world.
There is strength in their numbers, too. Hundreds of thousands of school students around the world activated Fridays for the Future. Youth are taking their respective governments to court over the failure to adequately address climate change. Ontario’s government tried to have such a case thrown out before a day in court. It was overruled, the government’s climate plan found lacking, and the case was then used in another youth-led federal constitutional challenge.
Just as with social justice, youth are not conned for long by industry or political greenwashing and platitudes. Youth are setting precedent for faster and better action.
At home, school, clubs, and workplace, youth continue to reinforce the 6 Rs: reduce, reuse, repurpose, recycle, rethink; Climate Action Newmarket Aurora has an extensive list.
Youth voice could be used to hold town and regional councils accountable to speed up official plan actions like the use of hybrid solar panels for outdoor lighting, electrification of school buses, and better regional transit to educational institutions where they can lobby for more courses supporting a sustainable and healthy future economy for all.
Youth groups can apply for TreeCanada funding to plant trees or attend annual tree planting days as one way of coping with the plight of wildfires around the country.
Four economic areas where youth can send a huge message to industry are clothing, technology, fast food and banks; all also being key areas for upholding social justice issues. Imagine if thousands of Generation Z and millennials decided to skip a phone or laptop upgrade, boycott a fast food/beverage or shipping company or carefully select their bank to affect climate and social justice action! It’s happening but could be on a grander scale. Young consumers have more power than they might realize.
To lessen climate anxiety, focus must also be on the positive. It exists: the first ever fossil fuel cap by an oil producing country — Canada and its planting of 2 billion trees by 2031; international Green Climate Fund increased to $12.8 billion US; the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee edging closer to binding international legislation to end plastic pollution by the end of 2024 (and the next meeting is April, in Canada); innovation to restore the coral reefs, forests and waterways; 30 by 30; worldwide clean energy investment has grown 40 per cent and net-zero is still achievable if we can remove ‘inefficient polluting assets’ like fossil fuels, the absolutely unquestionable worst asset for carbon dioxide and methane emissions. Join a peaceful protest.
Every action brings hope, and renewed hope brings more action, reducing anxieties.
Phil Pullman wrote that you could change the flow of a mighty river with just one pebble in the right place. Many pebbles would change it more quickly. Forget the naysayers. Greta, Malala, Marley Dias, Jamie Margolin, Mari Copeny, and Xiuhtezcatl Martinez are youth like others yet when not happy with what they saw, they became the change they wanted to see (Ghandi). The power of YES is a wondrous thing, and love for future generations is a powerful thing. Act positively now.
Inspired by the international organization Project Drawdown, Climate Action Newmarket-Aurora seeks to engage citizens, institutions, and policymakers in actionable and measurable solutions to stop catastrophic climate change as quickly, safely and equitably as possible. You can contact them at [email protected], and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.
