The Kids Are Alright... but Old Folks Gotta Pitch In Too
There’s a particularly irritating conversation that won’t die down in the climate change activist community. An increasing number of voices are lauding Millennials, GEn Z and Generation Alpha for their energy, enthusiasm, and thinking outside the box about climate change. Some folks have gone so far as to say that that cohort - which is broadly speaking folks under 40 years old - will “save us.”
Other more sober voices say that the jury is still out on whether or not the younger generations will be the ones to solve the climate crisis – and just in the nick of time, it must be said.
But the conversation is happening, and the fact that this is even a discussion is more than a little troubling.
Climate change isn’t a one - or 3 - generation problem. It isn’t a “kids today” problem. There won’t – and can’t – be a single generation solution. We can’t fool ourselves into thinking that a single group of people - many of whom are not even close to being old enough to grasp the reins of power - will lead the way. Yes, Greta Thunberg is magnificent. Yes, there is a lot of vocal activism going on among the under-25s in this country and around the world.
But the chatter about “the children are our future!” and “the kids are alright!” feels like some older progressives are ready to throw in the towel and take a personal pass on implementing climate change solutions on either the micro or macro level, when in fact all Americans (indeed, all children of Earth) need to pitch in and work together.
First: The youngsters didn’t build this – older people did. The remaining members of the Greatest and Silent Generations, the Boomers and the Gen X-ers – those are the extant Americans who principally participated in and benefited from the high-carbon, fossil-fuel-intensive way of life that is causing anthropogenic climate change.
If you helped create and sustain it, and if you enjoyed its fruits, shouldn’t you be frikken responsible for doing more than mouthing platitudes about the children being the future? Shouldn’t you be the first to step up to the plate and declare that since you were a part of the problem, you should be an aggressive, active part of the solution? And if you enjoyed the carbon-generated lifestyle for decades, how can you justify asking younger people to make sacrifices you yourself won’t make? How can you expect that they will do the heavy lifting while you sit back and let them?
Second: To many at the younger end of this cohort, the current climate and weather are NORMAL. They have never experienced a world like the one older Americans grew up in, with its lower temperatures, lower sea levels, predictable fire seasons and “500 year floods.”
This is an important point. People over 50 – or even 40 – can remember what the world used to be like, bear witness, and act with a passion driven by having lived through the first years of climate change becoming in-your-face obvious. Yes, younger folks will also experience the effects of worsening climate change as it proceeds, but those of us who have inhabited that liminal space between “before” and the beginnings of “after” have a story to tell, and should feel an urgency that younger people – people more used to crippling heatwaves, hellish wildfires and Biblical flooding – might not.
Third: Like it or not, the folks still in power are still pretty darned old. The youngest candidate for president this past cycle, Pete Buttigieg, was a Millennial – but legislators are still overwhelmingly older than that: the average age of members of the House at the beginning of the 116th Congress was 57.6 years; of Senators, 62.9 years. Both Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are 60… which might be “the new 40,” but is definitely, objectively, not “young.”
While some, like Mitch McConnell and John Kennedy (and probably the odious but necessary outgoing Joe Manchin) are too marinated in fossil fuel money and ignorant evangelical bullpucky to ever be convinced that they are on the wrong side of history, there are many others whose feet must be held to the fire until they get the message that climate is a number one priority.
When constituents who want action on the climate crisis are clamoring louder than other groups, we’ll get consistent, sufficient action on the issue, and not a moment before.
Now is not the time to sit back, trust that rejoining the Paris accords means we’re safe, and stop pushing. To implement change, we need government regulations. To get government regulations, we need to push – harder now than ever – on the folks already in Congress. Most of who are over 40.
As Dr. Peter Kalmus devastatingly wrote:
The world has by and large adopted “net zero by 2050” as its de facto climate goal, but two fatal flaws hide in plain sight within those 16 characters. One is “net zero.” The other is “by 2050”.
These two flaws provide cover for big oil and politicians who wish to preserve the status quo. Together they comprise a deadly prescription for inaction and catastrophically high levels of irreversible climate and ecological breakdown.
It should tell us all we need to know about “net zero by 2050” that it is supported by fossil fuel executives, and that climate uber-villain Rupert Murdoch has embraced it through his News Corp Australia mouthpiece.
We have a duty to force this administration, and the next one, to do more. We cannot stop pressing our legislators.
But there’s more. All Americans, personally, need to start walking the walk. While keeping up the pressure on government, while getting out and voting blue and putting climate change at the top of the deal breaker list, we also must scale back our personal carbon footprints and direct consumer action to change corporate behavior.
In this Code Red moment, whether or not you personally go vegan, or Chris joins a carpool, or Jabari commits to only shopping for gently used clothing and home goods may not make a direct impact on emissions – but if individual consumers make such changes, it CAN alter what emissions-belching corporations do.
Big corporations are excellent at greenwashing – and it is easy to be lulled. But we need to insist with our pocket books that they not just run commercials featuring whales and trees, but that they actually step up and produce products that help, not hurt. If we buy fewer SUVs, in other words, GM might just ramp up electric car production in an accelerated and meaningful way. After all, they want to make money, and if we aren’t buying their products or services, they won’t.
The window is RAPIDLY closing to forcefully make our point and force change at the governmental and corporate levels.
It is now glaringly obvious that we don’t have time to wait for “the kids” to grow up, take the reins, and do the hard work that will be needed to combat climate change. You’ve seen the headlines: hurricanes, wildfires, catastrophic flooding, heat domes, rain bombs, collapsing AMOC… it’s all hands on deck time.
Older people – the ones who got us into this scrape, whether wittingly or not - need to put their shoulders to the wheel immediately. Even to have a conversation about who needs to do the innovation and hard work, and whether some folks are exempt, implies that it might somehow be okay to let a huge swath of Americans give up on action, throw up their hands, and talk in soaring tones about young people and the future while turning up the A/C and going about their merry carbon-intensive business.
It will be a historically heavy lift to make the political and personal changes required to pull off the heroic work of slashing emissions, hardening infrastructure, making sure citizens are relocated or otherwise cared for as hurricanes and wildfires and catastrophic flooding rage… and yet we must take this on.
All of us, even those with creaky knees and reading glasses, must participate. No one gets a free pass. The time is now. The task is daunting. But what other choice do we have?
It is well and truly time for a Climate Revolution. My personal take is that this must be a step up from personal action, online petitions, and marching, but in the arena of the climate catastrophe unfolding around us, EVERY LITTLE ACTION will count, and be noted, by those in the “elites” who are lying and green washing and obfuscating and procrastinating us into oblivion.
I have a project I have been working on, a “climate grief” song cycle as the basis for a presentation. The first one is written and a poorly recorded version is on my sub stack as a podcast. “Denial” is where most people are at right now.
I find it difficult to write “anger” music, so I asked my 30-year-old daughter for some ideas…. What I got back was white hot. She understands the state of the world and is PISSED that the people who have largely benefited from raping the world and destroying our climate carrying capacity are still in charge and incapable of making decisions to address the emergency.
As a society we don’t have the stomach for looking out the window at what is really happening and facing the very harsh realities. We would rather focus on the next hour of entertainment….
There is so much that has contributed to the mess we are in. Citizens (billionaires) United caused a huge influx of dark money into our politics.
Corporations are people.
The destabilization and degradation of our protective agencies, like the EPA and the Department of Agriculture, into rubber stamps for the worst polluters.
The audacity of waiting. Nero comes to mind.