Fridays for Future

I've been really interested in the Fridays for the Future school strikes happening in Europe and North America. My 13-year-old daughter is participating this week for the second Friday in a row. Protesting in Montreal in -15C temperatures is a real feat of commitment.

I am simultaneously excited and horrified by this effort as well as US students advocating for a Green New Deal. Excited, because for once people are discussing full solutions that address scientific consensus on climate change. Horrified, because I'm the type of person they are protesting against.

My generation has known about the importance of environmental issues since childhood in the 1960s and 1970s, but we have not put effort into solving climate change. We've run up against a brick wall of climate denial and government inaction, and we've allowed those impediments to let us fall back into comforting apathy, sardonic pessimism and inexcusable inaction.

The student strikers are sick of our bullshit, and rightly so. To someone like me, born in 1968, dates like 2050 or 2100 seem like infinity many years away. Surely some superior Future People will figure this climate thing out? Or else they'll live in cool dome cities on the surface of a burning earth. Escape to space. Retreat into virtual reality.

My kids (born 2005 and 2008 respectively) are going to be in the prime of life in 2050. They will be having children of their own, if they choose to. They are pretty great, but they are not sci-fi superheroes. They don't have magic wands or proposed super-technology.

They will be living in a world made by my own actions or lack thereof. They do not like their prospects right now, and they rightly claim that their life and lifestyle in 2050 depends on our decisions in 1980, 2000, and 2020.

The adults of the present with even a modicum of power — money, votes, and social capital — need to wake up, listen to these kids, and do what it takes to stop climate change. The worst thing to do is cheer these kids on from the sidelines. They are importuning us to get to work, not asking for our applause and support.