A Powerful Voice … The Voice Of The Future

Posted on by under education, Environmental Issues, Global Issues, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

Dear friends …

I haven’t been blogging much this week, and likely won’t for the next few days, for my “little bit under the weather” has worsened and I just don’t feel up to doing much besides sleeping.  But no worries … I will bounce back … soon, I hope.  Meanwhile young Greta Thunberg is back with a powerful piece that we should all take note of …

This Is the World Being Left to Us by Adults

By Greta Thunberg, Adriana Calderón, Farzana Faruk Jhumu and Eric Njuguna

The authors are youth climate activists from Sweden, Mexico, Bangladesh and Kenya, working with the international youth-led Fridays For Future movement.

Last week, some of the world’s leading climate change scientists confirmed that humans are making irreversible changes to our planet and extreme weather will only become more severe. This news is a “code red for humanity,” said the United Nations secretary general.

It is — but young people like us have been sounding this alarm for years. You just haven’t listened.

On Aug. 20, 2018, one child staged a lone protest outside the Swedish Parliament, expecting to stay for three weeks. Tomorrow we will mark three years since Greta Thunberg’s strike. Even earlier, brave young people from around the world spoke out about the climate crisis in their communities. And today, millions of children and young people have united in a movement with one voice, demanding that decision makers do the work necessary to save our planet from the unprecedented heat waves, massive floods and vast wildfires we are increasingly witnessing. Our protest will not end until the inaction does.

For children and young people, climate change is the single greatest threat to our futures. We are the ones who will have to clean up the mess you adults have made, and we are the ones who are more likely to suffer now. Children are more vulnerable than adults to the dangerous weather events, diseases and other harms caused by climate change, which is why a new analysis released Friday by UNICEF is so important.

The Children’s Climate Risk Indexprovides the first comprehensive view of where and how this crisis affects children. It ranks countries based on children’s exposure to climate and environmental shocks, as well as their underlying vulnerability to those shocks.

It finds that virtually every child on the planet is exposed to at least one climate or environmental hazard right now. A staggering 850 million, about a third of all the world’s children, are exposed to four or more climate or environmental hazards, including heat waves, cyclones, air pollution, flooding or water scarcity. A billion children, nearly half the children in the world, live in “extremely high risk” countries, the UNICEF researchers report.

This is the world being left to us. But there is still time to change our climate future. Around the world, our movement of young activists continues to grow.

In Bangladesh, Tahsin Uddin, 23, saw the impacts of climate change in his village and other coastal areas and was moved to action. He is passionate about climate education and has created a network of young journalists and educators to spread awareness, all while organizing cleanups of waterways teeming with plastic waste pollution.

In the Philippines, Mitzi Jonelle Tan, 23, has had to complete her homework by candlelight as typhoons raged outside and wiped out her community’s electricity. She told us there were times she was afraid of drowning in her own bedroom as water flooded in. Now she is leading youth in her country to respond to the aftermath of those typhoons and other hazards through sharing food, water, clothes and support with the most affected communities.

In Zimbabwe, Nkosi Nyathi, 18, is worried about a potential food crisis if weather patterns continue. Heat waves made school a challenging experience for him and his peers. Now he speaks to leaders from around the world to demand the inclusion of young people in decisions that affect their future.

The fundamental goal of the adults in any society is to protect their young and do everything they can to leave a better world than the one they inherited. The current generation of adults, and those that came before, are failing at a global scale.

The Children’s Climate Risk Index reveals a disturbing global inequity when it comes to the worst effects of climate change. Thirty-three countries, including the Central African Republic, Chad, Nigeria and Guinea, are considered extremely high-risk for children, but those countries collectively emit just 9 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions. The 10 countries with the highest emissions, including China, the United States, Russia and Japan, collectively account for nearly 70 percent of global emissions. And children in those higher-emitting states face lower risks: Only one of these countries, India, is ranked as extremely high-risk in the UNICEF report.

Many higher-risk countries are poorer nations from the global south, and it’s there that people will be most impacted, despite contributing the least to the problem. We will not allow industrialized countries to duck responsibility for the suffering of children in other parts of the world. Governments, industry and the rest of the international community must work together to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as 195 nations committed to do in the Paris Climate Agreement of 2015.

We have less than 100 days until the U.N. Climate Change Conference, also known as COP26, in Glasgow. The world’s climate scientists have made it clear that the time is now — we must act urgently to avoid the worst possible consequences. The world’s young people stand with the scientists and will continue to sound the alarm.

We are in a crisis of crises. A pollution crisis. A climate crisis. A children’s rights crisis. We will not allow the world to look away.

34 thoughts on “A Powerful Voice … The Voice Of The Future”

  1. Pingback: A POWERFUL VOICE … THE VOICE OF THE FUTURE. | Ramblings of an Occupy Liberal

    • Thank you my friend! I hope to bounce back soon, but not there yet. Yes, I think the new generation will do a better job than we have, and a large part of their awareness comes from this young woman, Greta Thunberg.

      Liked by 1 person

  4. What a very family minded group our politicians are.They won’t help save the world for their children, grandchildren and generations still to come.There have been warnings for years and encouragement from the people. The major car firms have retooled and seem to be set on electric vehicles.It’s a start though they fought against it for years. There must be a way of stopping Brazil from destroying the rainforest while the Earth still has some lungs. Vote not to allow the politicians any more leeway with this. Get them out and vote in committed people.
    Cwtch

    Liked by 2 people

    • I think the only thing some of them love is themselves and their money. They really believe all those millions or billions in their investment accounts make them superior, far above the madding crowd, so to speak. There are a number of serious hot-button items riding on the next two elections, but perhaps none more important than environmental issues. The time for pussyfooting around is over … it’s time to make some really tough choices, and if we don’t, our grandchildren may not live to a ripe old age.
      Cwtch

      Liked by 2 people

    • Thank you, Michael! I’m still not near well and am sleeping half of my life away, for that’s all I have the energy to do. I hope to bounce back soon, though. I hope you enjoyed your power naps — I’m sure your pillow was happy to see you! xx

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  7. Jill, thanks for sharing this powerful message from people who get it. I like the emphasis on water and food concerns as well as what we tend to focus on with tidal encroachment, more and larger forest fires, longer droughts and slow moving weather systems.

    In my view, we lost twelve years in the US for more concerted effort with Bush/ Cheney and Trump white houses. We must move even more quickly as a result.

    Keith

    Liked by 2 people

    • Thanks, Keith. You’re quite right … the fires, rising coastal tides, floods, melting icecaps are a grave concern, but what those things lead to is the inability to maintain potable water supplies and thus agriculture suffers and we cannot produce enough food to feed the people on earth. I think we will see, for lack of a better term, ‘resource inequality’ where the poor struggle to buy food and have water, while the wealthy will continue to live as if there is no tomorrow, wasting enough to help the rest of the world.

      You are right … we lost 12 very valuable years, especially the last four where nearly every single environmental regulation was rolled back, dubious pipelines approved, and the fossil fuel industry put above the planet.

      Liked by 2 people

  8. And people like Donald Trump and Jason Kenney only make it worse. Both tried to boost the fossil fuel industries when the time was already past too late to get rid of them. I notice the “children” are now coming of voting age. If they continue to grow as a voting bloc, as they must, the politicians will have to start listening to them, or they won’t be politicians for long.
    When it is your turn to make your voice heard, think of your children, and your chidren’s children, and the world you are bequeathing to them. DO NOT VOTE FOR ANYONE WHO PUTS THEIR OWN WEALTH, OR THE WEALTH OF OTHERS, AHEAD OF THE PHYSICAL, MENTAL, AND SPIRITUAL HEALTH OF THE COMING GENERATIONS!
    Or there will be no coming generations!

    Liked by 5 people

    • Indeed, Trump has been a great friend to the fossil fuel industry, rolling back regulations, approving damaging pipelines, and giving them tax breaks. Unfortunately these days it seems hard to find a politician who doesn’t put his own power & wealth ahead of the good of the world. There may well be no coming generations, for Mother Earth seems about ready to expel us all!

      Liked by 1 person

      • The government of Aotearoa New Zealand stopped issuing licences for the mining or exploration of non-renewable resources back in 2017. While it’s government policy not to issue any more licences, I’d like to see it enacted in law to make it that much more difficult for a later government to rescind the current policy.

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  10. The most powerful statement I’ve heard from Greta is ‘Don’t listen to me – listen to the evidence”. If only more people would actually do that. The evidence is overwhelming and it is alarming.

    Liked by 2 people

    • Yes, if only more people would even bother to read the data, view the evidence. Heck, it’s all right there in the morning newspapers — uncontrollable wildfires, floods, droughts, melting icecaps, rising sea levels — what more do they need???

      Liked by 2 people

      • I doubt some would be persuaded to change their mind even if their home goes up in a wildfire, the bridge on the way to work gets washed out during the 2nd one in one hundred year flood in the last ten years, and drinking water is rationed due to drought induced dry reservoirs and lowered water tables.

        Liked by 1 person

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