The real problem with the student climate strikes
The most ridiculous thing about men attacking Greta for being too emotional is that these are the exact same men who scream for us to be rational & use logic – well let’s do that & focus on the science & the science rationally & logically tells us the planet is cooking & Greta is right!
How dare Greta make the end of the world sound like the end of the world!
Climate change is as much an existential threat to us as the Nazi’s were in World War 2. Imagine kids striking against the Nazi’s & all us adults simply standing around offering praise or condemnation when really they shouldn’t have to be protesting to get us adults involved at all because you know, NAZIS!
The problem with students striking for the climate is that we are putting all this pressure on them to make the changes necessary – they strike to shame us into action – it’s OUR responsibility to change the economy, culture & politics not theirs!
We are the fucking adults!
Abdicating our obligations to the next generation because we are too frightened to embrace the radical changes that are required to adapt to a rapidly warming climate is despicable cowardice that is beneath us and them.
We urgently need to lower the voting age to 16 because politicians are biased to only listen to rich old selfish voters and so issues like climate change are ignored. Bringing in a hundred thousand new voters forces our political system to listen to those concerns.
It is not up to the children to lead this, because they can’t, it is up to us to be shamed into action.
How dare we let them lead into the fiery abyss while we cower.
Resources that we need to survive are disappearing before our eyes e.g. fish, unpolluted water, productive land etc. A stable climate is the foundational resource. We, as a race, are knowingly destroying our home and life. The Truth will set you free, but first it will really suck. This is a test of what the human race really is….
The real changes needed – population reduction and de-growth economies – are simply not going to happen. Crowds of middle class children turning up to protest in the commercial centers of their respective countries will make headlines for a couple of weeks and then we’ll move on to thinking about our next significant purchase – a new car, home renovations, the latest fashionable clothing, a new version of some electronic device that we purchased less then 18 months ago etc. Extraction, production and consumption will continue unabated – enthusiastically assisted by many of those attending the protests today.
Expecting politicians to make changes is also a waste of time – politicians are put in place to preserve the status quo and radical change is simply not within their remit or capability.
The types of changes needed would include – lowering production, employment and consumption and economic systems that aren’t based solely on delivering returns to capital.
Managed population reduction and the enormous challenges that this would create is simply not even mentioned because it runs counter to fundamental human behavior and – let’s be honest – hope for the future.
Nature will resolve the situation one way or another – I don’t think we are capable of undertaking what’s required because we are not prepared to give up much more then an afternoon walking around with a placard.
Well, Peter, I suspect you may well be right about us doing nothing, or at least far too little . But you are almost definitely wrong to say that “nature will resolve the situation one way or another.” There is only one way – if we do nothing it will be catastrophic – beyond anything experienced by the human species – and most likely complete extinction, along with that of many other species. Just so long as we all get that!
> We urgently need to lower the voting age to 16 because politicians are biased to only listen to rich old selfish voters and so issues like climate change are ignored
I’m not sure how it helps to make represent this an a generation war, when it’s pretty obviously a class war. There are plenty of older people who are just as concerned about climate change as we are, if not more so. But they tend to be the ones who don’t have investments that will lose value if serious action is taken to reduce carbon emissions and transition our societies to a more sustainable footing.
Although speaking of the effects of age on elections, I’m also reminded of something I read (maybe here on TDB?) pointing out that Gen X is a much smaller population than either the Boomer or Millenial generations, which means there will never be a time when we are an electoral majority. How many world leaders can you name who are GenX? What proportion are they compared to Boomers and Millenials? Which means that whether we reduce the voting age or not, Millenials are going to take over as the dominant voting block sooner or later anyway.
Well I don’t even know what you mean by “class war” and I would hope ever knows that I’m all about that class warfare. People need to understand that since World War 2 only a very few people have been making all the decisions. Y’know what to but, what to sell, who to but too and who to sell too, the rest of us literally have no say in the general make up and direction of capitalilism. So when I say lower the voting age, what I mean by that is for the workforce to have a greater say in what they produce, and how that’s marketed and distributed.