Climate change: Fighting for our future and no time to be polite
OPINION: I am a 20-year-old retail assistant at a charity store and was able to take several hours off work to attend the Wellington School Strike for Climate. Approximately 40,000 people of the Wellington population of 413,012 joined me. They ranged from infants, primary school children, high schoolers, university students, adults and parents, to the elderly. Many of us may not have perfectly crafted eco-friendly lives, or the means to participate in sustainable practices, but we showed up for the cause. I have scrolled through a lot of heinous comments over the past few days. What I found was an alarming number of adults threatened by Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old Swedish girl with Asperger's syndrome and her frank and jarring requests for climate justice. Greta has an admirable rigour and is completely unfazed by online hate. She endures name-calling, comments on her manner and appearance, and conspiracy theories over her political 'agenda' and who may be 'controlling' her. READ MORE: * Climate explained: What each of us can do to reduce our carbon footprint * Doing my part not only to be carbon neutral but carbon negative * How not to solve the issue: Why climate change strikes won't do anything * You'll do anything for your kids? How about saving the planet?! These are not only disgusting things for adults to be saying about a young girl, they also show societys vast undervaluing of the competence, intelligence and abilities of young people. How interesting that an adolescent person actively exercising her scientifically-informed opinions, walking her talk and leading by example, causes adults to behave like little children. Dont mistake Gretas recent emotional, moving speech in front of the UN for immaturity. Her fear is valid, and she speaks for us all. Age is irrelevant. While meaningless social media discourse isn't worth our time, its a scary window into the views of others. Calling strikers hypocrites and discrediting the entire movement merely because they participate in the unsustainable consumerist Western society they were born into only exposes the apathy of the accuser. The fact is that they too know the damaging consequences of our modern lifestyle, but simply do not care and are proud to insult those who do. If these people had ever bothered to genuinely interact with or understand our generation without a condescending lens, theyd see that todays young people have both pushed for and promoted a sea of mass change in society already; the phasing out of single-use plastic, promoting second hand shopping to combat destructive fast-fashion and exploitative labour, going vegan to reduce their footprint and stand up against animal exploitation, avoiding palm oil due to deforestation and the killing of wildlife. I would say that almost every single person who marched is doing one or more of these things, and they cared enough to strike and demonstrate their concern. Trust me, we know that every single thing we touch or do in this fragile world is likely to have a negative effect. While it is extremely important for individuals to live their values, its practically impossible to not be an environmentalist hypocrite in this capitalist world. Our current system favours the wealth of large, powerful corporations over the health of our planet and people, trading finite resources and abusing delicate, crucial ecosystems for money. Unless governments and industries are pressured enough to prioritise the issue of climate change and invest in sustainable alternatives, it will not be remotely possible for every single person to manage sustainable lifestyles on their own. Many of the most polluting industries externalise the cost of their pollution, meaning society pays for it and cleans up their mess. It renders sustainable alternatives economically uncompetitive, thus limiting the lower emission choices available to us. While it is true that every single individual can make a difference, it is just 100 companies and 25 corporate, state-owned entities responsible for 71 per cent of global emissions. Government, industry and individual action must be tackled simultaneously. New Zealand may only account for around 0.17 per cent of global emissions, but we have an out-sized carbon footprint, emitting 18 tonnes of greenhouse gasses per person, every year. That makes us the 21st biggest per capita contributor to climate change in the world. And amongst the other rich nations which we benchmark ourselves against, we have the fifth highest per capita emissions. But many try to exempt New Zealand from blame and point the finger at India and China. What a tragedy it would be for us to continue denying our complicity, instead of taking initiative and leading the way in environmental protection. We could finally live up to our clean, green image - the delusion which we constantly lean on to promote our agriculture and tourism industries. Now, I arrive at the entire point of a strike. A strike, by definition is "a refusal to work organised by a body of employees as a form of protest, typically in an attempt to gain a concession or concessions from their employer". Strikes are inherently designed to disrupt society. They are meant to be memorable and unavoidable. How would any of the shifts in society, such as the civil rights movement, the vote for women, indigenous rights, the womens marches, anti-war protests for example, be achieved if no ones day was interrupted and the shady business of the world went on as usual? Nothing that challenges the system has ever been achieved politely. Unfortunately in this society, you have to fight for social justice and, in this case, environmental justice too. Maybe its true that the damage is already done, and even the hardest fight is not enough. But well be damned if we do not try. No one should think for a single second that just because some find us laughable or irrational, that we will stop, say sorry, and begin to agree with the old colonial, environmentally destructive and anthropocentric ideologies that got us here in the first place. Every day that goes by, inching us closer and closer to fatal tipping points, we young people will be thinking forward, whether it be initiating challenging conversations with our elders, the conception and invention of new technology, drastic changes to consumer habits, or strikes and protests for better government policy. A better world is possible, where we utilise human intelligence for good and adapt our ways to benefit the planet instead of destroying it. If you are someone who denies climate change, its likely that you will remain as you are; ignorant to science, insistent on never changing, bitter that our voices are being heard, and perhaps, making yours feel obsolete. You will probably continue to only look at how things will affect you, and ignore the fact that those most vulnerable and least responsible in our world will be the ones to perish first. You will probably continue to talk s... online to make yourself feel better. Do whatever you want, because at the end of the day, change will happen with or without you. We, our children and our grandchildren, will be the ones left to deal with the true consequences and we simply refuse to accept this is our only future, that our ultimate fate will be decided for us by another generation who will not be around to see the result. For many young people, our views on climate justice stem from parents who raised us with values of respect and compassion. We genuinely want you by our side, making the environmental movement bigger and stronger - but we definitely do not need societys permission to act. Stuff Nation