It's Not Sadness Or Depression Pushing Young Climate Activism - It's Rage

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It’s worth noting that climate change activism in young people is not new: as a teenager 10 years ago, I remember campaigns and flash mobs aimed at raising awareness. The fact that those protests led to so little change, especially in Australia, suggests that what’s bursting forth now is not so much anxiety as frustration and outrage. The dissonance between slow action by politicians and increasing urgency from scientists has meant that young people are not speaking in the language of anxiety as much as forceful anger.

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Mr. Morrison did not attend the climate action summit, or the protests he criticized. But in a speech to the United Nations on Wednesday, he said Australia was on track to surpass its Kyoto commitment by 2020 and was doing its part to address climate change. Children, he added, had a right to optimism. But again, we have to ask: Is optimism really the right emotion based on the facts at hand?

The Climate Council said Australia’s targets were among the weakest of developed nations and that given greenhouse emissions have risen for the last four years, the government was trailing on the global stage, leaving local and state governments to take up the cause. (Something we’ll keep reporting on.)

Mr. Morrison’s call for optimism also comes at a time when scientists are expressing even more urgency in their warnings about climate change — and as flooding, drought and bushfires have pushed Australia to the brink of a “penny-dropping moment” about climate change, said Amanda McKenzie, the chief executive of the Climate Council. “Perhaps children would feel more optimistic if he started to take the problem of climate change seriously,” Ms. McKenzie added.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/27/world/australia/climate-change-youth.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fclimate&action=click&contentCollection=climate&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=5&pgtype=sectionfront