The Climate Clock Is Ticking: Will The Elite Fix It In Time?
- Olivia Rafferty
- Mar 31, 2019
- 3 min read
Sunlight reflects off the river, encompassed by bustling banks of tourists dressed in t-shirts, showing off their designer sunglasses. Children have populated the parks, filling the air with laughter and forging that endless sense of time that only summer is capable of bringing.
Who would guess that it’s a winter’s day?
UK temperatures this February were the highest on record since 1910. A sharp contrast to last year’s ‘Beast from the East’ – which saw violent cyclones of snow blast through the UK – this winter was unusually mild.
Yet, climate change is still a concept many refuse to acknowledge.
Defined by the UNFCC as a change of climate linked to human activity altering the global atmosphere over a certain time period, climate change is now considered a scientific consensus – not a theory.
Dying ecosystems, freak storms and the engulfment of small islands are amongst the many consequences that scientists have warned us about within the next 50 years.
That is why 16-year-old Greta Thunberg has decided it’s time to take control of Earth’s future, as well as her own. August 2018 saw her first school strike in front of the Swedish parliament, where she vowed to skip every Friday until the elite start to take some serious action.
Greta Thunberg wishes to demand policy re-shaping until world temperatures can stay safely under the 2-degree limit.
Her revolt inspired #FridaysForFuture, a student-driven movement that “no longer sees the point in studying for a future”, which may never exist.
March 15th was the first globally organised strike. It witnessed 1.6 million young people in over 125 countries walk out of school and onto the streets to demand change.
Milan was the city with the highest global turnout. Here’s my take on the Fridays For Future march there.
So, are they listening? Is the elite going to respond to these young voices?
Greta Thunberg doesn't believe so. As seen when she ridiculed them on Twitter earlier this month:
Denial by politicians like Donald Trump – who plans to withdraw the US from the Paris Climate Change Agreement in 2020 – has relentlessly proven so.
Claudia McHardy and Cloud Islay McDowell, recent additions to this force, express how “incredibly dangerous” he is. “[Though] on his own he is a madman who would never harm big business interests”, they point out the dangerous forces who support him both in the States and internationally.
Claudia remarks on how much Extinction Rebellion (XR) has developed since it was founded in October 2018: “The speed with which XR became my entire life was so quick… we just share such a strong common drive in the face of this mammoth challenge.”
Commenting on their immense respect for Greta, Cloud smiles and states: “She’s just a powerhouse, she’s beyond anyone’s years. She’s timeless.”
Though neither believes they could have been as strong-willed at her age, both affirm they would get arrested. “The normal thing that comes to mind is, ‘Oh, but my future’, but I might not have a future. Like, literally,” Cloud’s voice quivers.
Peter Havers, a 19-year-old business student recounts his childhood, strongly shaped by his “armchair activist mother”, amongst the first to found a carbon offsetting business. “Hours were spent grocery shopping, every flight we took was offset, but I definitely didn’t have a deprived childhood.”
Like Extinction Rebellion, he realises that politicians and large institutions are the key to real change: “To solve global warming we must get into the thick of things, and force our way up.”
But he questions protests, and how effective they really are: “In 60 years’ time, the generation behind us will call us out on our wrongdoings. We will turn around and inevitably be resistant, but we have a right to this resistance.” That is why the answer can’t come from marches alone.
As individuals there is still a lot we can do: go vegan, get bamboo toothbrushes, plant more trees – but an immediate turnaround begins with the elite.
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