Generation Zero
Young people today will inherit our response to climate change. They are the first to live entirely under the looming reality of a rapidly changing world. They are Generation Zero.
What we do right now to mitigate our impact on the climate is crucial for a stable world tomorrow. Young people today frequently identify climate change as an important issue and rightfully so.
In just a few decades our understanding of a larger human-caused problem has evolved. As someone who lands in the generational ambiguity between Gen X and Millenials, the conversation surrounding climate change has taken place more or less in the entirety of my own lifetime.
I have childhood memories from a time when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was first convened and efforts to mitigate human impact on the climate would have been relatively minimal.
Since then, about the time the first episode of The Simpsons aired, the prospects of a warming planet have gone from noteworthy to full crisis. It is a span of time, on an archeological scale, that is utterly minuscule but dramatic enough to change the climate as we know it.
As far back as 35 years ago, it would have been understandable to question the limited number of scientific studies regarding the subject but as research has proliferated the consensus has become clear. The planet is warming and humans are the cause. Decrying object data today is a tired excuse for doing nothing.
In 1988, George H. W. Bush campaigned on tackling the growing threat of the “greenhouse effect.” Shortly after his inauguration, for various reasons, the United States became the world leader not in climate solutions but in climate inaction and disinformation.
This inaction is the legacy we are leaving to the next generation, Generation Zero. My own kids.
The instability, frequent and extreme weather events, sea-level rise, species loss, increased resource scarcity and uncertainty caused by just 1.5 degrees of warming by century's end is already being observed right now. The effects can be felt in central Colorado. To say we knew about it but chose not to change course is a monumental failure.
Earlier this spring students around the world began participating in school walkouts to push global leaders into action to mitigate climate change. Some reports estimate that more than 150,000 students were inspired to protest when walkouts began. They are speaking out against inaction today that will impact the world tomorrow. I commend them for speaking out and encourage more to do the same.
These students and young people will be the first generation forced to deal with a world severely impacted by global warming. It will be impossible for them to ignore the issue or pass the consequences onto yet another generation that follows. That is why they are the most likely to identify climate change as a concern and the most motivated to take action.
The topic of climate change in America is still perceived as controversial, open for debate or mostly just ignored. An open discourse should be encouraged especially with kids and other young people. The natural world is often perceived as “out there” or separate from our daily lives but in a twist of fate, the more we ignore climate change the more we will be confronted by it. For Generation Zero it will become a reality that cannot be ignored.
