You have inherited hurricanes, floods, droughts, cyclones, freezing cold, heatwaves, acid rain, sea level rise, ocean acidification, damage to ecosystems, famines, depleting water resources and failing human health.
Your industries, agriculture, fisheries, forestry, energy, construction, insurance, financial services, tourism are being harmed by climate change caused by the global increase in temperature.
Your flora and fauna are dying and are being displaced by wildfires to search for better life conditions. Food production is endangered, causing disease, death, destruction, loss of economic livelihoods and migrations of climate refugees.
We have condemned you to life in a world thrown off balance by a global rise in temperature caused by our mismanagement of its resources. This is our legacy to you, what we are leaving to you in our will.
Previous generations have irresponsibly mismanaged the earth’s resources from day one. Hamster-like, we have been blindly turning the wheels of industry faster and faster over the years to increase production while squeezing the planet of its resources in pursuit of economic expansion. Needless, unjustified wars also helped to boost the economy producing war machines that pollute the atmosphere while being manufactured.
It all started way back in Neolithic times, when we started producing more than we needed for our personal consumption. It increased during the Industrial Revolution when worker productivity shot up. Technological developments since then have further boosted productivity. When workers have the ability to produce more than they need, the surplus will be taken up by the motivated few who made it their business to acquire the means of production.
In pre-industrial times, this resulted in a massive land grab which spawned the landed aristocratic elite.
That wealth inequality continued and even grew with the Industrial Revolution. Owners of wealth invested in vast production complexes employing thousands of workers.
Each year they added a substantial share of those workers’ production to their wealth, while workers earned barely enough to survive and rarely had significant wealth.
This pattern has continued up to the present day, when wealthy investors may hold substantial stakes in firms collectively employing millions. Global warming is the consequence of the uncontrolled expansion of polluting industrial production requiring the burning of fossil fuels to produce the energy required to generate profit.
Humans are mostly selfish and competitive, and economic activity is motivated by individual self-interest to the detriment of everybody else. The phrase ‘tragedy of the commons’ is an economic term that describes the situation where individuals act according to their self-interest to the detriment of everybody else. Examples of this are the cod fisheries breakdown in the 1960s, the present Blue Fin tuna crisis, plastic garbage patches in the ocean, the earth’s blighted atmosphere, traffic congestion and land exploitation.
Our generation has not managed to stem the spiralling global temperature rise enough to avert the disastrous consequences of climate change
The list goes on.
Capitalism takes the position that “greed is good”, which its supporters say is a positive thing – greed drives profits and profits drive innovation and product development, which means there are more choices available for everybody.
Capitalists seek to discover what people want and then produce it as efficiently as possible. Free-market capitalism is ruthless in its profit-and-loss discipline and it has led us to the edge of a precipice where our planet is running out of control. We have all been guilty of jumping on to the bandwagon and gorging on the earth’s resources to satisfy our material cravings.
In the meantime, OXFAM reports that: “The richest one per cent of the world’s population is worth more than the other 99 per cent.” The recently released Carbon Majors Report highlights how only “100 companies are responsible for 71 per cent of global emissions”. And the World Resources Institute tells us that: “The top three greenhouse gas emitters – China, the EU and the US – contribute more than half of total global emissions, while the bottom 100 countries only account for 3.5.”
The Times of Malta reported that a European Commission progress report found that Malta had failed to reach its emission reduction target “every year since 2013” and would again need to buy emission reduction credits from other countries that had exceeded theirs.
The reality is that since politicians are incapable of taking meaningful action to address the climate crisis, the corporate greed responsible for astronomical amounts of pollution goes unchecked. It isn’t true that solving the climate crisis is nothing more than a matter of turning off the water when we brush our teeth or using a metal straw. To stop the climate crisis, governments must be held accountable in taking action to solve the crisis.
The incontrovertible fact is that our generation has not managed to stem the spiralling global temperature rise enough to avert the disastrous consequences of climate change, and worse is yet to come. Sadly, scientists have found that tropical countries, which tend to be poorer and to have contributed less to climate change, are set to disproportionately suffer the more severe environmental changes.
There is however a ray of hope in that youth globally have become the vanguard in the fight against climate injustice. They are tired of having to live in a world created by people who do not have their best interests at heart. Climate change is not an isolated phenomenon, it is the real, imminent threat of a planet that cannot support life. It isn’t a distant threat, it’s happening right now.
The impacts of this crisis will be devastating for future generations.
It is heartening to see that youths are now protesting and employing advocacy as ways to combat climate change inaction. In November 2016, a group of 21 young people between the ages of nine and 20 sued the US government for failing to take adequate and appropriate action towards climate change and protecting public resources, resulting in a violation of the younger generations’ constitutional rights to life, liberty and property.
The Youth Climate March, also known as the “Zero Hour” March, held in Washington on July 21, along with sister marches that took place around the world, are testament to the fact that the world’s youth do not depend on adults to help improve their lives on this planet. This teenager-led movement used the power of social media and advocacy to raise awareness and call for immediate action towards climate change.
Closer to home, students are following in the footsteps of Greta Thunberg, the founder of the Youth Strike for Climate movement who has been nominated for the Nobel peace prize. Thunberg began a solo protest in Sweden in August but has since inspired students around the globe. On March 15, students and environmental activists met at the University of Malta campus, walked to Valletta and gathered in front of Parliament to make noise and to cry out for change.
Keep it up, you are Planet Earth’s champions. Youth has always had the power to change things. We, the failed generations, can only admire your energy and applaud you in your efforts to right what is wrong.
George Camilleri is a council member of Din l-Art Ħelwa.
This is a Times of Malta print opinion piece