Kudos to the Morning Star’s editorial staff for your thoughtful rebuttal to Tom Fletcher’s March 27 narrow-minded, judgmental diatribe on the youth climate strike movement.
Your point that education is about much more than the three Rs was very welcome. Further, your argument that today’s youth (and future generations) are the ones who have the most to lose when it comes to the damage that we adults have inflicted on the Earth was spot on. All that needs to be added is this: the time for significant action is quickly running out.
It is no surprise that the global youth movement demanding action on the climate crisis exploded in the wake of the 2018 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations structure that evaluates current climate science. The report, though couched in science-speak and moderated by the inherently conservative process of consensus building, is crystal clear and deeply worrying: Recent generations have allowed the build-up of carbon dioxide and other Green House Gases to pose a profound and multifaceted threat to the viability of human society as we know it.
Hundreds of millions of lives are imperiled and the timelines to intervene are short. We have about one decade to make reductions of almost 50 per cent to GHG emissions from 2010 levels; we have only three decades to bring emissions down to net zero.
If the adults in charge are to safeguard the future of today’s youth we must take bold actions now to fundamentally change the way we generate our energy, heat our homes, transport ourselves and our commercial products, grow our food, and run our industries.
Young people get it. It’s time for us adults, the ones with most of the economic and political power, to follow their lead.
Barry Dorval
@VernonNews
letters@vernonmorningstar.com
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