Young People
Ever wonder how to send the blogosphere into a frenzy? One sure-fire way is to denigrate America’s youth for complacency, and then publish it in the nation's paper of record. Happened to NYT columnist Thomas Friedman with his column Generation Q -- “Q” for "too quiet" for the country’s own good. As one blogger said, "the piece sparked off a fresh round of blogosphere disgust over how clueless he is.”
No one was more disgusted than the climate bloggers and activists at It’s Getting Hot In Here, the blog of the youth climate movement, started and moderated by the Energy Action Coalition. A blogger's response:
Mr. Friedman is right about one thing: Facebook “causes” and email petitions just won’t cut it!
But he’s wrong if he thinks young people aren’t organizing and building a movement that will do exactly what he challenges us to do: stand face to face to power and demand our chance to build a sustainable, just and prosperous future!
Is that anger we sense? You bet. And well-deserved. Young people across America have been unequivocally loud and clear on the climate issue for years. They started by demanding greener, cleaner, carbon neutral campuses. And guess what? They got 'em. University presidents have heeded their calls in growing numbers.
Their agenda these days is much broader. A new America. A reversal of frenzied self-destruction. A transformation of the global economy. They're doing it through point-and-click activism. And that's just the half of it.
Organizing. Rallying. Marching. Getting arrested. They brought us Fossil Fuels Day. Energy Independence Day. The powerful virtual march Step it Up. Step It Up 2. Powershift, The nation’s first youth climate summit. The Campus Climate Challenge. Break the Addiction with MTV, who's new climate campaign MTV Switch aims to reach 1.5 billion young people across the globe.
They’re YouTubing, blogging, podcasting. They’re sophisticated. They know climate policy prescriptions and Beltway politics inside and out, and they’re holding presidential candidates' feet to the fire.
If you’ve just tuned into climate, or you don’t hover in the netroots or on college campuses, you may have missed the excitement. You may have missed the birth of the first mass student movement since the days of the war in Vietnam.
But you’ve seen the effects. The explosion of media coverage on the issue. Top billing in candidates' policy agendas. The Nobel Prize.
Choose to connect the dots as you wish, but there's reason to believe that America's young people had something to do with this. And expect lots more. Evidence abounds that when young people get behind an issue in big numbers they steer a new course of history. It’s a perfect recipe. Youthful idealism plus an intolerable distaste for injustice. Rocket fuel to light the social activist fire. It happened with the Civil Rights movement. With sit-ins and the widespread college involvement that exploded in the mid 60s. Same with the war in Vietnam and Apartheid.
But the social movement to defend against climate change is different. It's bigger. It's global. The largest in history some say. And it needs sustained urgency and innovation and unrelenting dedication. Who best to lead the charge than the generation who will be most affected by climate catastrophes, our nation's youngest voters? Guess that's why they've stepped up to the plate.
It's still uncertain how the cards will fall in the climate fight. But one thing's for sure: the climate youth movement is bound to make its mark, and make a difference.