If the Kids are United
Climate Change and the Problem of Future Generations
As many are slightly unsettled by the warm temperatures in the UK this February and we see heat records broken time and again, the reality of climate change and its effects move another step closer. While some might wonder whether we are allowed to enjoy the sun, or should we now really start to change our behaviour, children around the world have had enough with the endless procrastination of adults.
It started when Greta Thunberg, the 16-year old climate activist from Sweden, told off politicians at the United Nation’s 24th climate summit, held in Poland in December 2018. Months earlier, Greta had stopped going to school on Fridays, to instead raise awareness of the Swedish government’s inadequate environmental policies. At the climate conference, she scorned the adults for their self-interested and short-sighted attitude towards addressing climate change. Motivated by her speech, students worldwide followed her example. In the UK, Germany, France, Uganda, the United States, Belgium, Columbia, and many other places, students strike for their future. It seems that Greta was a catalyst needed to unite young people in action.
The anger of the young is directed at their parent’s and grandparent’s generations for not doing enough, or anything at all, to reduce emissions and leave a habitable world for their offspring. Their protests imply that a philosophical dilemma that has traditionally plagued those trying to give arguments for why current generations should care about the mess they leave behind, is becoming less relevant.
This dilemma concerns justice between generations. To many, it seems intuitive to say that we owe duties to everyone alive at the moment, like human rights or an opportunity to lead decent lives. But what about those who are not yet born? Do we owe anything to future generations? Do they have rights, even though they don’t exist yet? To give an example, should the Romans have thought about our generation when they went about expanding their empire? It seems strange to say that French nationals can make any claims on the Romans and say they have acted unjustly towards them by invading a piece of land that has since become France.
This poses a problem to motivating action on climate change. If we don’t owe future generations anything, why care about reducing emissions? We could just do what is necessary to ensure that we, together with our children and grandchildren have a good life. The effects of our actions will be felt in the far future, but it is not clear why we owe people born in 2300 anything.
The problem of future generations is that they cannot make their voice heard. We can only imagine what their demands will be. It is reasonable to assume that they will want a habitable earth that allows them to live a good life. But they have no power over us. They can’t punish us if we don’t leave them anything, and they can’t give us anything in return if we do leave them something. On the other hand, we, the generations alive now, have all the power to determine the lives of all future persons.
Such a highly unequal relationship is problematic for those theories of justice that understand justice as requiring some sort of mutual relationship. This means that we only have duties towards those who can give back, directly or indirectly. Although common sense tells us that it is deeply unfair for us to use up all the earth’s resources and not leave enough for those after us, it is difficult for these theories to account for duties we have towards people who will have rights in the future, but don’t have them now.
This is merely a crude representation of the debate around intergenerational justice. But I want to point out that the problem the debate is trying to solve, namely how we can ground duties to future generations, is becoming less relevant when it comes to climate change.
The philosophical problem is how to motivate action on climate change despite the difficulty of establishing duties we have to generations in the distant future. Such arguments might have been more relevant in the 1970s, when 2050 and 2100 seemed further away. But as the student strikes are bringing to attention now, our failure to drastically reduce emissions and change the way we consume, travel, and live, is not just taking away from some strangers living in 2300. We are now threatening the future of our children, and even our own.
I was born in the 1990s, so I might still be around in 2050. My children, should I have any, would hopefully still live in 2100. These are dates to which many of the harrowing predictions presented to us apply, such as an increase in extreme weather events, rising sea levels that swallow the land people live on, chocolate potentially becoming extinct by 2040 and insects in one hundred years. I wonder what the world will look like when I reach the age my grandmother is now. And I can’t even fathom how my grandchildren would grow up.
Politicians have to cater to their constituencies. Traditionally, this brought a challenge to reconcile demands of justice among those alive now and between generations. When it comes to deciding where efforts and money should go, politicians tend to go with those who can vote for them. Again, the future is voiceless. But every year, more persons who see their future threatened and taken away by the short-term thinking of those in power, reach voting age.
Will this lead to a change in how politics responds to climate change? Jean-Claude Juncker’s promise to increase EU spending on climate change and Angela Merkel’s support for the strikes point in one direction. The UK government’s lack of interest to participate in a debate on climate change and Theresa May telling students they should go to school, rather than fight for their future, point in another.
Time will tell. But with every day, more persons who will have to live with the consequences of what we are doing now are born. Every day, the collective lethargy of responding to climate change becomes less viable.
