Sustainability advocate Madeline Diamond takes climate change message to Australian of the Year awards

When Madeline Diamond took to the stage for the Australian of the Year awards in Canberra last night she wanted to empower young people to "step up and make their voices heard". 

Madeline Diamond makes a statement at
 the 2020 Australian of the Year awards.

The ACT Young Australian of the Year attended the televised awards ceremony at the National Arboretum with the words "climate justice" written across her chest. 

"I just wanted to send a message to young people that we don't always have to follow the rules when we're trying to get work done to secure our future," she said. 

"Climate change is a really urgent issue so to always do what you're told and play by the rules, it's not going to get us anywhere. We do have to step outside of the boundaries sometimes."

Read the ABC News story by Penny Travers - “Sustainability advocate Madeline Diamond takes climate change message to Australian of the Year awards.” 

It’s Time for the Business World to Declare a Climate Emergency

Following the lead of young people fomenting an Extinction Rebellion, the U.K. parliament just declared a climate emergency on May 1, and the governor of the Bank of England stated plainly that climate risk is an existential threat we can no longer ignore.

Yes, it's time for business to declare a climate emergency.

And that was before the recent UN report warning of the likely imminent extinction of 1 million species. The U.S. was one of 132 nations that signed off on the report. According to the panel’s chairman, the decline in biodiversity is eroding “the foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide.” In short, the report says that we are killing things necessary for our own survival.

Some who prefer business as usual may think, or even hope, this global wave of attention generated by activists and scientists is a passing tremor that will soon be forgotten like others before them. Some believe we are witnessing a seismic shift, shaking the foundations of institutional power in recognition of the existential threat of climate change. I’m not sure.

Read the Medium story by Jay Coen Gilbert - “It’s Time for the Business World to Declare a Climate Emergency.”

Generational conflict comes to a polling place near you

The truth is our young people are interested in political issues, but that interest is unfashionably idealistic. They really care about fairness to the LGBTI community, climate change and the environment more broadly.

They’re not yet sufficiently old and cynical to have realised that politics has devolved into a self-centred free-for-all, where you jump into the ring to advance and protect your own interests at the expense of those with less muscle.

Illustration: Andrew Dyson

When last my colleague Jessica Irvine expressed support for Labor’s plan to end the refunding of unused dividend imputation credits to all except those receiving an age pension or part-pension, an angry reader accused her of “continuing to fuel the fire of inter-generational envy”.

Sorry, that argument doesn’t wash. It’s one the well-off and their champions have used for ages. What it’s really saying is, “it’s a sin for you to envy the fruits of my greed”.

When people accuse others of “the politics of envy” or inciting “class warfare”, their true message is: I’m winning, you’re losing, so why won’t you just accept it? Just be nice and stop trying to make things fairer.

Read the opinion piece from The Age by Ross Gittins - “Generational conflict comes to a polling place near you.”

Youth leading way with action

I welled up on Thursday evening as I listened to Triple J current affairs program ‘’Hack’’.

Sounds of passionate young people rung out through my car’s speakers; reminding me of just how incredibly hard young people have fought across the globe to push issues to the forefront of governments’ minds.

I got goosebumps as they played audio of thousands of students leading the charge on gun law reform in the United States this year.

These young people sparked something in our own students in Australia.

Just last month students exited their classrooms and took to the streets to push the issue of climate change. I admire these students. I wish I had the courage they have to be heard when I Motivated: was in high school.

The students defied the cries of Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who told them there should be less activism in the classroom. Their response? ‘‘We’ll be less activist if you be less s**t.’’

While our current national leader thinks it is a great idea to bring a block of coal to parliament and wave it around in the faces of fellow politicians, he thinks it is not such a great idea for students to lead the charge when it comes to the security of their futures.

This, to me, is baffling.

I come from a generation of young people who have often been dismissed when it comes to our get-up-and-go.

We are the children of the technology generation and with that comes connotations that we would much rather spend our time buried in our own selfish needs rather than taking an interest in the world around us.

But if these two examples, and there are plenty more, show anything, it is that this view could not be further from the truth.

Yet what reaction do young people get ‘’superiors’’?

To go back to school and to basically shut up.

And only adding salt to the students’ wounds is the complete and utter disregard of real action needed to tackle climate change by the Federal Government.

I myself was just a high school student when I first watched Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth.

It was the first time I had ever been told about the terrifying future that lay ahead for our climate and those living within it.

I remember sitting back, from their taking it all in and thinking about the small changes in my own behaviour that I could make in order to reduce my carbon footprint.

There was absolutely no question in my mind that this was a real and incredibly scary problem that would definitely affect me and my children in my lifetime.

To know that more than 10 years later, our Federal Government undoubtedly houses several climate sceptics is just ridiculous.

To even write the term climate sceptic is ridiculous.

And the fact that they are failing to meet emission reduction targets is just a real world example of their lack of inaction on the issue.

But now, we need to stand alongside these Aussie youngsters and let them know someone is listening.

If the recent wild weather across the state has demonstrated anything, it is that we are already experiencing the grips of climate change and our government needs to listen to the pleas of Australia’s young people and do something about it.

Comment from The Shepparton News by Tara Whitsed - “Youth leading way with action.”

Helping kids cope with trauma from weather disasters

In September 2017, Hurricane Harvey closed schools in Texas for weeks. It stranded some families in their homes and forced others to evacuate, unsure if or when they would be able to return.

Our kids will need our care and attention as climate change closes in.

Simpson: “Not only did the hurricane throw off our daily lives, it also created this storm of uncertainty around everyone.”

Shelly Simpson is a social worker who counsels young adults at Houston’s Menninger Clinic. She says natural disasters can be particularly hard on young people.

Read the Yale Climate Connections story by Daisy Simmons -  “Helping kids cope with trauma from weather disasters.”

Climate inaction will leave our kids a trillion dollar debt

Unless we drastically cut our carbon emissions, today’s young people will have to pay up to US$535 trillion to clean up the atmosphere, according to a new study. That’s how much it would cost them to remove carbon dioxide emissions from the air using negative emissions technologies to avoid the worst effects of climate change.

Inaction on climate change will leave our kids
with a clean up debt in the trillions of dollars.

In 2015, 196 nations signed the Paris agreement to limit global warming to 2°C. But some experts believe even that won’t be enough to keep the climate from wreaking havoc. Hansen and his colleagues say that it would be better to bring carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere down from today’s 400 parts per million to a relatively safer 350 parts per million.

Reaching this goal won’t be possible just by limiting fossil fuel emissions, writes an international research team led by renowned climate researcher James Hansen, a professor at Columbia University’s Earth Institute, in the journal Earth System Dynamics. It will also require negative emissions, which involves sucking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

Read the story by Prachi Patel on Anthropocene - “Climate inaction will leave our kids a trillion dollar debt.”

Ecokit's modular prefab cabins are sustainable and arrive flat packed

U.S. cities aren’t the only ones with an affordable housing crisis. Take Australia, whose major metros are routinely some of the most unaffordable in the world and where a growing number of young people are renting and living longer with parents.

Flat pack, affordable and sustainable.

Just as how skyrocketing housing costs have fueled interest in alternative dwellings like tiny houses and prefabs stateside, they’ve also inspired designers Down Under to find new solutions through architecture. One such idea currently under development is Ecokit, an energy-efficient prefab kit house that can be built by two people in a few weeks.

Three years in the making, the Ecokit house is a modular, flat-packed design built from thermal-insulated panels and eco-friendly materials. The exterior looks something like a small, modern barn with a gabled roof, slanted side walls, covered deck, and solar roof system that the company claims can generate both electricity and hot water. Renderings for the interior show an open-plan living and dining area, with a bedroom on the ground level and another in the mezzanine.

Read Jenny Xie’s Curbed story “Ecokit's modular prefab cabins are sustainable and arrive flat packed.”

Being the first and the last, we should be teaching the next

Today's generation is the first generation to feel the impacts of climate change and the last that can really do something about it.

Teaching young people about climate change – its causes, effects, and what we can do about it – is vital. Addressing climate change is a multi-generational problem that demands both immediate action and long term skills, understanding and solutions.

With another school year rapidly approaching, a flotilla of partners are working together to support educators in enhancing the climate literacy of American students and citizens. The campaign will demonstrate new and innovative ways to expand climate change learning opportunities for students, and will equip educators with science-based information and resources.

Read the story - “Teach4Climate Back to School 2016 Campaign.”

Many young people simply too busy with life to concern themselves with climate change

A

 recent discussion arrived at the conclusion that many young people are simply too busy with living to worry about and act upon the climate disruption that will severely limit their lives.

While the was a parochial conversation, the Guardian has talked with young people from around the world about why it’s hard for their peers to care about the environment, how they reconcile their fears about the future, what made them start caring, and the little things that give them hope.

Their story - “Young people speak out about their fears and hopes on climate change” – helps us understand why there is not a more sweeping mobilization of young people helping mitigate the causes of global warming.