The Essay

An open letter to the Climate Youth of the Global North: It’s time for a Youth Spring.

[I’m sure this letter will draw proper ire from my fellow adults. Some will say I am patronizing, even condescending. Some will say that urging children to risk getting run over by cars is the epitome of cowardice. And maybe they’re right; maybe I’m all these things. Certainly, I’m no better than the other adults, themselves included, who have not done what it takes to save our children from the unfolding catastrophe of human-induced climate change. What this critique misses is that none of this is about me. It’s about the naked face of the system. A system that allowed for and continues to allow for this destruction. The same system that will not even offer our children what we pretend to be democracy. This is where they are at. And I acknowledge both the irony and shame in which I must now beg them, beg our children, not only to save us but to bring us real democracy. If what I am proposing does not work, these young people will be in the same boat they’re in right now, only then with the confirmation that those in power, and the facilitators of this system, have no intention of ever doing what is necessary. If it does work, however, which I believe wholeheartedly it will, these children will go down in history as the generation that saved the world. Of course, it is not for fame or a place in history that they must do this. It is because they are their only hope. If left to the adults, if left to this system, we will decimate this planet worse than even the scientists can imagine. So let them read it. See what they do. Because it’s not up to you, or me. It’s up to them. They get to make the decision. Because they are the most affected.]

Dear Climate Youth,

We have failed you. We politicians, we business people, we media, we activists, we adults. I wish I could tell you it was merely a symptom of our age. But it is not. It is that this system succeeded in making each generation before you believe that working within the system was the only way, and that enough gradual change was on the way.

With our votes, our lifestyle changes, and our acceptable activism, so many of us adults stayed safely within the parameters of dissent laid out by the system. And we were easily swallowed up. So far, you too have stayed within the system, your actions too often falling within the frame of what is acceptable.

But what is acceptable is what can be ignored, suppressed, defeated. If you do not learn the lesson that we did not learn and immediately deviate from what the system considers to be acceptable action, you will get older and the system will swallow you up as well.

Your future is not a matter of whether or not we are ready to change. It is a matter of whether or not you will step outside this frame. You can no longer ask us, or even tell us. You must make us.

The system will not listen. It must be forced. The system must be changed.

This is not just about the climate. It is about democracy itself. You are the most affected, thus you should have the most say. And yet because of your age, you are given no power. You are told you must wait until you are an adult, so you can then vote for another adult who will ultimately acquiesce to the system. In other words, you must wait until you are the same adults that have failed you thus far, so you may work within the same system that has failed you thus far.

Our only hope, your only hope, is the irony of you listening to what the system is really telling you: Because those most affected are not afforded a legal vote, they have no other option but to vote in a different way. This is only logical. If the system will not let those most affected save themselves, those most affected must step outside the system.

No more petitions, no more permit-granted marches, no more occasional doses of anger. It is time for you to Strike. You have used the language of Labor. Now it is time to make good on that language.

A real Strike has just two elements: A list of demands. And an undeniable demonstration of your collective power and sustained commitment to SHUT SHIT DOWN. You have no reason to believe, no evidence to hope upon, that anything less than this will work.

Even then, it may be at such a late stage, you cannot fully reverse all that has been done. But you may be able to save yourselves from the worst.

Look at what you have done thus far. You can do this too. But make no mistake. You must do this. You must Strike. And you must Strike soon.

It’s time to make your list.

And as you make that list, know that you have science on your side, and the right to a future. No one can deny this.

So don’t be timid. If you’re going to win, win big. When they will give you nothing, when they will not even give you a vote, you might as well ask for anything. You might as well ask for everything. Because, remember, you’re not asking. You’re not even telling. You are taking what is yours. You are recreating your future.

Consult with the scientists. Look at the proposals. They’re out there. They’ve been out there. There is a way out of this. But only if the policy is clear, and it has teeth.

This is not a set of guidelines, nor is it an outline of principles. It is strict, enforceable policy. Do not worry about the lawmakers. Worry only about what the climate scientists have to offer your list and the future that list may salvage.

And while the representative/activist youth who make this list may only be a relative few, the democracy determining whether or not this list is worthy, and if it will ultimately be adopted and implemented, is in how many youth will join in the Strike’s second element.

For, once your list is complete, you will deliver it to your politicians and give them a chance to enact your policy into law. And when those politicians either deny or try to water down your list of demands until they are acceptable thus irrelevant, you must then deliver your warning.

A warning in which you will announce the number of weeks you will not be going to school but instead will be organizing and planning for the consequence of them denying you your future. For you will need these few weeks to coordinate with municipal and local utility workers, as well as with trucking companies, logistics operations, and all relevant parties to the shipping and receiving of food and medicine.

Because, at the end of those few weeks, you will give the politicians another chance to enact your list of policy demands – in full. And if they do not take you seriously at this point, if they continue to deny you your future, they will then have left you with no other choice but to collectively and strategically take that first step out into traffic, and SHUT SHIT DOWN.

Just as they tell you a habitable planet is too costly, you must find what level of disruption in commerce and movement they will deem unaffordable. 

Be efficient with your numbers; be clever with your maneuvers. Be creative and patient. Execute your design. You will have already arranged for the movement of crucial goods and services. Everything else that you can shut down – gets shut down. 

No one goes about their daily business until you get a different future.

You stop the traffic, strategically, nationally, for one day? And then you stop the traffic another? And then another? And you prove to them that you will keep this up for as long as it takes to have your policy demands enacted as-is into law? I doubt it will take more than a couple weeks for them to capitulate.

But even if it takes four weeks, or six weeks, know that you can do this. You have the smarts to strategize it. You have the technology to organize it. You have the numbers to pull it off.

But more than all that, you have a secret weapon. You have your age.

There is a reason why nothing else will work. An adult can always be demonized if the system appears threatened.

While organized labor may have the capability to shut down commerce, even they can be beaten and massacred if the powers that be deem it necessary. Furthermore, in today’s media there will always be a reporter, a camera angle, or video editor than can make it seem acceptable for law enforcement to have done what it is reported they had to do.

But not you. You are the only ones who cannot be brutalized at the whims of the powerful. No amount of propaganda, no amount of spin, will make a people watch and stand down as their children are bullied.

You must turn your age into leverage. It is all you have. Which is fitting, because you are all you have. I wish it were another way. But this is what the system has left us. And the system’s only “weakness” is that it has not beaten enough humanity out of us that children can be hurt en masse.

This is not to say some of you won’t get hurt. You must expect there to be reactionary violence. You must prepare for it. You must take your immediate safety as seriously as you do any part of your strategy. Movements for justice don’t have to produce martyrs. If you are effective in your communication and keep to a disciplined nonviolence, you can minimize casualties.

That kind of discipline, that earnestness, will remind those watching – there is no argument to be made on the other side, except that survival with dignity would be an inconvenience to the bottom line. You have the science and your right to a future. They have their profits and a status quo that grows more horrific every day. They cannot deny this.

They can only make it difficult. And that they will.

This is why you have to be smart. You will have to be flexible and set to adapt. It will not go as smoothly as you want. There will be all kinds of unforeseen developments. This is where your planning will pay off. This is where your messaging will pay off. This is where the love of your family and/or friends will pay off.

For it is not just your numbers. It is the number of family and friends supporting you, many of whom will volunteer to assist in your coordination efforts. Many more will be putting the fear of God into their elected representatives. Indeed, the task may be daunting, but you must know that you will not be alone.

Just remember, while adults may help facilitate certain aspects of the Strike, the direction must come from you. Moreover, adults may provide food, water, transportation, funds, etc., but only kids can be in the street. The moment they can point to adults among you, it will muddy the waters as to who is making the decisions, in turn giving them a better shot at justifying force.

I would personally recommend only teens up to voting age. Old enough to comprehend and make the decision, young enough to not have the vote. And, above all, young enough that the media will have the obligation to continually refer to you as children.

And while these types of strategic decisions will be your own to make, I would also recommend you arrange your front lines according to societal privilege. There may be a limit to how much nonviolent civil disobedience the powerful will tolerate from you before they resort to violence. But there is also a limit to how much violence this society will tolerate being doled out against certain family members.

I know this is cynical. But privilege and blood stains are not the norm, and the ones who facilitate and maintain the status quo are nothing if not cynical.

So make sure to bring as many cameras as they bring cops. And, also, bring the children of cops. For, once the first few cops begin to leave their post, walk across that line, and sit down in the street, in uniform, with their children, you will know then that victory is near.

All it will take is for enough uniforms to realize. This cannot end with them telling you no. Because telling you no will mean it is their job to then beat, jail, and possibly kill children merely because the powerful would rather see that outcome than to affirm human civilization and its future. And even I am not cynical enough to put money on that outcome.

Then again, it’s not my gamble to make. It’s yours. Though I would suggest, every day you put this off, you make an even riskier gamble. The system is made to wait. You do not have that luxury. Every excuse you make as to why you’re not stepping outside the system is an excuse you make for the system. The same as the adults who have failed you.

I am sorry that this is being put on you. It is an obligation not of your making. But if you really do want to win, it is an obligation.

You have what it takes to bring about a Youth Spring. But there are only so many seasons left for such a movement to occupy. Another generation and it will be too late.

Again, you have the science on your side. You have the right to a future.

There can be no more going about daily business. The traffic has to stop.

It’s time to make your list and deliver your warning.

– Anonymous