The Ageism of Climate Change
Whether or not Trump, Modi, and the whole congregation of old (predominantly white but kind of all shades) of men, like it or not, the UN Climate Week was single-handedly cornered by Greta Thunberg. A 16-year-old teenage activist from Sweden who is “taking over the microphone” from the incumbent “business-as-usual” (BAU) group.
One of the most fundamental things one can notice from the School strike for climate movement led by Teenagers, is the age-gap, in the opinions, perspectives, and actions regarding climate change. While a great many men and women of older age today stand in society and bring extremely valuable wisdom of years with them, the selfish objective world view of a 60-year-old individual with 20 years to live and a 20-year-old individual with 60 years to live (assuming a life expectancy of 80 years) is fundamentally different.
Yet, another business-as-usual in the present world is the majority occupation of opinions, perspectives, and decisions by a small-group of majorly male, majorly old people who impact, define, and decide for lives of this planet and its people. Walk into any major conference, panel discussion, parliament, news channel, writers summit, and you will observe a stark contrast in the age of the speakers and listeners. The possession of the global microphone by a minority of so-deemed influential business and political leader, in a world where they are becoming increasingly inconsequential is the ageism of climate change.
Let’s look at the 4 following categories of people on the planet today : the (1950 to 1965 born) baby boomers who are aged from 55 to 70+ today, (1965 to 1985 born) Gen X aged from 35 to 55 today, (1985 to 2000 born) Millennials aged 20 to 35 at the moment, and last but most important Gen Z (born after 2000) aged under 20 today.
From wealth concentration to a voice or decision making power, the graph will fall exponentially from Baby Boomers to Gen Z. While every other white-head loves to say “We need to leave a better planet for our children and grandchildren”, none of the whiteheads are going and asking those children and grandchildren what does a better planet really constitutes for them.
In the last decade, many academics have explored the race, gender, income inequality pervasive in the environmental dissonance, the most prominent and uniting of them all is the age inequality. The pervasive ageism actually highlights one of the key aspects of the “business as usual” a list of age-old, inertia-driven practices of fossil fuel-dependent life, the plastic invasion in the economy, the fairy tales of eternal economic growth, and most important the centuries-old notion of “respect for the old”.
While in no way do I, as an author, mean disrespect for the old, and have everything to endow to my grandparents, 60+-year-old professors and managers to the wisdom, values, and character imparted in me; none of it would or should translate to either of them making any decisions for me. Yet, when it comes to global socio-economic-political systems, the world-at-large is comfortable with the idea of a room full of baby boomers deciding life for the world of Millenials and Gen Z.
I wanted to dig deeper as to why for all these years before me this concept of respect and deference for the older was the standards. Why did my father from Gen X revere my grandfather, a baby boomer; in a way that none of my siblings from the turn of the millennia can even imagine or practice to respect our very own parents.
Possession of wealth, power, and information have been the three key features defining “success” and dictating the respect economy of the world. Donald Trump (73) commands respect from his voter base for his amassed wealth, Putin (66) for his control of the largest country on this planet, and Modi (69) for his command over the largest democracy in the world.
But this centuries-old equation of power and respect changed in the early 2000s with the rise of the internet, the great equalizer. From its beginning in Silicon valley to reach in a small town of India, with the lifetime of today’s millennials the internet grew from carrying 1% of all the telecommunicated information in 1993 to 97% by 2007. Founded by two Ph.D. students in 1998, to be the bread and butter of every other student across the world by 2003–04, Google made available all the world’s information regardless of age, gender, or nationality to the entire world’s folks. And more often than not, it was the youth, the digital native generation of Millenials that pounced on this constant expansive supply of knowledge before their ever-so-respectful parents and teachers.
After the turn of the millennia, for the last 20 years, technological advancements led a knowledge-gap shrinkage, but this rarely translated into any changes in the voice-opinion-decision-power gap. The societal interia of inequitable allocation of respect to older male richer population continued.
The global addiction of inequitable decision making power in the hands of a select non-representative few continued. And in many ways, the eternal self-undermining of valid knowledge, opinions, and perspectives in and for younger people continued.
The wave of backlash to Greta Thunberg, centered around the validity of her voice and opinion rests in the age-old-ageism of our society. Even while stating absolute facts backed by science, Greta is not old enough, cheerful enough, mentally manipulated, a dummy for liberal climate organizations, and most of all, just an activist or a rabble-rouser, not an actual decision-maker.
A change in status-quo that reverses an undue privilege is always painful to the privileged and is strongly resisted. Abolition of slavery in the 1800s, the end of colonialism in the 1900s, and seems like the end of ageism in the 2000s was and is opposed by the slaved owners, colonialists, and 59.8-year-old global presidents and 57-year-old Fortune 500 CEO.
Bernard Arnault (70), Chairman & CEO of luxury giant LVM “She is a dynamic young girl” but said her views are “demoralizing for young people”
With great power comes great responsibility, and in many ways to capitalize on the knowledge equity of the 21st century and eradicate the biases of ageism, one generation, in particular, has to pick up its game. Behind every Greta voicing her opinions, has to be 10s of Millenials backing it with actions to change the world. For every criticism thrown at her or a statement of description, 100s of actions by the Millenials transforming the patterns of business, consumption, investment, and elections have to follow-up.
The greatest limitations lie within not without. For decades, the young actionable capable and informed generation of today has recently followed the path of the erstwhile respectful giants of yesterday. Maybe it’s time to break the shackles of our comforting jobs and norms feeding us the addition of monthly payroll. Maybe, it is time to respect our own thoughts, actions, and vision, and command an equitable control of the world and lead the global change.
