Students are in a position to tackle climate change

Young Canadian’s feelings about climate change and the future are contradictory, alarming, and hopeful all at once

Ask anyone on campus and more likely than not, they’ll be concerned about climate change. And we have every reason to be concerned; living in yet another warmest year on record, one likely to reach 1.5 degrees of warming, things don’t appear to be getting much better.

Our federal politics seems dominated by a party (the Conservatives) running purely on negative politics, screaming for a carbon tax election and offering no viable alternative to addressing the overwhelming body of evidence that climate change is a serious, urgent crisis.

With every other party seemingly doomed to a parliamentary minority in opposition, what hope is there that a conservative majority will be serious about addressing climate change?

Internationally, the situation seems all the more dire.

From the Mediterranean to the US-Mexico border, migrants, increasingly displaced by climate related catastrophe, are facing heightened violence. Domestically, wealthy nations in Europe and North America are becoming increasingly hostile to these same migrants who manage to survive the dangerous journeys to new homes.

These same wealthy nations refused to strike a deal at the recent COP29 climate conference that the world’s poorest countries found satisfactory.

Instead, they only offered to pay a small portion of the necessary funding to address the disproportionate effects of climate change on developing countries. These are the same developing countries who by-and-large did not contribute to the greenhouse gas emissions that are causing the climate crisis, the emissions that were released in making the world’s wealthiest countries as wealthy as they are.

We, it seems, have every possible reason to be hopeless - and yet we overwhelmingly believe that together, we can address the climate crisis.

But young people’s feelings are not as simple as that overwhelming belief may suggest. But, as a start, our belief that action is possible is a good one.

Of the 71 per cent that believe change is possible, only half believe they can be part of it. In a seeming contradiction, almost half of all young people believe humanity is doomed.

What does it mean for students to be hopeful and hopeless at the same time? While you might take it as a sign of deep uncertainty, a more hopeful reading might suggest students recognize both the gravity of the problem and the necessity of a solution.

Young people’s belief that they will not be as well off as their parents, or that serious life-style changes are required to mitigate the worst impacts of climate change might suggest that they are pessimistic. But our belief that collective action is the path to solutions also suggests we are ready for a future of cooperation, not competition.

Living in one of the wealthiest countries on Earth is a privilege. We are far closer to power than the world's poorest and most impacted by climate catastrophe. We cannot shed this global responsibility for selfishness.

Whether you choose to get involved at the University level, with groups like the newly renamed McMaster Climate Justice, at the local level with organizations like Green Venture, or at the provincial level, where our conservative government is far more vulnerable, students becoming active is critical for the future.

Getting involved is not just the responsible thing to do, it's a responsibility we all share, not just for ourselves, but for all of humanity, particularly those who lack the privileges we have that allow us to effect change. Students are ready to combat the climate crisis, now all that's left is to prove we can be the ones to do it.