THE SUSTAINABLE STUDENTS’ STRUGGLE
Henry Gooderham (Year 12) considers the choices we all face as the climate crisis gathers speed
I am not sustainable. To be sustainable – to go by the United Nations’ definition – I must ‘meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’. Although this might sound vague, what is certain is that, while my 10,000- mile plane trip from London to Brisbane last Christmas might be considered to be an ‘eco- sin ’, the UN does not deem my action to be criminal . In contrast, those who are choosing to take increasingly extreme climate action are deemed by the law to be criminals, and this generates a difficult paradox for today’s youth, who face the task of changing 21st-century civilisation without angering the very generation who built it. While my 10,000-mile plane trip from London to Brisbane last Christmas might be considered to be an ‘eco- sin ’, the UN does not deem my action to be criminal Making an impact as an individual student can be difficult, given the need to travel, the pressures on our time, and the understandable desire for fun, all creating the paving of a not-so-green brick road for teenagers. Our very own Year 6 deforestation project teaches Junior School stu- dents the need to save food, game less and cycle more. But whether it is finishing the garlic chicken on a Wednes- day, Week Three, or opposing a family plane trip to the Alps for Christmas, we all find ourselves facing decisions on a weekly, or even daily, basis, and while these are obviously first world problems, it has to be admitted that for most people it simply isn’t enjoyable to go ‘Full Greta’ and to divest yourself of life’s luxuries whilst disrupting the lives of others.
So what should we be doing, given what we know is happening to our planet? If the world is ending, you forget about life’s luxuries, right? The question now facing young people seems to be: ‘Is it time to break the law?’ This question also serves as the title of television presenter Chris Packham’s recent eco-documentary in which he grapples with the worryingly sound ethical logic of the environmentalist group, Just Stop Oil. Packham, in discussion with the government’s climate change commit- tee chair, John Gummer, proclaims that the UK should be ‘on a war footing’ against climate change. Packham is bewildered by the government’s current toddler squab- ble approach, his documentary shedding light on why so many people feel obliged to carry out the group’s activ- ities, branded by others as extremism. Of the five pre- dicted scenarios in the UN’s most recent climate report, not one shows a temperature rise below the 1.5 degrees Celsius pledged in the Paris Conference of 2015, and on this basis, Packham concludes, it is in fact time to break the law for climate action. Given the range of different messages, it is very hard for today’s younger generation to choose a particular stance, and the diverse range of opinions continues to act against a unified worldwide stance on climate change. One thing we can do, without having to decide whether to break the law, is to utilise our power as consumers to demand the creation of a more sustainable market. As a large consumer of energy and food, the College, with the help of Sustainability Lead, Katy Millis, has become one of the few schools mapping and recording its own carbon footprint. This allows us as a school to identify our own carbon inefficiencies and to make changes or cuts where necessary. A global example of the power of market
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THE ALLEYNIAN 712
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