Youth “Under A Scorching Sun”

 

Swedish climate advocate Greta Thunberg joined fellow youth climate leaders from Mexico, Bangladesh, and Kenya in writing a scathing op-ed in the New York Times last week following the release of a new report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (The PediaBlog covered that on Tuesday):

Last week, some of the world’s leading climate change scientists confirmed that humans are making irreversible changes to our planet and extreme weather will only become more severe. This news is a “code red for humanity,” said the United Nations secretary general.

It is — but young people like us have been sounding this alarm for years. You just haven’t listened.

 

Climate change is a pediatric health crisis, according to Harvard’s Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment and likely every pediatrician on the planet:

No pediatrician will doubt the importance of adequate food, clean air and water, and freedom from disease to the health of a child. In fact, the greatest improvements to children’s health over the last century can be linked to improvements in each of these areas.

Unfortunately, climate change puts all of these achievements at risk. Because of the increased risks for heat waves, droughts, and floods, as well as sea level rise more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere make food shortages more likely, lessen air quality, diminish freshwater supplies, and may create conditions favorable the spread of certain infectious diseases.

 

Thunberg and her colleagues say that while adults continue to deny and delay, the world’s youth is uniting to save their future:

For children and young people, climate change is the single greatest threat to our futures. We are the ones who will have to clean up the mess you adults have made, and we are the ones who are more likely to suffer now. Children are more vulnerable than adults to the dangerous weather events, diseases and other harms caused by climate change, which is why a new analysis released Friday by UNICEF is so important.

We are in a crisis of crises. A pollution crisis. A climate crisis. A children’s rights crisis. We will not allow the world to look away.

 

In a new report released last week by the United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore introduced the Children’s Climate Risk Index showing that practically every child today is feeling the impacts of climate change:

Almost every child on earth is exposed to at least one climate and environmental hazard, shock or stress such as heatwaves, cyclones, air pollution, flooding and water scarcity. But a record-breaking 850 million — approximately one-third of all children — are exposed to four or more stresses, creating incredibly challenging environments for children to live, play and thrive.

Globally, approximately 1 billion children — nearly half of the world’s children — live in countries that are at an ‘extremely high-risk’ from the impacts of climate change, according to the CCRI. These children face a deadly combination of exposure
to multiple shocks with high vulnerability resulting from a lack of essential services. The survival of these children is at imminent threat from the impacts of climate change.

 

In the report’s Foreword, Thunberg, along with Adriana Calderón, Farzana Faruk Jhumu, Eric Njuguna, recognize the scope, severity, and urgency of the situation — and what is ultimately at stake — which is more than adults with power and influence are apparently capable of:

Our futures are being destroyed, our rights violated, and our pleas ignored. Instead of going to school or living in a safe home, children are enduring famine, conflict and deadly diseases due to climate and environmental shocks. These shocks are propelling the world’s youngest, poorest and most vulnerable children further into poverty, making it harder for them to recover the next time a cyclone hits, or a wildfire sparks.

We must acknowledge where we stand, treat climate change like the crisis it is and act with the urgency required to ensure today’s children inherit a liveable planet.

 

Pediatrician Amanda Millstein describes what she is seeing from her professional vantage point in California:

I have been in practice for five years and I already have too many stories like this to count: the ways in which climate change is impacting the health of the babies, children, teenagers, and families for whom I provide care. More frequent and deadly wildfires in the West. More tropical storms, floods, and dislocation. More vector born disease. Anxiety. Post-traumatic stress.

I am scared, and angry. My husband and I have long talks into the night about whether we should move. But where? I cry sometimes as I tuck my own children into bed or when they ask me if they too will be mommies and daddies when they are older.

 

How do you talk to your children about climate change? (Maybe a better question is, Do you talk to your children about climate change?) Climate scientists (and moms) Katherine Hayhoe and Rosimar Rios-Berrios say having positive and constructive conversations with kids about climate change can be challenging for parents, but it is something we all must do just the same:

Climate change is no longer a future issue. It’s already affecting nearly every aspect of our lives and our children’s futures. It’s making our heat waves more deadly, our storms more intense, and our wildfires burn with ferocity.

When we talk to our kids, we have to be honest. Climate change is real, and it’s serious. But the most important thing we can give them is hope: that there are solutions, and everyone has something to contribute no matter their age.

 

We’ll explore some ideas that can help parents when they talk with their children about climate change, next week on The PediaBlog.

 

(Google Images)

 

source http://www.thepediablog.com/2021/08/26/youth-under-a-scorching-sun/