By Thomas Starks
Political opinions expressed in this article are individual and separate to the society.
It is no secret that students are traditionally left wing, but why? A lot feel that under right wing rule they will struggle to find jobs, get mortgages, or afford to raise a family. All these issues, however, are somewhat solvable. Yet there remains one overriding issue that is not. Once climate change takes hold, as we are already seeing, the problems will be extensive, and the solutions scarce.
According to a survey conducted by the BBC, 60% of young people feel that the climate crisis is an extremely worrying prospect, 56% believe that humanity is heading towards disaster and 45% say these future problems currently affect their daily lives. And, in a perhaps more alarming statistic, 65% of young people believe that the UK government cannot be trusted to solve the climate emergency. Therefore, it is clear that raising climate consciousness is a top priority for young people, but why is this so difficult?
In their 64-page long 2019 electoral manifesto, it takes until page 57 for the Conservatives to address the climate crisis. This is done through promises to achieve national Net Zero by 2050 through investment in clean energy solutions, to plant 30,000 hectares of trees by 2024, to equip 600,000 homes with insulation and low carbon heating and to create clean air zones in 61 different council boroughs. So, after twelve years of power and four different Prime Ministers, how are they doing? Halfway through their promise the Tories have planted only 4,540 hectares of trees and are only projected to plant a further 1,876 this year. They only managed to equip 32,000 homes with suitable insulation and low carbon heating before shutting down the programme, because the Virginia-based firm they outsourced it to was not up to the task. Finally, a mere total of three clean air zones were created. To add insult to injury, Liz Truss’ new government’s U-turn on fracking breaks the COP-26 agreement that is crucial for the future of our planet, as it threatens to release toxic methane gas into the British countryside and risks earthquakes near fracking sites. Therefore, it would seem that Britain’s young people are right in believing that the UK government is incapable of containing this climate crisis and would be more than justified to feel cheated and hung out to dry by the UK government.
The above facts and figures mean that this article is not an easy read, and admittedly this may be a part of the problem. Because of the doom and gloom feeling the climate crisis inspires, political parties attempt to tip toe their way around it, news outlets are hesitant to unnerve their consumers, and it hardly makes for ideal small talk in our personal lives. There is however one environment where talk of the climate crisis is becoming more prevalent, and this is where young people feel the battle for climate consciousness will be won: Twitter. In 2017 there were over 1 billion tweets from the United States concerning the climate crisis, and this figure rises each year. One of the most striking tweets I have seen defines climate change as ‘a process of watching ecological disasters filmed on people’s cell phones until finally it’s your film doing the filming’. Young people hope that the use of social media, which allows an intimate expression of feelings and emotions surrounding the climate crisis, will be more effective at raising awareness when compared to the clinical and sanitary delivery of traditional news outlets, and will help prevent the dystopian nightmare described in the tweet above.
The Tory party relies on more senior voters to maintain their seats. In the 2019 election only 22% of voters aged under 25 voted for the Tories, whereas 62% of voters aged 60 and above voted for them. Therefore, it makes sense that Tory policies appeal to this older generation. Most of these voters remain up to date on current affairs either through right-wing outlets such as The Sun newspaper or GB News, all who tended to focus solely on Brexit, pensions and the NHS prior to the 2019 election; and unfortunately, as a result, to a worrying percentage of these voters, the climate crisis is at best a small inconvenience. This article is by no means attempting to blame the lack of climate action on this generation, after all the only real places change can take place is in Parliament and Downing Street, but it suggests that providing education to both the elderly and young people will be crucial, and this could become a role that charities like Amnesty International take on.
Amnesty International is a charity that specialises in campaigning against human rights violations, and climate change poses the biggest threat to global human rights since the Second World War. Rising sea levels threatens to contaminate our freshwater reserves, as well as flooding farmland and threatening global food security. Furthermore, coastal communities will be devastated, meaning countries will struggle to provide suitable living space, and as populations are forced to move inland, pressures upon health, education and social services will become more and more strained, again lowering the living conditions of the general population. Therefore, for charities like Amnesty International it is extremely important that people are educated on the dangers, and political parties pay more attention to the threat of climate change.
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