Active Hope in the Climate Emergency

The United Church Observer, the denomination's award-winning magazine no longer exists with its traditional name. It is "reborn" as Broadview, for better or worse. I've appreciated the subjects this magazine has addressed through the decades and the willingness to venture into controversial discussions of the "where angels fear to tread" variety. 

In the most recent issue there is an article by the excellent journalist and author Alanna Mitchell, who is a United Church member. She writes about the Friday Climate Strikes around the planet, the rallies by young people, the majority from Generation Z, who want to grab the attention of leaders so that they will address the climate emergency -- now. While 16-year-old Swede, Greta Thunberg, is the high profile face of this movement,  Mitchell looks at all this through the eyes of an Ontario university student Aliénor Rougeot, who has become a climate activist. 

Rougeot’s objective is strikingly commonsensical. It’s not anarchy or bloody revolution or a new world order. Instead, she and her generation want to persuade government leaders to meet with them. And then, to not just listen to their demands, but also take those demands deadly seriously. In other words, the aim is to use the power of youth to shift the responsibility for fixing the climate crisis back onto the policy-makers who have not just the ability, but the duty, to do it. 



Toronto rally, May 2019

There have been a number of critics of Thunberg and the student protestors, claiming that they are hysterical and misinformed, and fomenting hopelessness. Mitchell speaks of the "active hope" of these determined young people, an unwillingness to let a generation which will not live through the grim outcome of irresponsible actions continue on a disastrous course. 

I do wish that the article had touched on our Christian hope in the face of the desecration of Creation as well -- this is a magazine for a community of faith, after all -- but it well worth reading. 

https://broadview.org/youth-climate-crisis/