From: Barry Kastner
Columbus
Dr. Ken Bisson is dismissive of youth who speak out for action on climate change (“A callow strike for a ‘perfect’ climate”, Oct. 11 column in The Republic). He says striking youth are lacking the adult sophistication to see that the climate change we are now experiencing is a naturally occurring phenomenon and that there is no point in trying to control it. He is, of course, wrong about the science and the students.
The students I know get it. Yes, climates have changed over the millennia due to natural forces, as Bisson states, but now the climate is also responding to human forces, which Bisson disregards. Since the start of the Industrial Revolution and almost entirely in Bisson’s and my lifetime, burning coal, oil and natural gas to power our spectacular civilization is causing the planet to warm rapidly through the greenhouse gas effect. We currently emit 37,100,000,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide plus other heat-trapping pollutants into the thin atmosphere every year. Scientists call this onslaught of atmospheric pollution “anthropogenic radiative forcings.” These man-made forces are now considerably greater than natural forces in explaining the warming climate.
How can Bisson or any climate change denier casually dismiss this hard science?
It is not the striking youth who are immature. They are facing the clear and present danger and rising up to face the threat. Too many adults are the callow ones hiding behind feel-good, disingenuous denials. The youth are right to feel that the older generation is greedily consuming their future and abandoning the inherent obligation of each generation to convey a healthy productive world to the next generation.
It has been the youth who are the real adults at the Columbus City Council each of the last three years pleading with their leaders to adopt a community climate action plan. It is the youth who have the right priorities when they plead at the Statehouse demanding the state to start decarbonizing. It is the youth who get to the crux of the matter when they plead in Julianna vs. U.S. that governments have a fundamental duty to protect natural resources for future generations. It is the youth who have the courage to plead to world leaders at the United Nations and tell them they are failing in their responsibility to save the planet from chaos.
What would we rather have them do: Tune out, turn to violence, turn to eco-terrorism? They are acting wholly responsibly at all levels of government.
Yet Bisson condescends. He says it is all “beyond the ken of their young minds.” I don’t think so. It is the self-satisfied deniers who have eyes that cannot see the evidence and ears that cannot hear the warnings.
Certainly, there are many difficult choices to be made and strategies to be advanced. Older people with experience and youth who have the greatest stake in the future will need to work together. The devil is not in the details, it is in the denial.
