Our youth dividend for ecological recovery

by Peter Knox SJ

We have so many young people eager for change in the world they see around them. Many are frustrated with the Earth that they are inheriting. They fear the threat of violent and unstable weather, which has been brought on by global warming. They grieve the collapse of biodiversity. They are depressed by the junk and pollution they see all around them. They anticipate a life of minimal employment or, at worst, unemployment. As soon as they develop one set of skills, they are told that the economy needs another set. In some African countries, the unemployment rate among young people is as high as 83%.

These young people can choose to become either totally alienated from or entirely engaged in making the world a better place. In his message for the World Youth Day in 2023, Pope Francis praised the example of Mary going “with haste” to care for her elderly cousin Elizabeth. The pope encouraged young people not to be shell-shocked or remain paralysed, worried and fearful, but to take “the path of proximity and encounter” – to get close to other people and enter their stories.

Given their idealism and impatience with the status quo, young people can be an enormous force for good. For example, 1976 saw the young people rise up, tired of their parents’ apparent inability to challenge apartheid. For the next two decades, the youth were on the frontlines of the battle against apartheid. Nowadays, we see young people around the world demanding change, most recently in Nepal, as well as during the “Arab Spring.” Organisations like the Catholic Youth Network for Environmental Sustainability in Africa (CYNESA) are bringing together networks of young people in hope-filled, informed, and constructive activities all around the continent. Inspired by their Christian faith and a vision of a better future, they encourage one another through their creative actions.

Young people are also expressing their impatience about the state of the environment. For example, Fridays for Future are protesting that something must be done about the impending ecological disaster in the world that they will have to live in. They have become the prophetic conscience of the world by calling attention to the intergenerational injustices that they suffer. Swedish youth activist, Greta Thunberg, famously excoriated heads of state at the United Nations in September 2019: “You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words…People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing…All you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!… If you choose to fail us, I say: We will never forgive you.” Six years later, things have only become worse.

Rather than sulking in righteous indignation, young people are putting their creative energy to good use by actively remediating the environmental harm done by previous generations. Anyone can become involved in planting trees, rehabilitating land, clearing waterways, removing rubbish, and nurturing wildlife. It requires no major skills.

The youth can justifiably object: “Why should we clear up YOUR mess? Why are OUR future and aspirations being jeopardised?” These questions point to a failure of solidarity, where people from earlier generations have done immeasurable damage to our common home with little care for the future. Young people are owed a sincere apology for the mess we have made, and a heartfelt vote of thanks for what they are doing and will do to make their world livable again.