Youth climate strikers have a right to be angry and frustrated

I’m listening to you. I feel like you are shouting at me, and you want me and other adults to listen. It shouldn’t need to be said, but your opinions are valid, they matter. Perhaps they matter more than most. I’m trying to listen to you, hear your voices. It’s not easy, the world is a cacophony, sometimes I feel I’m drowning in voices, in social media, in expert opinions, in television, internet. Young people aren’t all the same, just as all people aren’t all the same. I try to read in your placards, your letters to newspapers, what you are saying as individuals. What I hear uniting you, made so eloquent by your leader Greta, is that you are angry and frustrated. You don’t know why this crisis hasn’t been sorted out, when we’ve known for so long. When we have the answers, the solutions. When we adults are supposed to be in charge, and we’re supposed to be caring for you and your future.

READ MORE: Scottish students speaking out over climate change

I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry that you feel that all you have is an uncertain future. I’m so sorry that my generation, the millennial generation, and the two generations before me have let you down. We’ve failed you, a lot has been achieved, but it is still far from enough, and in this crisis, that will still count as a failure. It’s a failure of our leaders, but it’s also a collective failure. None of us should feel like we can shirk the responsibility that we owe you.

We owe you an apology. Apologies are important, but we owe you more than that. We teach you that when you do something wrong you should apologise, but you should also make it up to your victim in some way. I’m sorry, I hope my peers are sorry too. I want to make it up to you, and I hope my peers and our leaders want to, and will, make it up to you too.

Thank you. Thank you for your energy, your inspiration, your anger, your hope. I, like many others, have worked for a lot of my adult life to try to protect the environment and to try to stop climate change. I’ve tried to promote the solutions that we already have, and that will make the world a better place as well as tackling climate change.

I’ve tried to remind our leaders that people want action. I’ve tried to make changes in my life, whilst also living in today’s world. But it hasn’t been enough. We have so much still to do. Thank you for reminding me of that.

When you’ve given a lot to any cause, given a part of yourself, for a long time, it’s hard to remember why you were angry. It’s easy to lose hope. Thank you for giving me that back, for recharging me. Please keep up your energy, it’s contagious. Please let me continue to feed off it.

I’m inspired by you. There is hope in you taking your fear for the future and turning into a huge global concert of action. Hope that we have a chance, if we accelerate our action now, to still stop this future you fear for, and give you the better future that you deserve. Hope from the huge amount you have already achieved in calling attention to the climate emergency we face. My generation, and the generations before, almost without exception have benefitted from a positive legacy from their parents. I hope still that my generation will not leave you with nothing, but will leave you something like the thriving, exciting, beautiful, clean, zero-carbon and full of nature world that I dream of, and that I hear so many of you dreaming of. Keep doing what you are doing, it is making change, and it makes more change more likely – the changes that our leaders need to lead us in making. Keep being inspiring.

You are right to be angry and frustrated. We’ve known the scale of the climate crisis we’ve created for a long time, longer than many of you have been alive. Those with the most power, those with the most responsibility to you, have been confronted time and time again by the overwhelming evidence. But too many times in the past they have dithered, they’ve acted half-heartedly, or they’ve set out wonderful ambitions that they’ve then left to one side. In the past those who have grabbed this crisis and thrown themselves at it are too far and few between. When I remember to be angry, when I have the energy to be angry, I’m angry about that too. You have come together and used your power the only way you know how. It’s long overdue that my generation and my parent’s generation did the same. But there are reasons to be hopeful, you are being listened to, our leaders seem to be waking up, and there are more and more who are taking the initiative.

I will work harder. That’s the reply that I think everyone who listens to you, should give to you. So many of us are trying to stop climate change, but it’s not been enough, we need to keep growing that number. There is still so much more that we can do, so much more that I can do. The time we’ve got to sort this out, is running out. The time is now. My job in an environmental organisation gives me power, it gives me influence. That’s nice, but it’s a privilege. And it’s a privilege I need to make the most of. I will make the most of my platform to give your anger and frustration wings. To make every leader that says that they care about you, hear that the time to stop our dependence on fossil fuels is now. That we can end our climate change pollution rapidly, even within the time it will take you to finish school and raise your own families. And that in doing so, we can also create for you a better, healthier, more prosperous future.

I will build my own little slice of climate-friendly life. But I will also do everything in my power to make sure that it’s not just me, but all of us, stopping our climate pollution. Doing that so you have a world where you can grow old in harmony with nature, and be safe and thriving on your planet, in your home.

Robin Parker is Climate and Energy Policy Manager at WWF Scotland