{"id":1531,"date":"2019-02-22T15:46:29","date_gmt":"2019-02-22T15:46:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/sci\/?p=1531"},"modified":"2022-05-20T11:42:57","modified_gmt":"2022-05-20T10:42:57","slug":"school-climate-strikes-what-next-for-the-latest-generation-of-activists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/sci\/2019\/02\/22\/school-climate-strikes-what-next-for-the-latest-generation-of-activists\/","title":{"rendered":"School climate strikes: What next for the latest generation of activists?"},"content":{"rendered":"

[et_pb_section bb_built=”1″ admin_label=”section” fullwidth=”on” next_background_color=”#000000″ global_module=”322″][et_pb_fullwidth_menu global_parent=”322″ _builder_version=”3.0.106″ menu_id=”7″ submenu_direction=”downwards” fullwidth_menu=”off” background_layout=”dark” module_class=”main-navigation” \/][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section bb_built=”1″ fullwidth=”off” specialty=”on” prev_background_color=”#000000″ next_background_color=”#1d1d1d”][et_pb_column type=”2_3″ specialty_columns=”2″][et_pb_row_inner locked=”off”][et_pb_column_inner type=”4_4″ saved_specialty_column_type=”2_3″][et_pb_post_title _builder_version=”3.0.106″ title=”on” meta=”on” author=”on” date=”on” categories=”on” comments=”on” featured_image=”on” featured_placement=”above” text_color=”dark” text_background=”off” locked=”on” parent_locked=”off” \/][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.17.6″ background_layout=”light” parent_locked=”off”]<\/p>\n

Students took to the streets across the UK.<\/p>\n

In Manchester<\/a>, there were fine speeches<\/a>. In London, there were several arrests<\/a>, with messages of support from various politicians<\/a> and commentators<\/a>,\u00a0 who noted the attacks on the children were part of a pattern of ‘gaslighting<\/a>\u2019. Theresa May was not so impressed<\/a>. Before the day there was some breathless coverage<\/a> which makes the good point that the school strikes so far have been led by young women<\/a>. It all creates problems<\/a> for head teachers who have been urging students to be active citizens. What seems to be lost is that, on environmental concern, we have we been here before many times, albeit without co-ordinated school strikes.<\/p>\n

The first big global wave of ecological concern occurred between 1968 to 1972 involved fears of overpopulation, air quality, water pollution and the extinction of species. Students mobilised. The wave peaked with the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment in 1972.<\/p>\n

A decade and a half later another global wave of protest took place (1986 to 1992). It began with concerns over the ozone hole and Amazonian deforestation and then was joined by new fears of climate change – then known as the \u2018greenhouse effect\u2019. That wave peaked with the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, which sought to tackle both climate change and biodiversity. Just as the founder of the current school climate strike movement, Greta Thurnberg<\/a> addressed world leaders at the COP24 climate conference last December, Rio was addressed by a passionate and articulate young woman representing “ECO”<\/a>\u00a0– the Environmental Children\u2019s Organization.<\/p>\n

From 2006 to 2010 there was another, climate specific wave of protest, beginning with Al Gore\u2019s An Inconvenient Truth<\/em> documentary, and groups like Camp for Climate Action in the UK.\u00a0 It climaxed (or fizzled out) with the Copenhagen meeting of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. This wave saw the creation of various \u201cYouth Climate Coalition\u201d organisations in Australia and the UK.<\/p>\n

In academic terminology, these periods of concern and abeyance are known as the \u201cIssue Attention Cycles\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Where does this<\/em> wave come from?<\/h2>\n

This latest wave of climate action has emerged in 2018, in the shape of Extinction Rebellion and its cousin\/inverse the Gilets Jaunes<\/a>. Earlier in the year Swedish schoolgirl\u00a0Greta Thunberg began\u00a0her solo \u201cschool strike\u201d<\/a> in Stockholm. More or less simultaneously activists in the USA launched the \u201cZero Hour\u201d youth climate march<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Alongside this activism, the IPCC released its report on what it would take to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees, and Mother Nature has lent a hand with blisteringly hot summers in the UK, California and (more recently) Australia. The scene appears to be set for another wave but unlike the others, the climate-induced disasters will probably keep coming, perhaps making this wave more long-lasting.<\/p>\n

What next?<\/h2>\n

What goes up must come down – the students will find that it is very hard to sustain emotional and physical mobilisation at a high pitch for a prolonged period. Right now this issue is where the Parkland Shooting protests were last year – newsworthy, but the media caravan does inevitably move on.<\/p>\n

That has consequences: when protests and actions stop getting the same amount of attention, and it seems that momentum is stalling, internal disagreements as to what is the best way forward, beyond a cycle of marches and symbolic strikes, will emerge and will need to be managed skillfully. Some will want to work \u201cwithin the system\u201d and get invited onto advisory panels and into consultative processes (though, they may not be). Others will have to get on with real life (university, paying the rent, working on, ah, zero-hour contracts).<\/p>\n

On one front, the young are lucky – it is hard to see a repeat of the direct infiltration and \u201cstrategic incapacitation\u201d of movements by undercover police<\/a> that a previous generation of environmental activists endured. But of course, the young\u2019s addiction to social media offers virtually limitless surveillance possibilities.<\/p>\n

One possibility is the attempt to discredit and demoralise those who seem vulnerable – what climate scientist Michael Mann dubbed the Serengeti Strategy. Recently Greta Thunberg took time to address some of the rumours being circulated about her<\/a>. And hopefully, it will never come to the kind of bloody repression that black South African students suffered in 1976<\/a> when they went on school strike over being taught in Afrikaans.<\/p>\n

The POG problem<\/h2>\n

Then there is the\u00a0 POG problem\u2014\u201cpiss off grandpa\/grandma\u201d.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think that David Bowie was right when he sang that \u201cThese children that you spit on as they try to change their lives, are immune to your consultations, they\u2019re quite aware what they\u2019re going through<\/a>.\u201d I think there are <\/em>things we oldies can do, but before offering advice to the young, we have to ask ourselves, why should they listen to us? What credibility do \u201coldies\u201d (anyone over the age of 30, who should not be trusted) have\u00a0anyway. We\u2019ve known about the problem and either done nothing or done ineffective things. Perhaps the young are right to feel betrayed by older generations<\/a>?<\/p>\n

So, I think the first thing is an enormous apology and expression of humility \u201cWe\u2019re really sorry that we have let this get worse and worse, and that we\u2019ve left you with such a horrendously wicked set of problems\u201d.<\/p>\n

My top four pieces of (unsolicited) advice, based on both my activism and my time in academia, are as follows (see here for a longer list of unsolicited mansplainy advice<\/a>). \u00a0<\/p>\n