When I was in school, students were politically active and engaged. We organized walkouts over oil spills and pollution. We protested against war. But these were one-day events.
Last Friday, and every Friday, millions of students around the world were on strike to remind world leaders climate change matters. The coordinated school strikes were inspired by a single student. They have now grown to encompass more than 100 countries.
Greta Thunberg took to heart Margaret Meade's admonition, "never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed people can change the world: indeed it's the only thing that ever has." In Thunberg's case, it was a small group of one which has quickly blossomed into a movement.
Will it change the world? Perhaps. But there is no question the students are doing this out of commitment and not just seeking a "day off school" as some pundits claim. I know when we skipped school to protest, it was the protest which matter. Missing school was necessary but not something we did lightly.
If you hear Thunberg talk, you can feel her passion and concern. She speaks of climate change as an "existential crisis, the biggest crisis humanity ever has faced and still it has been ignored for decades."
She is right.
Life will go on for billions of years after humans have occupied this planet but our species is at a crucial point. If we keep changing the planet at the rate we have been our actions will eventually lead to our own extinction. Life will go on but humans might not.
There have been five mass extinctions in the history of Earth. The extinction most people know about was the end of the dinosaurs some 65 million years ago when an asteroid struck the Yucatan Peninsula. Most fictional accounts speak of a rain of fire and massive floods which wiped out all of the dinosaurs. While a lot of creatures died immediately after the impact it was the thousands of years of climate impact which really brought about a loss of 75 per cent of the species alive.
In the other mass extinction events, it was arguably long slow changes to climate and habitat which resulted in the demise of life. The event marking the end of the Permian, some 251 million years ago, was our narrowest escape after 96 per cent of species in the fossil record went extinct.
I mention this because we appear to be in another extinction event and like the proverbial frog in warm water, we are not paying attention as the water is warming slowly. According to the story, the frog is eventually boiled alive. Actually, this is not what really happens. The frog is smart enough to get out of the water.
Is humanity?
This is the question Ms. Thunberg and all of the students are asking. Are we smart enough to recognize the danger climate change poses and to do something about it? Can we get ourselves out of the hot water?
For many people, the answer would appear to be: "what hot water? Things look fine to me!" Things will always look fine until they don't. Climate change is a non-linear phenomenon with multiple feedback loops and chaotic behaviour. The consequences are very real and they are happening.
On CBC's The Current last Friday, high school student Aditi Narayanan from Pheonix, Arizona, summed it up by saying "I don't know how much you all know about Arizona but it's a very very very hot state... we went from 48 as our average over the summer to like in the 50s Celsius. So we've seen the summers get hotter and hotter and we've seen how drought has been an issue in our state and how water conservation is another huge issue on the ballot."
Things are only going to get worse over the coming decades and it is today's youth who will bear the brunt. It is only fitting we should listen to them.
One area of critically importance is to rethink the engineering of all of our infrastructure and buildings. This past Monday, Melanie Mark, the Minister of Advanced Education, Skills, and Training Minister, was at UNBC to announce support for the new civil and environmental engineering degree programs.
Environmental engineering is all about thinking through the materials and processes we put in place in the built environment. Passive buildings with properly designed shells could cut heating costs by a factor of ten decreasing demand for fossil fuel consumption. Utilizing wood as a construction material captures carbon instead of emitting large quantities as required by concrete and steel.
This approach is one step in the right direction. It might not solve Ms. Thunberg's existential crisis all by itself but it is a good start. Our government should be justifiably proud of their support.
