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Attracting youth for mitigating risks for sustainability

Published : Saturday, 25 June, 2022 at 12:00 AM  Count : 710

Kanan Purkayastha

Kanan Purkayastha

David Attenborough, in his speech on the opening of the COP 26 climate summit in Glasgow on 1 November 2021 said, 'the people most affected by climate change are no longer some imagined future generation, but young people alive today, will give us the impetus we need to rewrite our story, to turn this tragedy into a triumph.'

So, the role of youth today has been recognised in our recent conference of parties held in Glasgow.
However, sometimes people wonder-why we should attract youth?  Our attachment to self, sometimes deter us to do so. Young people are walking ahead of adult. We walk on the same ground, and they are moving on ahead of us. I know that if you want to go fast, go alone but if you want to go far, then, go together.
When we think about climate change issue, we always worried about the future generation.  In the report Our Common Future, also known as Brundtland report published in 1987 sustainable development is defined as the 'development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs'.

It contains within it three key concepts: the concept of 'needs', in particular, the essential needs of the world's poor; and the idea of limitations imposed by the state of technology and social organization on the environment's ability to meet present and future needs and also a concept of 'future generation'.

I wrote an essay for the Observer (5 August 2018) titled 'why worry about future generations?', where I excavate, what the future generations mean? One interpretation of future generations includes all those people who are not yet alive but will be some day.

This includes people who will be born during our life time. Another interpretation is the people who will not be born until everyone now living is dead. We can see that in both groups there is a continuum attached to it. This means that at one point in time the members of different generations form the human populations.
In case of both groups, there is a deep interconnection between our interest in us and our concern for what happens to our successors, which emerge from our love for the successors. So, this notion instigates us to worry about the future.  

As an example, we can think of a scenario depicted in a novel titled The Children of Men written by P.D. James.  The story line is that- human race as a whole become infertile for unknown reasons and no birth has occurred over twenty five years. As a result, the extinction of human race becomes imminent.

The prospect of imminent extinction makes the current generation depressed.  Jonathan Schell, in his book The Fate of the Earth anticipated a similar scenario, when he wrote, 'suppose that a substance was released into the environment which had the effect of sterilizing all the people in the world but otherwise leaving them unharmed. Then, as the existing population died off, the world would empty of people.'

We may compare this scenario with the release of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This may creates certain condition for the whole generation. Our reasons for love are rooted in our direct concern for the survival of humanity and our reasons of interest derive from our fundamental interest in leading lives of value. This value is influenced, either by our imminent disappearance or our love for the future generation.

Our thought process about the future generations should be based on climate history of the past and our connection with the future. So, we should give value to our youth, who are part of the current generation and also a future generation, and wanting it to be sustained and to persist over time. This will concern us with the fate of the future generation.

When we consider the prospect of their survival, then that becomes a precondition for and contributes to our being able to lead value-laden lives, which is in fact the idea of reciprocity. So, our reason for love, reason for interest, valuation and reciprocity-these are some factors for which we worry about future generation. Hence we try to find ways and means to attract youth for mitigating any environmental, social and governance (ESG) concern such as disaster, migration, poverty and sustainability.

I now turn into the word 'sustainability'. Nearly all the countries in the world have promised to improve the planet and the lives of its citizens by 2030. They've committed themselves to 17 life-changing goals, outlined by the UN in 2015.

These Global Goals, also known as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) include such as ending extreme poverty, giving people better healthcare and achieving equality for women.

If we think about different SDG's, then it would be clear that without young generation it would be difficult to achieve. For example: climate action, where we need to act now to stop global warming. In this regard youth movement is very useful such as Swedish activist Greta Thunberg's passionate movement. There are several other SDGs where youth involvement is of paramount importance.

We need young people to do something about it, because they are the most important consumer. In that way we can think about other SDGs and role of young generation for achieving those goals.

We can reconsider sustainability in terms of environmental virtue ethics. One of the philosophical positions in this context is 'consequentialism' and the contrasting position is deontology. Both consequentialists and deontologists are primarily concerned with the evaluation of actions and kinds of actions.

The goal for sustainable development is not to come up with a mix that will be the favourite of everyone in the world but to make our own the best it can be. This idea is not a global supermarket of ideas. So, picking and mixing will not work. Also, we should not pluck fruit off the plant which needs to grow more.  

Many would argue that richer nations are also morally obliged to provide aid to, and compensate those nations whose citizens are suffering the worst effects of climate change. So, it is time to reconsider sustainability.

We need to understand what happened in our environment in the past. Cicero wrote, 'to remain ignorant of what happened before you were born is to remain always a child.'

Our policy makers need to take account of how the global system level dynamics works. Both consequentialist and deontologist positions are pertinent in reconsidering sustainability.

Adler's theory suggests that- (1) Every child feels inferior because stronger, smarter people surround them; (2) Inferiority motivates them to try to do and achieve things.

From this step a child follow one of the paths: (a) In a balance psyche, success relieves feelings of inferiority; (b) In an unbalanced psyche, success does not relieve feelings of inferiority. From (a) confidence develops but from (b) an inferiority complex develops.

So, in a nutshell, I mention above why we should be worried about future generation. I said that our reason for love, reason for interest, valuation and reciprocity-these are some factors for which we worry about future generation.
Dr Kanan Purkayastha , Fellow
RSS FIEnvSc FRSA, UK













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