Photo Credit: UN DRR with UNICEF 2009 CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
These children, their photo taken in 2009, would now be adults. Their playfulness and joy fills this photograph. Today their lives as adults should include the opportunities they need to thrive. Globally, the efforts of justice, resilience, and wellbeing are essential to building a hopeful world. The World Council of Churches works widely in coalition in witness with local to global organizations such as UNICEF and the United Nations. United Methodists acknowledge this work, calling people of faith to attend to necessary action. From United Methodist Insight: New Evidence Documents Climate Change’s Harm to Children.
By William “Bill” Myers
“The climate emergency represents the most dangerous threat
to children’s lives and the survival of future generations.”
A recent World Council of Churches (WCC) publication begins with this announcement reflecting widespread agreement from science, the international community, and major religions.
Since climate change affects everyone of all ages, why the special attention to children? Globally there are lots of them—a quarter of humanity is under 14—and they are physically, mentally, and socially more vulnerable than other age groups, so they suffer and die more. They also are our link to the future of the human species, which is at stake. Filial love for our offspring and Christian love for people and planet suggest we should now prioritize the young.
That has huge implications for how we relate across generations. In the U.S., most United Methodists, whose average age is nearing 60, are old enough to be grandparents to most of the world’s population, over half of which is under 30. That suggests an underlying elders-youth relationship based more on “grandparent” than “parent” dynamics, and there happens to be some evidence that can be cultivated to the benefit of everyone.
Building on Tradition
Traditionally, in most societies adults in general and elders in particular act as teachers and mentors, extensions of “parents,” instructing children and youth in the ways of the world and teaching them how to think and behave as grown-ups. The underlying supposition is that wisdom and expertise accumulate with age, sometimes called “aging and sageing.” In this model, kids go through presumably more knowledgeable adults to receive information and perspectives they need to succeed.
But in today’s world this model is disintegrating. Via the internet and in other ways the young now have equal and independent access to information and ideas and no longer have to rely on elders for it. Often they are more skilled at accessing and mobilizing such information. Adult views born of experience may still be regarded as superior in some areas, such as how to negotiate complicated family relations. But evidence does not suggest advantages of general life experience equally apply to technical learning, such as about the climate crisis, its causes, and how best to address them. In fact one of the most notable books informing the general public about the facts of climate change was famously edited by a young person—Greta Thunberg—still in her early twenties.
So, maybe elder and younger generations can begin establishing more equal relations on the basis of information.
But that is not enough. Even if the young and elders are equally informed, they are not equal in social, economic, and political power to apply what they know and think. Today in the U.S. the Boomer generation dominates power in every area, leaving little space for the young, no matter how well informed and considered. Moreover, regarding the climate polycrisis, the relatively powerless young often have well-informed opinions of what is going wrong and how to fix it that substantially differ from and even conflict with views of their far more powerful elders who are no better informed.
This disparity is a source of palpable tension, which raises interesting questions about how the young and their elders might come to relate more equally and constructively in ways that would benefit everyone.
Another traditional path of intergenerational relationships might be helpfully applicable today. Some societies have created cultural roles in which elders exert influence not by “pushing” through raw power, but through “weaving.” Choosing that approach, they diplomatically reach across divisions and generations, using respect for their age to negotiate social solidarity and evolution—not as a power trip, but as a sophisticated relational exercise. Some societies provide their elders with training and support for them to achieve the necessary growth and skills. Elders may in this way become special protectors and champions of the young, compassionately listening to and partnering with them to seamlessly integrate them into wider social creation of the future.
Might the United Methodist Church consider this approach—one that empowers the young by “weaving” them into the forces of social evolution rather than overpowering them to impose from above what they can think and do?
Through a weaving approach we can to some extent call on cultural traditions, including those shaped by the Gospel, to help us establish more equal and shared working relationships between the generations needed to effectively meet today’s climate crisis challenges.
But there also is need for innovation, which also is happening. Let’s look at that next.
Building on Innovation
Perhaps the most globally important innovation in loving our children has come through governments acting together to establish international ethical standards. With human rights specially extended to children through the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and with connected national laws in most countries put in place starting in the late 1980s, these steps have become a global foundation for increased intergenerational cooperation in addressing climate change as it affects the young. Unfortunately, the U.S. is the only country in the world that has not ratified this convention. It has been unable to gather the necessary 2/3 vote in the Senate. Nevertheless, the U.S. mostly attempts to act in concert with the intent and provisions of the UN initiative.
Through that system, which actively promotes the participation of children in realizing their wellbeing, human-caused climate change has recently been declared a form of violence against children. That casts irresponsible use and promotion of fossil fuels—by far the dominant contributor of emissions causing climate change—as at least a moral crime and perhaps as a legal one, as well.
Various organizations, including some with religious connections, are working on ways to hold the perpetrators of such climate violence against children accountable, and the young are important participants. In this approach, adults often place their efforts and skills at the service of children and youth activists.
This entire social justice approach mobilizing law and human rights lies outside UMC action, but it could be an innovation worth considering.
Churches are themselves part of growing innovation. The World Council of Churches (WCC) has for some time been tracking church efforts to address climate change and investment in fossil fuels, and it publishes them periodically in a report entitled Cooler Earth: Higher Benefits, which is currently in its third edition, published online in 2022. It is thorough and long—over 100 pages—but worth taking a good look at. The document includes descriptions of what various WCC member denominations are doing about fossil fuels investment.
It is interesting for us Methodists to compare the policy descriptions of the UMC (pages 42–43) and the World Methodist Council (page 51) with that of the Methodist Church of Britain (page 47). We are laggards. One might appreciate the British Methodists, who in 2021 divested from fossil fuels and put the money into sustainable development, as an example worth emulating.
Some innovative thinking is addressing how to link the interests of both adults and children in action, and one of the most interesting is a growing movement toward becoming “good ancestors.” This approach in action is explained by British intellectual Roman Krznaric in this short TED talk. He describes the Future Design approach in action in Japan a few years ago as a practical application of applied imagination. That idea has since caught on worldwide. Last October it was adapted and experimented with in California’s Silicon Valley as an intergenerational partnership of the NorCal chapter of Elders Climate Action with Silicon Valley Youth Climate Action, working together on it as equals. The process and initial results were both fun to undertake and promising in coming up with action targets, and young and old are now busily working together to expand and extend the model.
These are just a few intergenerational innovation examples; more could be cited from around the world. Why couldn’t churches do something intergenerationally creative like that with people from their own communities? What would such efforts mean to the young, who are at the forefront of our common struggle to save people and planet from the ravages of climate change? How might these endeavors ultimately benefit all they touch?
To close, this revealing incident from several years ago still sparkles in my mind. It was reproduced from an article for a now defunct Elders Action Network online journal.
In September [2019] I spoke with a young climate activist in Bergen, Norway. She complained that youth protests against national addiction to fossil fuels are being received by the government with patronizing words instead of serious action. Norway is a recognized leader in the technologically advanced electrification of its own national infrastructure, but its economic status as one of the world’s richest countries rests on oil exports by its hugely profitable North Sea petroleum industry. The kids are challenging this contradiction. I asked her if she and her youth colleagues sometimes felt abandoned and alone in their fight for a sustainable future. Her face brightened and her eyes danced as she responded, “Oh no, not at all! Our grandparents have organized to support us!”
Would that all of our children and grandchildren everywhere could feel so loved and supported in their quest to save the planet for all of us!
Let’s start such loving intergenerational connections by first reaching out to the young in our churches, expressing to them our apologies and concern for the climate-related challenges we adults helped cause and that they now face. Let’s listen to their worries, thoughts and plans, and then let’s offer to walk with them as supportive partners sharing the difficulties and unknowns before them. Let’s also protect them by abolishing all church investment in fossil fuels, routing that money instead to environmental and social sustainability that promotes the survival and wellbeing of today’s young and coming generations.
Then, let’s extend that compassion globally.
William (Bill) Myers was raised in a California small town Methodist church where at 15 he vowed to dedicate his life to promoting nonviolence and peace. He accordingly served as a noncombatant conscientious objector, a Peace Corps volunteer and staff member, a state and federal government consultant working for farm labor justice, and a United Nations official addressing various forms of violence against children. He holds M.P.A. and Ed.D. degrees from Harvard and for years was a visiting scholar in the University of California, Davis. In his retirement he has internationally been focusing on children in climate change, which he agrees with the World Council of Churches, is “the most dangerous threat to children’s lives and the survival of future generations.” He is a member of Elk Grove United Methodist Church near Sacramento.