Though it still seems pretty far away, the world as envisioned by the human race is crumbling at a pace never imagined before.  Post-2020, it has been found that our planet is on the clear pathway to breaking the 1.5°c above pre-industrial levels that have been warned by top scientists of extreme consequences for us and other living beings.

 

Global warming coupled with rising sea levels, severe floods, droughts, hurricanes, storms, massive fires, pandemics, greenhouse and other toxic pollution, heat waves, and rapid depletion of certain ecosystems including resources both living and non-living been recorded everywhere in the past few decades, and this is only set to scale as global population sets new record of 8 billion people by the end of 2022( estimated based on global population records). Not only that, but this is also the time to preserve the living heritage gained over the centuries ( particularly from the pre-industrial era ) that has the possibility of fueling sustainable growth, if well integrated into the lives and can help understand how it could be easy to live a life in harmony with nature. 

 

Climate shocks have destroyed lives, crops and livelihoods, undermined people’s ability to feed themselves and the world has displaced 30 million people from their homes in 2020. ( World Food Programme ). As it has been found in recent times, 75 per cent of the land, 66 per cent of oceans, and 85 per cent of wetlands have been negatively altered by human activity. Further, conflicts are becoming more common in today’s world; for instance, that has sent more than 19.7 million people in Afghanistan into food insecurity amidst rising instability and a collapsing economy. By the end of 2020, as many as 82.4 million people worldwide were forcibly displaced as a result of persecution, conflict, violence, human rights violations or events seriously disturbing public order as mentioned by UNHCR recently. Quite often, the underlying root causes of emancipating from the control of depleting resources are often ignored which could deconstruct many conflicts and shape up the environmental perspectives, thus enabling solutions to be implemented faster with better understanding. 

 

Today, more than 40,000 species are threatened with extinction. That is still 28% of all assessed species. ( UNEP 2021 ). To sum it up, more than 80% of the world’s population lives in areas prone to natural shocks (World Food Programme.) The short-term and quick fixes implemented at various levels have failed to effectively address the deep, systematic, societal and environmental struggles that today’s youngest share of the population has already started to realize.  This is huge and the youngest generation of humanity is in no mood to stop the action.  In recent times, it has yet again repeatedly refused to live under a panic compromise of the triple planetary crisis, namely climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss. 

 

Is it high time intergenerational justice is realized? According to the UN World Population Prospects, 2019, young people (0-35) make up 57 % of the world’s population and 41 % are below the age of 26. Actions made today have an impact not only on ‘the’ future but on ‘their’ - or ‘our’ - future. Despite this, young people are systemically and disproportionately excluded from decision-making processes. Nevertheless, this opens up multiple vacant avenues waiting to be filled up with the creative power of the latest generation entering the skilled jobs of the future. But as we say,  “Future can not wait.”, we feel true that the future is dependent on the action(s) that we take today! How young people could drive culture to drive global action for humanity is something that has largely been ignored or neglected due to multiple factors including the fear of imposition of alien traditions.