The cries of the unborn grow stronger, but are we listening?
School Strike for Climate Action, Melbourne
Olivia Ward-Jackson considers the plight of future generations, set to inherit a world devastated by mankind’s relentless consumption.
An expectant mother who binge-drinks, chain-smokes or indulges in uncooked camembert risks permanently damaging the health of her future child. In the same way, mankind’s carbon-bingeing habits — burning fossil fuels, destroying rainforests, and mass farming livestock — will substantially diminish the quality of life of future generations. However, we may be harming our hapless descendants in more ways than one, by bequeathing them mountains of national debt and a world of antibiotic resistance.
We are already experiencing the wrath of climate change, as reflected in the serious rise of extreme weather incidents. We have seen terrible wildfires sweeping through Australia and California, unprecedented flooding in Bangladesh, and heatwaves incapacitating Europe. In Seven Worlds, One Planet, David Attenborough revealed the devastating impact of climate change on the environment in a desperate plea to the public to take action. Viewers wept when a baby albatross, who could not cope with the powerful storms brought on by climate change, was swept off his nest and left for dead by his father.
Climate change is set to worsen if drastic action is not taken to prevent it. The UN climate change summit in 2018 declared that today’s generation is the last that can prevent global warming reaching disastrous levels. Indeed, the world has already warmed by one degree since the 1880s, and will likely rise by three to five degrees by the end of the century if global warming is not hindered. If we don’t act now, future generations will inherit an increasingly uninhabitable Earth that they may no longer have the option of saving.
It is not only environmentalists who fear for the wellbeing of our descendants. Many economists and academics also claim to safeguard the rights of the young and future generations. In the first of his BBC Reith Lectures in 2012, economic historian Niall Ferguson voiced his concern that “public debt allows the current generation of voters to live at the expense of those as yet too young to vote or as yet unborn.” As we have seen in Greece, young people often end up facing years of austerity to pay for the spending sprees of older generations. In the worst-case scenario, if the debt spiral gets out of control, Ferguson warns “we all end up as Argentina” with default and catastrophic inflation.
Antibiotic resistance is another global issue that poses a serious threat to the livelihoods of future generations. We have taken antibiotics for granted for far too long, with doctors inappropriately prescribing them to treat viruses, patients failing to finish courses, and farmers administering the drugs to livestock on a vast scale. A 2014 study by the World Health Organisation revealed that antibiotic resistance can now be observed in every region of the world, as a result of mankind’s abuse of the drugs. If significant action is not taken, future generations might be born into a “post-antibiotic era”; a dystopian world where people die from common diseases such as diarrhoea and blood infections.
Today, the unborn seem to be fighting back, or at least they have strong representatives amongst the living. School children are campaigning to protect the livelihoods of young and future generations in the face of climate change. In March, over 1.4 million young people took part in school strikes for climate action in 128 countries. Greta Thunberg, who spearheaded the protest movement, recently denounced the “betrayal” of adults at the UN climate summit in Manhattan. It was there that she famously threatened “the eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us, I say: we will never forgive you”.
Meanwhile, in courts around the world young people are claiming constitutional rights, both for themselves and for future generations, to be protected from climate change. The U.S. Federal Government stands accused in the Juliana v. United States lawsuit of knowingly bringing about climate change by endorsing an unsustainable national energy system, and so violating the constitutional rights to life, liberty and property of young people and future generations. In the case, NASA scientist James Hansen legally represents “future generations” as their “guardian”. The result of the case could have implications for the role of the courts in addressing climate change, and also for the development of environmental rights of future generations.
If we want to ensure a bright and healthy future for our descendants, we should prioritise long-term thinking and sustainable solutions over short-term selfish interests. It seems unlikely that foetuses will be granted protection from the chain-smoking, binge-drinking habits of expectant mothers anytime soon. Similarly, it is hard to imagine future generations gaining legal protection from debt or climate change, as society is reluctant to compromise its own right to consume for the sake of the unborn. However, the tide could be turning, as global climate activism emphasises our moral obligation to think in the interests of our descendants. At this rate, it is possible that legal rights for future generations might someday become a moral imperative.
Why is it that we can empathise strongly with the hardships of our great-grandparents but not with the plight of our great-grandchildren, although we are unlikely to meet either? We’ve seen photos of our great-grandparents and know of their suffering during the First and Second World Wars. Surely, however, with a little stretch of imagination we can envision the faces and sorrows of our great-grandchildren? Perhaps, if we can learn to empathise with the unborn, we might begin to help them.
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