When New Zealand's Green Party MP Chloe Swarbrick delivered her now infamous ‘OK, boomer’ retort after being interrupted in parliament, she reopened a fault line in today’s politics: the generational divide. As a millennial, I’m acutely aware of the structural disadvantages faced by pretty much anyone born after 1980.

Almost every pillar which has propped up the relatively stable lives of baby boomers has since crumbled. Take education: I went to university in 2004, at a time when undergraduate fees had been capped at £3,000 under Labour. These were then tripled by the Coalition government, who also scrapped maintenance grants and sold off the student loan book.

Once you’re out of education, most people look for a place to live. Here millennials encounter further hurdles: the proportion of families headed by 24-34-year-olds who own their own home has plummeted by over 50 per cent in huge swathes of the country over the last 35 years, leaving us at the mercy of an increasingly pernicious private rented sector. Now, over a third of our salaries are spent on rent.

But this isn’t the fault of baby boomers. It’s the fault of financial boomers and fossil fuel boomers. Decades of privatisation, pollution and profiteering has broken the social contract with young people in the UK, frontloading our lives with debt, making it impossible to imagine a future worth fighting for and leaving us little option but to point the finger at mum and dad.

My generation was told to work hard to earn money to buy a house to secure our futures. But instead we are scared of the future–not least because climate crisis is threatening to deprive us of one. We know we have until 2030 to reverse climate change, and yet our government is sabotaging the road to renewables while opening new fossil fuel frontiers like fracking.

Climate change: Decade's defining issue in pictures Show all 20 1 /20 Climate change: Decade's defining issue in pictures Climate change: Decade's defining issue in pictures California In this decade, humans have become ever more aware of climate change. Calls for leaders to act echo around the globe as the signs of a changing climate become ever more difficult to ignore Getty Climate change: Decade's defining issue in pictures Athens, Greece Fierce wildfires have flared up in numerous countries. The damage being caused is unprecedented: 103 people were killed in wildfires last year in California, one of the places best prepared, best equipped to fight such blazes in the world AFP/Getty Climate change: Decade's defining issue in pictures Redding, California Entire towns have been razed. The towns of Redding and Paradise in California were all but eliminated in the 2018 season AP Climate change: Decade's defining issue in pictures Athens, Greece While wildfires in Greece (pictured), Australia, Indonesia and many other countries have wrought chaos to infrastructure, economies and cost lives AFP/Getty Climate change: Decade's defining issue in pictures Carlisle, England In Britain, flooding has become commonplace. Extreme downpours in Carlisle in the winter of 2015 saw the previous record flood level being eclipsed by two feet AFP/Getty Climate change: Decade's defining issue in pictures Hebden Bridge, England Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire has flooded repeatedly in the past decade, with the worst coming on Christmas Day 2015. Toby Smith of Climate Visuals, an organisation focused on improving how climate change is depicted in the media, says: "Extreme weather and flooding, has and will become more frequent due to climate change. An increase in the severity and distribution of press images, reports and media coverage across the nation has localised the issue. It has raised our emotions, perception and personalised the effects and hazards of climate change." Getty Climate change: Decade's defining issue in pictures Somerset, England Out west in Somerset, floods in 2013 led to entire villages being cut off and isolated for weeks Getty Climate change: Decade's defining issue in pictures Dumfries, Scotland "In summer 2012, intense rain flooded over 8000 properties. In 2013, storms and coastal surges combined catastrophically with elevated sea levels whilst December 2015, was the wettest month ever recorded. Major flooding events continued through the decade with the UK government declaring flooding as one of the nation's major threats in 2017," says Mr Smith of Climate Visuals Getty Climate change: Decade's defining issue in pictures London, England Weather has been more extreme in Britain in recent years. The 'Beast from the East' which arrived in February 2018 brought extraordinarily cold temperatures and high snowfall. Central London (pictured), where the city bustle tends to mean that snow doesn't even settle, was covered in inches of snow for day PA Climate change: Decade's defining issue in pictures London, England Months after the cold snap, a heatwave struck Britain, rendering the normally plush green of England's parks in Summer a parched brown for weeks AFP/Getty Climate change: Decade's defining issue in pictures New South Wales, Australia Worsening droughts in many countries have been disastrous for crop yields and have threatened livestock. In Australia, where a brutal drought persisted for months last year, farmers have suffered from mental health problems because of the threat to their livelihood Reuters Climate change: Decade's defining issue in pictures Tonle Sap, Cambodia Even dedicated climate skeptic Jeremy Clarkson has come to recognise the threat of climate change after visiting the Tonle Sap lake system in Cambodia. Over a million people rely on the water of Tonle Sap for work and sustinence but, as Mr Clarkson witnessed, a drought has severley depleted the water level Carlo Frem/Amazon Climate change: Decade's defining issue in pictures Addis Ababa, Ethiopia In reaction to these harbingers of climate obliteration, some humans have taken measures to counter the impending disaster. Ethiopia recently planted a reported 350 million trees in a single day AFP/Getty Climate change: Decade's defining issue in pictures Morocco Morocco has undertaken the most ambitious solar power scheme in the world, recently completing a solar plant the size of San Francisco AFP/Getty Climate change: Decade's defining issue in pictures London, England Electric cars are taking off as a viable alternative to fossil fuel burning vehicles and major cities across the world are adding charging points to accomodate AFP/Getty Climate change: Decade's defining issue in pictures Purmerend, The Netherlands Cities around the world are embracing cycling too, as a clean (and healthy) mode of transport. The Netherlands continues to lead the way with bikes far outnumbering people Jeroen Much/Andras Schuh Climate change: Decade's defining issue in pictures Xiamen, China Cycling infrastructure is taking over cities the world over, in the hope of reducing society's dependency on polluting vehicles Ma Weiwei Climate change: Decade's defining issue in pictures Chennai, India Despite positive steps being taken, humans continue to have a wildly adverse effect on the climate. There have been numerous major oil spills this decade, the most notable being the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 AFP/Getty Climate change: Decade's defining issue in pictures Amazon rainforest, Brazil More recently, large swathes of the Amazon rainforest were set alight by people to clear land for agriculture AFP/Getty Climate change: Decade's defining issue in pictures California This decade may have seen horrors but it has led to an understanding that the next decade must see change if human life is to continue Getty

Only the Green Party will do the right thing for young people. We won’t just make education free: we’ll wipe all student debt. We’ll build 100,000 new homes a year, available at social rent, and introduce a universal rent cap. We’ll end zero-hours contracts and create millions of decent, green jobs. We'll provide everyone with a universal basic income. We'll commit to achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2030, to ensure there’s a society in which future generations can enjoy retirement.

After decades of destructive neoliberalism, it is easy to feel angry about the situation we find ourselves in. But when we rail at baby boomers, we must remember that the privileges they enjoyed only became privileges when they were denied to subsequent generations. Free education, affordable housing, a stable environment: these aren’t luxuries, but basic tenets of a decent society.