Children are fighting now to get adults to take action on the climate emergency because they know that by the time they are adults, it will be too late for them.

As adults, we tell them to wait. We treat children — that is, people under the age of 18 — as future citizens, asking them to learn about democracy and political participation in their classrooms while the grown-ups make decisions on their behalf that don’t centre their needs. Our provincial government tells them they should be in the classroom learning, rather than in the streets marching. However, as pointed out by teenage activist Greta Thunberg, for many children, what does it mean to be in school when the crisis is dire enough that they feel their education may be irrelevant by the time they reach adulthood?

Sociologist Barbara Adam proposed a form of temporally democratic decision-making, an essential principle in thinking about environmental politics: that we must consider the livelihoods, safety, and rights of non-voters past, present, and future, as well as the interests of those persons able to vote in the present. This includes the idea that environmental decisions need to consider not only the lives of present generations, but also distant future generations. I believe it also means that we need to consider children’s environmental present, as well as their futures.

Often, when we talk about politics and childhood, we erase the present lives of children in the interest of adult debates and adult interests. We can see this when we talk about the future effects of our decisions: we argue for tax policy we want by talking about the effects of government debt for future generations, for example, without talking about what cuts might mean for the lives of children now as well as into their futures.

Childhood becomes a stand-in for adults’ hopes and adults’ fears, caught up in our nostalgic idea of what it means to be a child — an idea that is rarely about the complex lives and experiences of children. Children are not simply future citizens. They are people here and now, with their own needs, hopes, and fears, and the climate crisis means that their future is more uncertain than ever. What is certain is that they are people now, and their present lives deserve our attention.

Some people argue that climate strikes are a sign of hopelessness — that by telling children about climate change, we are fuelling an existential crisis for children. But we teach science and scientific literacy, and that includes teaching climate science. To do otherwise would be to lie to children — something most of us consider deeply unethical. However, the best way to help children face existential fears is not to tell them to do nothing and wait until they’re grown. Over and over, when I talk to children about climate change, they say that what helps them face the fear is to take meaningful action.

Our failure to listen means that children are acting to seize our attention. School strikes are not simply protests; they are symbolic withdrawal from the normal systems in which we expect children to participate. Much as when adult workers strike, students refuse participation to show resistance to a system that isn’t responding to their demands. Similarly, when young people block roadways, hold die-ins, or otherwise disrupt our normal expectations, these actions are meant to illustrate the disruption that climate change will bring to all our lives.

However, these aren’t the only ways children work to create change. They’re organizing their peers. They’re educating their parents, family members, and friends. They’re making their schools more sustainable — installing solar panels, starting gardening clubs, learning to remake clothing, writing about the effects of climate change on social and political systems, and more. They’re also writing to political leaders, visiting their offices, and demanding that adults act now because their futures can’t wait.

They can’t vote — this federal election went ahead, with climate change as a core issue, without them getting their say at the ballot box. However, on Sept. 27, they seized the attention of the entire country. Now, with Greta Thunberg returning to Canada, this time to the heart of Canadian climate denialism here in Alberta, children will again demand that we hear their voices. They can’t wait for us to hear them. Can we listen?

Bridget Stirling is a PhD student in the department of educational policy studies at the University of Alberta and an Edmonton Public Schools trustee.

The Star invited local people to step in as guest editors each Friday and have their say on an issue that’s important to them. Next week, Jamie Salé, Olympic champion pairs skater and life coach, on why you need to keep dreaming — even after the Olympics are done. Read the full guest editor series here.

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