Blaming boomers won’t stall climate change, but millennials can.
Our generation is making three major strides toward lasting transformation.
I spent my childhood in front of glimmering images of UFOs, robots, and people in space suits, exclaiming, “Deploy the blasters!” In these movies, technology whirred, and monsters were beaten. But as I reached adulthood, I noticed it wasn’t so simple. Now, it seems to me that climate change and generational financial insecurity are working together to create a Mad Max future, rather than one with a whimsical time-traveling DeLorean.
Bummer, dude. No jetpacks for us.
But am I alone in this dismay? I turned to some friends in my moment of turmoil to find out. As a group of us gathered around our computers for a Zoom happy hour, swigging craft beers and contemplating our future, I asked the group how they picture retirement.
“Emily and I talk about climate-friendly options, like moving into a tiny home,” my friend Leslie told me.
Her partner, Emily, added that the pair have always imagined themselves working in retirement: “We know we can’t rely on social security past 2037, and we want to dedicate our time to things we value: climate change and community.” They plan to run a sustainable campsite.
Here, I sensed a generational divide — I have never heard a boomer consider working, or climate change, when discussing retirement. Maybe that’s because it’s supposed to get a lot worse by the time boomers pass away, and millennials retire. But is our fate sealed? What can millennials do about it?
After all, we’ve made up more of the American workforce than any other generation since 2016, and we are significantly more educated. However, our retirement funds lag, and we’re stuck in unfulfilling jobs because of the boomers before us. And, lest we forget, they gifted us a nearly dead Earth.
But while lamenting about boomers feels cathartic, I think we can all admit that it won’t stop the Earth from warming. Climate and financial projections set a turbulent backdrop against which we’ll retire. Before we can act, we need to focus our energy on understanding the problem and our role in it. It’s high time we do so — we’re at a critical phase of life where we’re starting to gain clout in society as we grow older.
The year 2050 — when millennials will be 54 to 69 years old — is already a “hot” topic among climate experts because our population is projected to explode, and estimates of people displaced by climate change range from 25 million to 1 billion.
Does this sound expensive to you? It should.
American journalist David Wallace-Wells estimates in his book, The Uninhabitable Earth, that every degree of warming costs one percentage point of gross domestic product (GDP): “Our current emissions trajectory takes us over 4 degrees by 2100; multiply that by that 1 percent of GDP, and you have almost entirely wiped out the very possibility of economic growth.” Our unchecked emissions could lead us to an increase of at least 2.4°C by 2050. That’s over halfway toward an economically stagnant nightmare.
In 2050, we’ll have a suffering GDP, diminished Social Security funds, and a volatile climate. So, we’ll be financially insecure, navigating health challenges exacerbated by aging and climate change, and possibly seeking refuge in an unfamiliar city. And if one of the largest living generations is in such an unstable circumstance, humans will collectively struggle to make a lasting impact on climate change.
With these compounding issues in mind, I wanted to know what the data says about who we are as a generation. Can we fight this?
Turns out, we can. We’re kicking over three social norms hurting our climate: polarization, soullessness, and homogeneity. Here’s how:
1. Aligning on prioritizing climate change.
According to the Pew Research Center, 59% of registered voting millennials lean left — more than any older generation. Meanwhile, a poll from the American Conservation Coalition says 82% of right-leaning millennial voters also care about climate change. Plus, recent surveys from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication revealed that millennials ranked climate change 9th of the 29 issues impacting their decisions in the 2020 elections. (Generation X ranked it 15th, boomers 18th, and the Silent Generation 23rd.)
2. Forcing industries to adapt to our ethics.
We don’t just agree, we act. We’re the most likely of any generation to contact government officials about global warming, or volunteer money and time to global warming-oriented organizations. And we are bringing these values to the office. Recent research says half of us choose not to work somewhere that doesn’t enact our values, and 65% of us believe companies could do more about climate change. The manufacturing industry, for one, feels the burn of our collective moral compass (probably due to our hefty size) — they say they’re “trying to survive in the millennial era.”
3. We’re diverse and demanding your attention.
Given that conservative white males are the most likely to dismiss climate change and 44% of US millennials identify as a minority (and we are increasingly composed of foreign-born, bilingual people), our diversity in the US can crowd out those naysaying white male voices. Globally, an emerging outcrop of millennial climate activists and advocates from underrepresented communities are making poetry, podcasts, and organizations demanding that the agency and perspectives of marginalized groups are considered. If feminism has waves, so does climate change activism, and millennials like Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner, Aka Niviâna, Rhiana Gunn-Wright, Aletta Brady, and Kerene N. Tayloe are making one.
So, while our story’s antagonist is a complex web of climate and financial gloom, we millennials are similarly dynamic characters in the fight to protect the future. Our jeopardized twilight years, shared value system, and diverse voices position us to combat the all-encompassing plight of climate change effectively. We’re not willing to give up the bright, morally sound future promised to us by our VHS players.
The scary data may make you want to press stop, but don’t — this movie has a protagonist worth rooting for.
