Could this be the global-warming generation?
Live Earth concerts in eight countries hope to inspire action. Will it work?
from the July 5, 2007 edition
Page 4 of 4
Generation Y: Seeks green employer
Their older brothers and sisters, however, think differently. "Generation Y is getting fired up about global warming," says Jeff Angel, director of the Total Environment Centre, a green advocacy group in Sydney. "There's a lot of evidence in Australia to show that young people look for employers with the right environmental credentials."
In America, too, "there has been an absolute explosion among young people whose main concerns are related to the environment," says James Pittman, who teaches Environmental Studies at Prescott College in Arizona. "They are concerned about their future and it is really starting to sink in."
Global warming "is the defining challenge of our generation," proclaims Billy Parish, a 25-year-old who dropped out of Yale to found Energy Action, a coalition of US universities and students seeking to reduce their greenhouse-gas emissions. "The window of time ... we have to solve this problem is a narrow one."
"Live Earth" is seeking to capitalize on that sort of attitude. "Today's generation has a decision to make, it has a choice," says John Hanawa, who works at the Beijing office of the UN Development Program, which is helping to organize the Shanghai concert. "That's why we have these events ... to get traction with young people."
If the strategy is not working so well in Rio, where "there has not been one article in the Brazilian press about the cause of the show, about global warming," complains environmental activist Sergio Ricardo, the sky is a little brighter elsewhere.
In China, for example, climate change has become a "hot topic" among young people in the past few months, says Mr. Hu, now that the government has begun to tackle the subject more frankly and opened it for public debate. "It is almost like trying to be green is some sort of fashion," adds Mr. Ma.
In South Africa, where young people have been at the forefront of protests to win better public services in the townships and for new government policies on HIV/AIDS, global warming could be the next big youth cause, says John Langford who is organizing the Johannesburg concert.
"While "Live Earth" might be another step in a long-running campaign against global warming in the US and Europe, here it could be the launch of a broad social movement," Mr. Langford predicts.
• Written and reported by Peter Ford in Beijing. Reported by Nick Squires in Sydney, Takehiko Kambayashi in Tokyo, Jude Blanchette in Shanghai, China, Stephanie Hanes in Johannesburg, South Africa, Yigal Schleifer in Istanbul, Turkey, Mark Rice-Oxley in London, Tom Phillips in Rio de Janeiro, and Tony Azios in Boston.
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