Generational Backlash Intensifying, Generational Divide On Climate Policy Hardening

[hatrack]

EDIT

Governments, so far, have not responded with similar urgency. In the face of an estimated 30,000 student protesters, including Franzi, across Germany in January, the German government’s coal commission still only agreed to quit coal by 2038—a date activists say violates Paris Agreement targets by being too far in the future. And while, in the United States, ambitious proposals such as the Green New Deal grow ever more prominent, they seem no nearer to being passed into law.

But despite a long history of governmental procrastination on climate change, some of the protest groups today still think they might be able to make a difference. The U.K.-founded Extinction Rebellion, in particular, cite the research of the political scientist Erica Chenoweth: that peaceful civil disobedience against a repressive regime can be effective if 3.5 percent of the population joins in. That percentage of the population of Germany would be 2.9 million people, or 11.5 million people in the United States. The protesters, despite the startling increase in their numbers in the first few months of 2019, are nowhere near those figures. But as they grow, they are provoking strikingly angry responses, highlighting the generational nature of the upcoming climate change conflict.

EDIT

At an intersection in one of Berlin’s most expensive neighborhoods last month, I watched my younger sister Linda, 21, take part in an Extinction Rebellion road blockade. She was looking small between the exhaust gases and the blaring horns. Later, we reminisced how, when we were both in primary school, our parents used to make us laugh with stories about the “Mueslis,” a nickname for the Green Youth teenagers who would show up at the annual school fair in Munich in the mid-1970s with a big plastic tub of wet muesli to promote a meat-free diet. Now, Linda finds herself on the opposite side of the divide: a demonstrator for a cause many, particularly the older generation, are happy to support in theory, but find ridiculous or offensive when demonstrators get too earnest, too inconvenient, or too insistent. U.S. Americans saw a version of this in Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein’s patronizing response to children asking her to adopt the Green New Deal in February—Feinstein has repeatedly called for action on climate change in the past, but apparently finds the Green New Deal too radical. European activists see a version of this almost every week on the streets.

At an Extinction Rebellion blockade in February, as Linda walked between the cars with her flyers and oranges, the responses were varied. One man, who had the music turned up loud and a cigarette in his hand, stared at her with a confused expression and took the flyer. Next up, a man in a white shirt rolled down the window of his big shiny car: “Du scheiss Öko Fotze, was denkst du wer du bist? Ich ficke dich mit Kohle.” (Translated literally: “You shit eco-cunt, who do you think you are? I will fuck you with coal.”) When Linda attempted to respond, the man honked over her voice. She moved on to try the car behind him.

EDIT/EDIT

https://newrepublic.com/article/153405/generational-backlash-europes-climate-activists

[2naSalit]

1. K&R