TADEAS:
The climate crisis is here already, in the Western world, in Europe. In Germany, the water levels of the rivers Elbe and Rhine are low more often; there is massive forest decline not only in the Harz mountain range and the Saxon Switzerland region. There are fewer insects, more jellyfish, more droughts, heatwaves, crop failures and we’re seeing first shortages of potable water. Glaciers are melting and permafrost grounds are thawing all over the world.
The “next generation” who has to suffer the consequences of the climate crisis is already alive. That generation consists of children who have already been born. They’re our children, on every continent and in every nation.
We don’t report what the climate crisis will mean for us and our children
Most of the children born today will still be in primary school when we possibly exceed the 1.5°C limit as early as the worst case scenario predicts: 2030. Your three-year-old son? He will be 13 then. Your five-year-old grandchild? She’ll be around 15. You see yourself having a child about five years from now? You can do the math, and you get my point. When these children are old enough to be told how serious our situation is, it will be too late to stay under 1.5°C.
But the climate crisis not only affects our children; it also affects us. You’re 42 now? That means you’ll only be 52 when we may have permanently given away our chance to live in a world with a stable climate. According to the current average life expectancy, you’ll then have another 30 years or so in which to experience the increasingly dire consequences of global warming.