The Author Is Australian, The Sentiment The Same: Rage Among The Young At What Is Happening Before Their Eyes To Earth

[hatrack]

I’m scrolling on TikTok after work when I get a text that would have sent 12-year-old Anjali into a spiral, a frenzy of extreme climate anxiety. The text is from a friend letting me know that it’s official – 2024 is the hottest year on record. Not just that, it’s the first year to exceed 1.5C of warming over preindustrial levels. The news comes as my entire feed is flooded with images of an inferno of flames ripping through neighbourhoods in LA, in winter. I feel not anxiety but disbelief. Disbelief that the lives of young people and future generations are being shaped by decisions being made today, and yet we must still beg and plead to have our health and wellbeing protected by legislation in the face of destructive climate pollution. As we come to the end of the 10 hottest years our world has documented, there is still no legislation in Australia that acknowledges the disproportionate impact that climate change will have on children and future generations.

EDIT

’m not the only one. Your average young person can care deeply about issues including climate change, housing and the cost of living and yet not know the name of the local MP. This is symptomatic of a fraught relationship between young people and the electoral system, characterised by three aspects. The first aspect is awareness and the access to knowledge our generation has. We have the ability to access the world’s news at the press of a button. We also have the knowledge that climate change is very real.

The second is cynicism – the feeling that politics isn’t for us, and that politicians don’t listen to us or care about us. The feeling that we’re watching the world burn and our futures with it yet nobody has bothered to ask for our input. Research from EveryGen found that 81% of Australians believe that politicians prioritise short-term decisions over a long-term view. Policy decisions over the last three years, including the suspension of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act reforms and the rejection of the duty of care bill, signal that this government doesn’t care about young people and their futures. Regardless of the intended meaning, this is the message received.

The third is disaffection, which can mean a refusal to engage with the news because it’s always depressing, or a refusal to engage with politics because it’s full of meaningless noise and people shouting at each other. I’ve seen disaffection take over the young people I used to know as the most politically engaged as, one by one, they tire of leaning their weight against an unjust system, spending hours unpaid calling for greater climate action, alongside school and work, and seeing almost nothing change.

EDIT

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jan/13/as-the-world-burns-young-australians-are-feeling-disbelief-and-looking-for-answers

[Skittles]

1. we feel their pain

America has an entire political party that denies and mocks climate change.

[msongs]

2. so they all stopped using cars and electric from coal....right. ntq

[hatrack]

3. Welcome to blocked, Snarky

Buh-bye.

[ramapo]

4. Not how they voted

I'm not seeing much rage from American youth except maybe if they lose Tik-tok. They certainly didn't get out and vote on mass for the one candidate who at least takes climate change seriously. Apathy wins. Earth loses (or at least the people do).