Children and the Culture of Climate Change
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Jim West Photography, "Detroit, Michigan. Demonstrators march in front of the immigration and naturalization service office to protest INS raids to deport undocumented immigrants. A girl carries a sign asking 'why do you hate me? Porque odias a mi gente?'"
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I saw a poster recently announcing a symposium on climate change, and it showed a little girl holding a world globe in her hands. This association is not uncommon. It is a recurrent feature of the culture of this particular aspect of science—an acknowledgement that children are the future and that we need to be concerned about what they inherit. There is the recognition, too, that in some inevitable sense, it is in their hands. I want to discuss some of the realities underlying these sentiments and how we respond to them.
It is undeniable at this point that we live on a gradually warming planet. In the cautious estimation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, this is most likely a result of human activity and the release of greenhouse gases. Although it is not possible to relate individual weather events to the phenomenon of climate change, it is generally accepted that we are experiencing gradual changes in average temperatures, average rainfalls, the prevalence of storms, and so on that can have far reaching impacts.1 There has also been a marked increase in the number of extreme climate-related events—storm surges and floods, tornadoes, landslides, unprecedented droughts and other so-called natural disasters.2 I say "so-called" because they spring in many cases from human activity, and they only count as disasters when they affect human beings and human activities.
In one of those ironic twists of fate, it is primarily the people who have contributed least to this situation who suffer most from its consequences. Notwithstanding the tornadoes, hurricanes and floods that have recently plagued the United States, or the deadly heat waves in Eastern Europe, the great majority of those most affected and those who will continue to be most affected are people in poor nations and those in the poorest communities in these nations. This is not because climate change is necessarily more severe where the poor live (although it is true that changing patterns are more extreme [End Page 497] in tropical and sub-tropical areas). It is because people, their enterprises, and the places they occupy are generally so much more vulnerable in the context of poverty. People in poverty tend to be more highly exposed to weather-related hazards, and less able to cope with the impacts.
In most cities in the global South, for example, the poorest people often occupy the most hazardous sites. They live on flood plains, on steep slopes, under bridges, wherever land is available. They often have none of the protective infrastructure that can make it easier to withstand extreme events—no storm drains, no proper roads. Their homes are often built from flimsy materials that cannot stand up to high winds, mudslides, rushing water. A weather event that might scarcely register in Boston can wreak havoc in Mombasa.
Among the most vulnerable are young children. The World Health Organization claims that child deaths make up 85 percent of the mortality attributable to climate change.3 Young children have more rapid metabolisms, immature organs, underdeveloped immune systems, and limited experience and understanding; all of which leave them less well equipped on many fronts to deal with deprivation and stress. Their exposure to hazards at this period of rapid development is also likely to have long-term repercussions. They are more vulnerable to injury, for instance, and more often with enduring effects.
Droughts, flooding, and post-disaster conditions all intensify the risk of water and sanitation-related illnesses, which can take more lives than the initial disaster, and young children are by far the most heavily affected. About 80 percent of all diarrheal disease occurs in children under five, and this remains, astonishingly, one of the leading causes of death worldwide for young children.4
Warmer temperatures are expanding...
