海角大神

Clara Germani: I鈥檓 going to say two words: climate change. But just wait a beat before you think we鈥檙e going to talk about 鈥渃limate doomerism,鈥� that idea that nothing can be done to stop the melting, drought, flood, and fire caused by global warming. Today, we deliver some perspectives you haven鈥檛 heard before.

Assembling them was a major undertaking. The Monitor sent a reporting team to four continents, including such places as the Arctic, the Namibian Desert, the Rockies, a Caribbean island, and the waterlogged delta nation of Bangladesh. Our team profiled members of the global demographic that has the most to lose 鈥� and the most to gain 鈥� from our shifting environment.

We call this 鈥淭he Climate Generation.鈥� These are people born since 1989, the first to grow up facing the reality of a changing, heating, disrupted world. And we鈥檝e discovered that climate change is shaping a mindset revolution, powerfully driving innovation and progress. These young people are leading the transformation, seizing on a crisis moment to tackle the inequalities and injustices that have long saddled their nations. They鈥檙e crafting a new ethos about consumption, progress, and what it means to have a good life.聽聽

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This is 鈥淲hy We Wrote This.鈥� I鈥檓 Clara Germani, the editor of The Climate Generation project and this week鈥檚 guest host. We鈥檙e talking with our project correspondents, Stephanie Hanes, the Monitor鈥檚 environment reporter, and Sara Miller Llana, our Toronto bureau chief.

Welcome, you two.聽

Sara Miller Llana: Thanks. It鈥檚 great to be here.

Stephanie Hanes: It鈥檚 great to be here, thanks.聽

Germani: We鈥檝e just come off this month鈥檚 UN climate summit in Dubai [formally the United Nations Climate Change Conference, this 28th one was called COP28]. It鈥檚 an annual event and the headlines can feel like Groundhog Day every year: the sounding of the alarm that Earth鈥檚 inhabitants aren鈥檛 doing enough to stop destructive warming.

When you read headlines about the state of children in this environment, it鈥檚 all about loneliness, depression, eco anxiety. And I just wonder: There are two sides to this, the alarm bells and [also] the hope that we can respond to the alarm. What did you find at the intersection of climate and young people?

Miller Llana: I鈥檇 say that the very first conversation we had about this project was about eco-anxiety, because that鈥檚 what you hear about the most. But as we started meeting the folks that are in this piece, most people in this series felt very hopeful. They had to make change, and they were going to affect that change, and they don鈥檛 have time to wallow in despair. They have to move and take action right now.聽

Hanes: Yeah, this is Stephanie speaking here. I would say that we found this generation that was really growing up fundamentally differently than generations of the past. This reality of a heating, changing world is in the background of everything that they鈥檙e doing. And this comes out in these really surprising and interesting 鈥� and I think we found really hopeful and exciting 鈥� ways.聽

Germani: That鈥檚 a distillation of what you鈥檝e found in general, but how did you land on this as a concept, the 鈥渃limate generation鈥� and the diverse cross section of people that you looked at?

Miller Llana: This project probably started 20 years ago. I was in Bolivia as the Latin America correspondent doing a story with a photographer, Melanie Stetson Freeman, about children growing up in jails and with their parents in jails. And so she told me about this project that she did in 1987 called 鈥淐hildren in Darkness鈥� for 海角大神.

And she traveled all over the world with a team of two reporters and herself. They were all women, and they looked at the absence of children鈥檚 rights at that time, and I just, when she told me about it, I had this moment of 鈥淚 want to do some kind of follow up story to that project.鈥�

And, you know, I lived in Latin America at that time, and then I moved to another continent, and then another continent, and that project never happened. And I woke up this year, in January 2023, deciding it was the year to do this, and I started with a stack of Economists that had grown over the year. And I just read it and I pulled out pages of anything that had to do with children, and there was so much there.

I mean, there鈥檚 children and working rights. There鈥檚 children in the pandemic, and of course, there鈥檚 children and climate change. And at that point, our managing editor said, 鈥淗ey, maybe you should talk to a partner about this because this is a very, very blank slate: children in the world.鈥� And at that point I reached out to Stephanie and I think it鈥檚 important to say, not because she鈥檚 the climate reporter, but because she鈥檚 written a lot about children and we didn鈥檛 just immediately go to climate, but very quickly we realized that climate is the story of this generation.

Germani: Could you give a little context for 鈥淐hildren in Darkness鈥� and how that came kind of at the cusp of the rights of children being defined by the UN and the effects of that, where it has left children today?

Miller Llana: Sure. So, the 鈥淐hildren in Darkness鈥� series of 1987 looked at the absence of children鈥檚 rights before the UN adopted the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. And they went around the world to Iraq and to Peru and to Thailand looking at child prostitution and child labor.

And when we decided to focus on climate change, I personally got very excited because they were in the middle of a review to look at those rights with climate change in mind, because at that time, climate change was not really a topic. It was not something that we talked about.

So all of those rights, a child鈥檚 right to go to school, a child鈥檚 right to have leisure, to live in a home, had to be redefined through the lens of the climate crisis.

Hanes: You know, this is one of the things that Sara and I were talking about. I had written about children a lot for the Monitor and, like Sara, I had been a reporter in other countries. I was based in Southern Africa for a number of years and wrote about the intersection of children and human rights.

As we started talking about what to do with this project, we were both really taken by this paradox that since all of those international efforts to secure the rights of a child, children鈥檚 rights had really improved. Although certainly there were still real harms happening in the world, overall, children were respected and doing better than they had been prior to all those rights.

And at the same time, there was this new and unprecedented challenge that this generation was going to face. I knew from my work the heating of the world and all of the climatic impacts of that were going to start exacerbating all of those problems that children were facing before.

So whether it was poverty or hunger or migration, all of these were going to be affected by climate change as well. And so we wanted to start getting into this paradox. You had children experiencing more rights in some way than ever before, but also facing an unprecedented challenge.聽

Germani: So when you go to look at that and to examine it in person, you had the opportunity to go anywhere in the world. How did you pick the countries and topics that you chose?

Hanes: [Laughs] You know, this was a lot of conversation and one of the things about climate change is it is impacting everybody, everywhere. We could have gone anywhere in the world and written about this. But there were some things we were thinking about.聽

Miller Llana: In addition to just wanting to cover as much as the world as two reporters can, we also wanted to go somewhere where the stakes were really high. So, for example, our story about conservation work among Indigenous peoples; now, there鈥檚 200 guardians programs around Canada. I could have gotten in a car [in Toronto] and driven 90 minutes away.聽

But we went to the Arctic, a 17-hour journey to get there. Why did we do that? Because we wanted to go where it would resonate with readers. The Arctic is melting at rates higher than anywhere else in the world. Arctic warming is having an impact on places all over the world.

So we wanted to tell the story of Tad and Hunter in the Arctic in a way that people would maybe not relate exactly to the way that they live their lives, but they would understand that what they were doing could affect their daily lives. And in Barbados, we were looking at entrepreneurs and that could have been done anywhere.

The prime minister is a huge advocate of climate financing. And I know that when I spoke to Deon, who鈥檚 the character in our Namibia piece, he asked me where we were going and I said, Oh, we鈥檙e going to Barbados too. And I鈥檒l just never forget.聽We were talking over Zoom. It was before I traveled there and his eyes just lit up, right? Because [Prime Minister of Barbados] Mia Motley is a person who, you know, she鈥檚 a symbol for other people. So we chose to go to places where the stakes were really high.聽

Germani: Beyond just the places you went, can you just quickly describe the people you focused on in these profiles?

Hanes: This was one of the best things about reporting this project. We met some great people doing this story all over the world. And so I鈥檓 thinking of somebody like Joshua in Barbados, who had started a compost company out of nothing and was now transforming the way that that country grows food in a way that鈥檚 much more climate friendly.

Hanes: Or there was Grace in Montana, this teenager who got involved with one of the first successful youth climate lawsuits that really was groundbreaking this year in the U.S.

Hanes: I met some people in Portugal, a lot of farmers, including a woman named Rute who had left her job in Toronto to come back to the land in Portugal and start a permaculture project to try to do a climate friendly lifestyle in that country and tons of others.

I know Sara met some great people, too.

Miller Llana: Yeah, I鈥檓 thinking of Mafiya in Bangladesh, who鈥檚 an eighth-grader who has learned about climate because she joined an after school club, which she joined because she wanted to avoid child marriage. There鈥檚 Tad and Hunter in the Arctic, they鈥檙e Inuit hunters who are trying to conserve their land up there, and there is, of course, Deon, who is this nonstop activist in Namibia who I spent 30 hours speaking with for this project.

Germani: As I was editing the stories and as you were doing the interviews, the echoes across the world were kind of remarkable. There鈥檚 this universal consciousness of climate change. There鈥檚 not a monolithic approach, but each of them seem to echo each other with the notion that in this extremity, there鈥檚 opportunity for a lot of these people.聽Can you tell us about that?聽

Miller Llana: The first trip that I took for this project was the Arctic, and I focused on Tad and Hunter as Indigenous guardians. Their lives hunting caribou and harpooning beluga whales, and their lives just felt so different than anything I鈥檇 ever experienced in my life. Then I very quickly traveled to Namibia, and I was sitting there talking to this guy Reinhold there, who鈥檚 trying to rebuild a rural desert-based economy, and he鈥檚 talking about conserving land and protecting elephants and rhinos, and talking about growing sustainable food and growing ecotourism opportunities.

Miller Llana: And I just remember sitting there thinking, oh my God, they鈥檙e doing the exact same thing. They鈥檙e speaking a completely different language. We鈥檙e dealing with ice melt in one place and drought in another place, but they are speaking the same language.聽

Hanes: You know, we had had an idea before we started off reporting what we thought we might find, but it鈥檚 always exciting when you actually get back and some of those initial questions or theories start to really pan out.

When Sara came back from that Arctic trip and was sharing some of what she found, it was connected with reporting I had just done in Hawaii, where people were really trying to reintegrate into ecosystems. And then, as Sara was saying, she found these same themes in the Arctic and Namibia, and I started hearing about them in Barbados and in Portugal, and we realized that there were these changes that were happening that weren鈥檛 place specific. They were really generational.

What we were finding was that, you know, it wasn鈥檛 that it was just that people in the Arctic were interested in reconnecting to Indigenous practices. Indigenous practices are something that we heard about everywhere and everywhere from people within that climate generational cohort.

Same with looking for new opportunities to invent new systems and to challenge old silos between, say, food and energy, different ideas of how to live. These were all things that we were noticing young people in all different parts of the world were starting to think about. And part of that is also because they鈥檙e super connected, right?

Miller Llana: So the first person we actually met for this project was a kid named Atlas, who鈥檚 16 years old and he is suing the Turkish government to force them to comply with carbon emission reductions. And at that point, the project hadn鈥檛 really even started. I was there covering the aftermath of their earthquake in February.

We didn鈥檛 exactly know where we were going, but I mentioned that Namibia might be one of them. He lit up and said, 鈥淥h, you have to talk to Mama Ina if you go there.鈥� And I said, 鈥淥K.鈥� And his mom was with them and she gave me the WhatsApp number. And then we get to Namibia, and I met Mama Ina and I met Jakapita and Jakapita.

At that point, we wanted to go to Bangladesh, but that was far from a sure thing because it鈥檚 very hard to get into Bangladesh. But she said, 鈥渋f you go, you have to meet Farzana. She鈥檚 my bestie.鈥� And we just started to realize how the same way that they don鈥檛 look at the drought that they鈥檙e experiencing in isolation, they also don鈥檛 look at their activism in isolation. They really are part of this global fight together.

Germani: One interesting thing about that global fight and the interconnectedness that we were all so surprised to hear about: I was really surprised also to find that Greta Thunberg, who is the person that鈥檚 perhaps most associated with youth activism, isn鈥檛 always the driving point behind what people are doing. Like, across the Arctic Circle from Greta are these Arctic Guardians who, I think you said, had never even heard of her.

Miller Llana: No, they had not ever heard of her. They had no idea who she was, which I just thought was great. On the other hand, then you have Deon who said, 鈥淥h yeah, I talked to her.鈥�

Hanes: In some ways, Greta is more of a force for older people, I think. That was my impression. People in older generations, when they think about young climate activists, think of Greta. And while she certainly has inspired some younger activists, a lot of what鈥檚 happening in the climate generation goes way beyond what we typically think of as climate activism.

I see this generation taking climate change and transforming all sorts of systems. Some of it might be activism and [politics]. Some of it might be legal, but we also saw it in business and in lifestyles and in the idea of where and how you live or in food.聽 And those people aren鈥檛 really thinking about Greta.

Some of them don鈥檛 even think of themselves as activists. And actually, I would say most of the people I met don鈥檛 consider themselves activists. And yet, they鈥檙e really transforming the world because of climate change.

Germani: Along the way, editing this and just following what you all are doing when you鈥檙e covering these stories, there are signpost moments where you remember things from this that you鈥檒l always remember. And I can remember, in our Slack channel, Stephanie bursting in with 鈥淥MG, the kids won.鈥�

And it was last summer when there was that unprecedented moment that underlined our whole thesis about this generation: it was the Montana kids who won their lawsuit against the state. And you talked a lot about how the kids there didn鈥檛 see themselves as activists. They were kind of challengers.

Hanes: That was an exciting moment for me 鈥� not for any political stance of mine, but just because it was such a moment of children changing things in a way that I think even two or three years ago, people would have just really doubted would have happened. And just to back up a little bit, this was one of the youth climate lawsuits that had been filed in the U.S. There are a number of climate lawsuits around the world; the number has been increasing pretty dramatically. But this was the first one where children plaintiffs had managed to get to trial in the U.S. And the U.S., just again, more context, is the largest emitter of greenhouse gasses historically.聽

This was the first time that young people had challenged a state government in the highest emitting country to change the way it was doing things to focus more on climate change. So it was a big deal.

Miller Llana: In some ways, we could have written any of these stories from any of these places, which was really fascinating to me. It鈥檚 also really important to remember the different environments and contexts in which they live. Being able to bring a lawsuit in the U.S. is very different than bringing a lawsuit in Turkey, for example, in an authoritarian country or protesting in the U.S. versus in Turkey where Atlas鈥檚 mom says that she goes with him not because she鈥檚, you know, he鈥檚 the puppet and she鈥檚 really leading it, which is a lot of the criticism that climate activists get, but because she鈥檚 his mother and she鈥檚 legitimately scared of what could happen to him at a protest in Turkey.

Another Interesting point that I鈥檒l never forget was Deon. It was actually a video that I saw of him speaking, but he was talking about the difference between an African activist and Greta, a Swedish activist. And he raised this point and he said, you know, OK, so Fridays for a Future, the protest movement that she led, which was skipping school on Fridays and there were school children all around the world doing that.

It鈥檚 very different to skip school in Sweden than it is in many countries in Africa, where school is a girl鈥檚 ticket out of child marriage or genital mutilation. And that always stuck with me because we also have to remember that a lot of what this generation is doing is very challenging, and it鈥檚 not the same across the world.

Farzana in Bangladesh, she is part of the Fridays for Future movement there, and she said when this whole movement first started five years ago, there was this tendency for the Global North to look at the Global South and say, 鈥淥h, the poor Global South, they鈥檙e the victims here.鈥澛燗nd she said, 鈥� 鈥渘o, we are the ones living climate change right now. We have the lived experience. We are the ones with the solutions.鈥�

Hanes: And that鈥檚 what we found in Barbados as well. It was this idea that sometimes the best innovation comes from challenge. So these countries like Barbados or other small island nation states that are really facing existential crises right now because of climate change, they鈥檙e also coming up with some of the solutions that the rest of the world is going to need.

One of the women that I spoke to in Barbados who was working on trying to turn seaweed there into a new type of biofuel to run cars ended up going to California to work with American researchers to try to help them figure out how to do the same with American materials. So you鈥檙e seeing this big shift where some of these countries that have sort of traditionally and stereotypically been portrayed as, you know, 鈥渧ictims,鈥� are really the solution-drivers right now. And I think that鈥檚 more apparent within this climate generation.聽

Germani: So when we鈥檙e working on a project like this that spans almost a year, there鈥檚 so much that goes on that never gets in the stories, but it鈥檚 the background that keeps you chugging, and it鈥檚 the color that gets lost a bit, because we can鈥檛 share it in the stories. But I just was wondering if there were things that you might like to talk about.

I mean, there鈥檚 everything from, you know, not having adequate wardrobe for some of these places that you went to, or the dramatic shifts in wardrobe that you had to do to get to these places, to being the moms of kids in the climate generation.聽

Miller Llana: Well, packing was a nightmare for this project. I am notoriously bad at packing, but I don鈥檛 think I鈥檝e ever done a worse job. When I went to the Arctic, I did look at the Weather Channel several times, and it was hovering around, you know, zero Celsius to about 5, and I thought, 鈥淥K, I鈥檒l take the coat that I wear at zero,鈥� and I heard that I should have rubber boots, so I bought rubber boots, city boots, with like a floral print on them, and I get to the Arctic, and I did not account for the Arctic wind, or the fact that we would be out on the land literally all day, so by the end of that trip, Melanie and I were both in seal-skin parkas and mitts that we had to borrow.

I also, thankfully, at the very end decided that those rubber boots were probably not a good idea, and I did buy some sturdy ones that I could wear, but Mel had to borrow boots because she did not have proper boots. And then in Bangladesh, there is a historic outbreak of dengue, and I did not want to get bitten by a mosquito, so I spent the whole week before I went spraying, like, this toxic spray all over my clothes.

And I got there and then just realized that it was so hot, and I was covered from head-to-toe both to avoid mosquito bites and because of cultural norms there, and I was just sweltering. I鈥檝e never been so hot in my entire life, and I鈥檓 so mad at myself because the day that we were leaving, I bought a traditional Bangladeshi outfit, which is pants, a long shirt, and a scarf, and I put it on, it was my last day as I was heading to the airport, and it was so comfortable, and I thought, why was I not wearing this the entire time?聽

Hanes: I think the thing for me with a project like this is just trying to keep everything straight. One of the things with reporting, especially when you鈥檙e trying to find these big macro trends, it鈥檚 a lot of coordination, it鈥檚 a lot of checking ourselves and making sure that what we think might be the story is actually the story, and it鈥檚 a lot of following different random leads that might turn into something but don鈥檛 end up in the stories.

And so we did a lot of that. And I鈥檓 glad we did because all of that, like you said, Clara, informs聽 what we write and proves that what we think is the story is the story, but it doesn鈥檛 end up in print.

My kids were really excited about the Montana story because I had told them that there were other children who had filed this lawsuit. And I think for my kids, who are super aware of climate change, the idea that grown ups were listening to kids was really exciting to them.

Miller Llana: I mean, we have to juggle a lot of reporting all the time, but this was just like nothing I鈥檝e ever experienced in my life.

Because at the end of the day, we both did about four cover stories. We did one together and three each on our own and it鈥檚 a lot to go to different parts of the world. And you have to buy books about that place and learn everything about it in a very short amount of time, but we both write a lot of cover stories. So we were trying to figure out, like, why is this killing us?

I think it鈥檚 in part because the three of us were talking all the time about each one of these stories so it wasn鈥檛 just that I was working on a story about Namibia.聽It was also, by the time we were traveling, it was just in such a short amount of time. I went to the Arctic and then I arrived in Namibia. And by the way, that was two overnight flights in a row, which at a certain age is a killer.

Throughout this entire process, we were having Namibia, Portugal, Barbados, the Arctic on our minds the entire time. I mean, for many, many months.

Germani: So, Sara, I thought it was interesting the interplay between your daughter and your own experience while you were dealing with teenagers in other parts of the world. What kind of insights did that bring you?

Miller Llana: Our story in Bangladesh centered around these girls in Mongla who joined an after-school program, and they were in 8th grade, and my daughter in Toronto is in 8th grade. As a reporter, you鈥檙e always fascinated in other people鈥檚 stories.

But聽 I just couldn鈥檛 help but compare and contrast. I鈥檓 spending time with these girls who really have nothing. I mean, they live in homes with roofs that are leaking and the biggest priority in their lives is to be able to continue studying and avoid child marriage. And I have my teen at home, who I love dearly, but I talked to her after I was with these girls and she was just pouting.

We were talking over FaceTime and I鈥檓 like, 鈥渨hat鈥檚 wrong?鈥� [And she said] 鈥淚 hate my science homework.鈥� And I just, you know, and I鈥檓 like, 鈥淥K, well, you know, let鈥檚 take a break and talk.鈥� [And she said] 鈥淗ey mom, when I come back, can you take me to get these leggings everyone has?鈥�

I was angry with her, but I was just angry with the world that there鈥檚 just all of these injustices really. And I didn鈥檛 talk to her about it at the time, but when I got home, I did, because Mafiya, who鈥檚 an 8th grader, had made these paper flowers and she gave me one and she gave me the flower to give to my daughter and so we talked about it and I explained it with more calm and patience, but it just really helped me see just children鈥檚 rights through many different lenses and how climate change is not equal.聽

Hanes: Well, my kids right now, after hearing our stories and reading them, too, which I think is super cool. It鈥檚 like the best feeling to have the magazine come to your house and have your kid pick it up and read them all the way through, but, now she鈥檚 using your stories as an excuse for pushing me towards ethical food choices and ethical clothing choices and 鈥渕ama, you realize you do have a gas car.鈥澛燗nd so we have got a lot of that going on in my house now.

Germani: In any audience, there鈥檚 going to be various degrees of embrace of the climate situation. How do you all talk to people on the end of the spectrum who may feel ambivalent or skeptical about climate change? And, do your findings about young people transcend the whole argument?

Hanes: From a climate-reporting lens, we鈥檝e found from public opinion surveys that the number of Americans who doubt that any change in the atmosphere is happening are pretty low. Most people acknowledge that there is some warming and that there are changes to the environment.

There continues to be some argument about what causes that, but more and more people recognize that there is environmental change happening. And when you look internationally, almost everybody acknowledges that. So, we鈥檙e not really in the same situation where people get angry about talking about a heating world, or more storms, or more floods, or more fires.聽

So when we鈥檙e looking at the climate generation, a lot of these stories aren鈥檛 about pointing blame. Some are, but a lot aren鈥檛. And so I find that talking about these positive stories of creativity and innovation and adaptation can transcend political beliefs.

Miller Llana: I also think denialism takes a lot of different shapes because in Bangladesh, for example, you鈥檙e not going to find any of the, 鈥渋s the planet really warming? Are we really 鈥� is this flood really climate change?鈥� I mean, I think that there are a lot of reasons that there are floods, but climate change is, you know, unanimously agreed to be part of the problem there.

Hanes: As much as there are real challenges and real harms of climate change, this young generation is showing that there鈥檚 also a lot of opportunity and there are some shifts that can happen that might create a better, kinder world in some ways.聽It鈥檚 easier to unite people around an idea of a better, kinder, more community-based, happier world, than it is to really focus on the challenges.

And this isn鈥檛 to soft pedal. I think it鈥檚 important that we recognize that there are going to be harms and we don鈥檛 ignore those, but I think there鈥檚 a lot of hope here and in a lot of ways this project and this generation are leading us towards that.

Miller Llana: And I think nobody said that better than Deon, who said: 鈥淭here is opportunity in crisis.鈥� And this is his generation鈥檚 struggle. He said, you know, if he were born in a different era, it would be slavery, it would be apartheid, but the climate is his generation鈥檚 challenge to face.

Germani: Thank you for everything you鈥檝e done, Sara and Stephanie, in the past nine months on this project and for coming on to talk about it today.聽

Hanes: Thanks so much, it鈥檚 great to talk about it.聽

Miller Llana: Thanks. It was great.

Germani: Thanks for listening. To find a transcript and our show notes, with links to all of the stories in this series, visit CSMonitor.com/WhyWeWroteThis. This episode was guest hosted by me, Clara Germani, and produced by Mackenzie Farkus, with additional editing by Clay Collins. Jingnan Peng is also a producer on this podcast. Our sound engineers were Noel Flatt and Alyssa Britton, with original music by Noel Flatt. Produced by the 海角大神 Science Monitor. Copyright 2023.聽鈥淭he Climate Generation鈥� series was supported by the Pulitzer Center.