Excerpted from The Nearly Now at Medium, by Alex Steffen.

“You’re right to strike; you’re right to march; you’re right to feel your fear and rage and longing for a better world. You are the victims of a terrible intergenerational crime, and you are as right as humans can be to demand justice. You are so right that — even though I’ve been fighting this fight for decades— your truth brings tears to my eyes.
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“It is so hard to look at a planetary catastrophe and not feel at times lost and lonesome, disconnected and doomed. If older people were less cowardly, the planetary crisis — what it means, what to do about it, how to work with our feelings about it — would be the topic at every public meeting and over every dinner table. Instead, we offer young people stale platitudes and emotional silence.

“Of all the many intergenerational injustices, that emotional silence may be the worst, because it leaves each of you to struggling to find connection during the most profound crisis humanity has ever faced.
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“You will meet people who tell you to give up, that you are already defeated, that the fight was lost before you even got here. They’re wrong, and their hearts are ugly. Treat them like poisonous snakes.

“You will meet others who want you to be ‘reasonable,’ to believe that acting quickly, and boldly, and in ways that help the most people possible, would be an unfair burden on their business or their wealth. When you meet them, you have met your opposition.

“These days, it’s not the ones denying climate change entirely that you have to watch out for — it’s the ones working to delay action. The world is being destroyed not by monsters, but by committees — committees of smart people with loving families and good educations, following well-planned agendas, and agreeing to do nothing while the ice caps melt and the Amazon burns.

“Here is the simplest truth of the climate crisis: Speed is everything.“

Excerpted from The Nearly Now at Medium, by Alex Steffen.

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