143
4.5 Greta Thunberg and the Youth Movement Fighting
Climate Crisis in 2019
In her article “The Adults Have Failed Us” in Broadview, Alanna Mitchell discusses
how youth led by Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg have in the past year taken the
lead in fighting the climate crisis. In August 2018, when she was 15, Greta began
staging her own school strikes to get her message to the Swedish government of the
need to cut carbon emissions. In November, Greta created a TED talk in Stockholm
to reach out to more than 2 million viewers in 30 languages with her carbon neutral
message. She continues her activist work taking low level carbon imprint transportation (trains) in Europe and a sailboat to North America to speak at the United
Nations. The student demonstrations continue worldwide and Greta has become a
celebrity for her climate crisis cause. Legislatures in many countries, including
Canada’s House of Commons, are continuing Greta’s work (Mitchell 2019).
5 Conclusion: Is Wilderness Protection Still Possible?
Is protection of the wilderness just an aspiration or is it an achievable goal? Today
it is very clear that the preservation of wilderness, and particularly forests, is one
essential means for sequestering carbon to address climate change caused by manmade green-house gas emissions. Further, the reduction in green-house gas emissions is a means to a healthy environment which is regarded as a universal right
under the UN Charter of Rights and Freedoms and, by definition, a right that applies
to the majority of citizens in democratic states.
Therefore, all democratic states should have constitutions that include the right
to a healthy environment. Among the responsibilities for realizing this right is the
protection and expansion of wilderness areas for addressing climate change. Since
1970, 130 countries have amended their constitutions to include a state obligation to
protect the environment or the right to a safe, healthy and ecologically sustainable
environment (Brown and Brown 2015, pp. 170–171). Only a few have specific constitutional provisions for protecting wilderness areas as I have noted above.
So the answer to the question depends upon constitutional rights which shifts the
balance of political power to the judiciary. As Boyd observes, the presence of rights
to a healthy environment in constitutions represents a remarkable evolution of the
judiciary whose focus for centuries has been limited to the protection of private
interests as opposed to public interests such as stewardship over the land and ecological systems of the nation state.
However, the fact remains that the 20 nations of the world with exclusive
common- law systems have no express environmental rights of a healthy environment in their constitutions. As a consequence, they lag behind the other nations in
recognizing the right to a healthy environment. Boyd asks the question “Is their
objection based on the issue of justiciability or do they block progress towards
Protected Wilderness: Is It Still Possible?
4.5 Greta Thunberg and the Youth Movement Fighting
Climate Crisis in 2019
In her article “The Adults Have Failed Us” in Broadview, Alanna Mitchell discusses
how youth led by Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg have in the past year taken the
lead in fighting the climate crisis. In August 2018, when she was 15, Greta began
staging her own school strikes to get her message to the Swedish government of the
need to cut carbon emissions. In November, Greta created a TED talk in Stockholm
to reach out to more than 2 million viewers in 30 languages with her carbon neutral
message. She continues her activist work taking low level carbon imprint transportation (trains) in Europe and a sailboat to North America to speak at the United
Nations. The student demonstrations continue worldwide and Greta has become a
celebrity for her climate crisis cause. Legislatures in many countries, including
Canada’s House of Commons, are continuing Greta’s work (Mitchell 2019).
5 Conclusion: Is Wilderness Protection Still Possible?
Is protection of the wilderness just an aspiration or is it an achievable goal? Today
it is very clear that the preservation of wilderness, and particularly forests, is one
essential means for sequestering carbon to address climate change caused by manmade green-house gas emissions. Further, the reduction in green-house gas emissions is a means to a healthy environment which is regarded as a universal right
under the UN Charter of Rights and Freedoms and, by definition, a right that applies
to the majority of citizens in democratic states.
Therefore, all democratic states should have constitutions that include the right
to a healthy environment. Among the responsibilities for realizing this right is the
protection and expansion of wilderness areas for addressing climate change. Since
1970, 130 countries have amended their constitutions to include a state obligation to
protect the environment or the right to a safe, healthy and ecologically sustainable
environment (Brown and Brown 2015, pp. 170–171). Only a few have specific constitutional provisions for protecting wilderness areas as I have noted above.
So the answer to the question depends upon constitutional rights which shifts the
balance of political power to the judiciary. As Boyd observes, the presence of rights
to a healthy environment in constitutions represents a remarkable evolution of the
judiciary whose focus for centuries has been limited to the protection of private
interests as opposed to public interests such as stewardship over the land and ecological systems of the nation state.
However, the fact remains that the 20 nations of the world with exclusive
common- law systems have no express environmental rights of a healthy environment in their constitutions. As a consequence, they lag behind the other nations in
recognizing the right to a healthy environment. Boyd asks the question “Is their
objection based on the issue of justiciability or do they block progress towards
Protected Wilderness: Is It Still Possible?