Youth Decide

At uni and around this week, there has been a fair bit of promotion for an event called Youth Decide, organised by Australian Youth Climate Coalition and World Vision. The AYCC website explains:

Youth Decide '09 is a national youth vote on climate change. It is our best chance to send the government a strong message that youth want a say in their future - before it's too late. This December, at the UN climate talks in Copenhagen, Australia has the opportunity to lead the way in a global action plan on climate change. A united youth voice will help comple the Australian government to lead the way in securing a strong global agreement.

You can be part of this historic moment, when young people around the nation will vote on our future. We need YOU to hold a voting event in your school, uni, TAFE or community. Together we can solve climate change!

I decided to check out the Youth Decide website and was really frustrated by it. Here is why:

1. The vote asks you to choose between three possible worlds: the first is a completely devestated world (where emissions are reduced from 1990 levels by 4-24%), the second is another crappy world (emissions reduced by 25-40%), and a beautifully preserved world (emissions reduced by >40%). Statistic provided show that the more emission are reduced the more perfect the world would be.
   Naturally, everyone, including myself, would prefer a beautiful world, but there is a massive problem in what is present by the Youth Decide figures. It shows the costs of not acting, but only dismissively mentions the costs of acting ("the short term economic costs would be higher [for World 3] than form World 1 and 2, however, much of the economic costs associated with climate change will be avoided").
   Imagine you go shopping and find a beautiful dress you would like to buy. Would you like to pay (a) $10, (b) $50, or (c) $300 to buy the dress? Well, obviously, $10 is the best option, and you would be senseless to opt for anything else. But what you are not told is that if you choose to pay only $10 then the dress you buy will have been made from cotton produced by Pakistani farmers who were paid a pittance, manufactured by child labour in the Philippines, and sold to you by a Sudanese refugee getting paid far below the minimum wage. Does knowing these social costs influence your decision? Well, I certainly hope so!
   The Youth Decide vote it fails to show a balanced view by dismissing many negative externalities of drastically reducing emssions. There would be huge social costs to changing our economy and way of life, but the website makes them sound neglible.
   
   
2. The webiste claims, 'Each world is based on the target that Australia sets as part of a global limit on greenhouse gases,' but this causal link between Australian policies and global outcomes is almost entirely fictional. I am not a climate change denier, but I am a skeptic in that I don't understand it enough to fully agree or disagree with the claim that human activity is the primary cause of change in climate patterns. But, even if we do accept that theory as true, not even the most extreme voices on climate change would suggest that global climate patterns are as dependant upon Australian government policies as Youth Decide implies. Perhaps, when combined with all other developed nations there is an argument to be made, but Australia unilaterally changed its policies without similar action by other major polluters is no means to the third world presented by Youth Decide.
   
   
3. The vote shifts ALL responsibility onto the government without acknowledging that the choices of individuals are also important. The kind of transport we use, the food we eat, the way we heat our homes etc. is all affecting emission levels to small degrees. I desperately hope the Australian government does not consider basing its policies on the preferences of 12-year-olds - particularly those basing their decisions on the evidence presented by Youth Decide - but a positive difference that youth could be encouraged to make is in their own personal ethics.
   
   
4. The developing world is completely ignored, in a horrendously paternalistic manner. The poor developing world is excluded from any role in the process of combating climate change - apparently they are too poor and weak to do anything. If this is a global issue, then it should be a global effort, not purely the directives of the first. The developing world, particularly China, makes a massive contribution to emissions and there needs to be consideration fof the part they may play in the solution.
   
   
5. The Youth decide website claims to have referenced 'the most credible science available,' by which they seem to mean the Stern Review and the Garnaut Review (the two sources chiefly cited). Again, I don't know enough science to really make adequate comment, but there is a lot of literature out there that suggests they may not be the 'most credible science'. It may or may not be significant that neither Nicholas Stern nor Ross Garnaut are scientists either. But, as a brief aside, a saw one criticism which was fairly interesting, addressing the claim that higher carbon dioxide levels would reduce food supply and plant life. Apparently, higher carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere has been shown to lead to much higher crop yields and faster reforestation. Cutting carbon dioxide levels plant growth, pasture yields, and livestock productivity, contrary to the picture presented by Youth Decide. But I wouldn't trust myself as a critic of science, so you probably shouldn't either.

I am glad that the Australian Youth Climate Coalition and World Vision want young people to be thinking about the issue fo climate change, but Youth Decide is a disgrace to these organizations.