They inherit the future, but have no say in it – but we could change that, writes Steve Biddulph
This weekend I was talking to a young couple in their twenties.
They had decided not to have children, because of their fears that the future would be a terrible place to live. They looked like a really loving pair who would have made great parents, and it made me very sad. But I could understand where they were coming from. And as I drove home I got more and more angry at what we have done to our world, that this was the situation. That climate change especially was leaving our kids with a future of great danger, because of what my generation had done to the planet. Angry, and also guilty, because I used to often fly to Europe several times a year on book tours, and thought nothing of it. And I know plenty of people who have had weddings where they and all the guests flew to Fiji or Phuket, or went ski-ing in Japan or to sport games right across the country. And all the other ways we wasted the planet.
Some friends and I this week started an organisation called SUFTY, which is short for Standing Up For The Young. We have a single goal, and that is to lower the voting age – everywhere in the world – to 16. Does that idea shock you? Well, when I was a teenager, Gough Whitlam became Prime Minister, and one of his first actions was to lower it from 21 to 18, because young Aussies of 18 or 19 could die in wars that they hadn’t even had a say in. It only took an act of parliament. We never even blink at it now. And already 11 countries have done it – from Scotland to Austria. New Zealand is looking into it.
When you were sixteen would you have liked to be able to vote?
Would you have cared about who ran the country? Kids today really do, the kids in Schools Strike for Climate are seeking the vote. And many mental health professionals like me are arguing that it is needed because having some power, some say, is an antidote to depression and anxiety. Its too late to protect teenagers from the knowledge that their lives are in danger. And there is plenty of research that its making them very unhappy.
The main argument people make against having a 16 year old vote is “would they have the maturity?”. I have to laugh when I hear this, because, while its a reasonable question, if you have ever worked in a polling booth, or handed out how to vote cards, you soon realise that maturity is not the basis for getting the vote! Age is no guarantee. As the author of Raising Boys, I know that maturity doesn’t arrive sometimes until about 25! And sometimes it never does! Democracy is based on fairness as its key idea. Everyone is equal. In the past we thought that adults would and should vote on behalf of their children’s interests. (Once it was argued that men could vote on behalf of their wives interests – an idea which I am sure makes your blood boil). In fact we have simply failed to do that in the 30 years that climate change has been widely known about.
I have worked with refugee rights for a long time, and so can use that with confidence as an example. There have long been around 100 million refugees in the world at any one time. They find safety, eventually, but new ones come along. But lately climate emergencies, famines and wars caused by those, have ramped that up. By 2050 there are predicted to be one billion refugees from climate collapse. One in eight of the human race will be on the move. That is not a world we would want our kids to live in.
Add 37 to your child’s age, and that is how old they will be in 2050.
SUFTY will be a network of older people fighting for young people to feel supported and given some say in who runs the country. The only way to stop climate change is to leave fossil fuels in the ground, the science says nothing else can have enough impact. That means giving our government the electoral cover to stand up to the fossil fuel vote. And guess what – there are half a million Australians aged either 16 or 17. That could make a real tipping point to get a democratic solution to all of our biggest fears.
I am betting on it, and I hope it makes sense to you too.
Steve Biddulph
Is the author of Raising Boys, and Raising Girls
His books are in six million homes around the world.
More information about SUFTY is on his website www.stevebiddulph.com.
