Opinion: 'The moral weight of their call gets heavier as they get younger'

Mya Muir-Clarke with Kāpiti mayor K Gurunathan.

Weekly column by Kāpiti mayor K Gurunathan

Last week's Long Term Plan hearings and council meeting saw a significant number raise concerns about climate change and what council should be doing to reduce its impact.

Most of these were directly about climate change and focused on the urgent need to cut emissions while others touched on the type and cost of the seawall needed to defend Paekākāriki beachfront.

For me, the most memorable of these submissions on climate change came from school children. Paekākāriki School children submitted on a range of issues from the importance of wetlands, to waste minimisation, and electric vehicles.

At a council meeting, on Thursday, a class from Kāpiti Primary School turned up to put some curly questions to councillors. Their questions on the state of our environment also touched on the value and access to Kaitawa Reserve, and the Wharemauku Stream that flows through it. It's their outdoor classroom.

During the presentations by the children, an adult seated and waiting for her turn made a comment audible to others. I was later told that the person had allegedly accused "bloody lefties" of brainwashing the children.

Goes to show that despite the increasing evidence of climate change and the collapse of our biodiversity, climate change deniers are firmly embedded in our communities.

It's not just about recognising and understanding that climate change is happening but the debate is increasingly about how quickly we should be responding to reduce our carbon emission and transition out of our carbon-based economy but the urgent need to do this at speed.

It's one thing to hear adults debating this but it's the voice of the younger generation that sounds the loudest in the moral echo chamber that we carry.

That's because our actions are directly related to their ability to survive in the future we impose on them. The moral weight of their call gets heavier as they get younger. We first heard from secondary school kids. More recently, we are seeing the torch being carried by primary kids.

It's also important to understand the receiver of the message. How do the parents of these children understand climate change and its projected impacts on the future of their children? How do grandparents understand this same question?

I ask the latter because I'm wrestling with this matter in my personal journey as Claire and I await the birth of our first grandchild.

This is the extended family's love investment into the future which, at the moment, looks hugely scary. Thirty-seven years ago, when I held my firstborn child Jessie Gayathri in my hands, the sheer helplessness and total dependence of the newborn changed my life.

This time, that experience will be preloaded with the knowledge of the future world our grandson will have to negotiate and our responsibility towards shaping that future.

In this context, the highlight for me last week was meeting Mya Muir-Clarke, a 14-year-old Kāpiti College pupil. She has an extremely rare genetic abnormality caused by having an extra fourth chromosome.

I understand there is only one other in New Zealand and a few around the world. There is no name yet for what she has. I'm told that, given the lack of medical data, the parents and doctors don't know about what the future holds for her. I liked that we had the same hairstyle and round glasses.

"She is a wonderful girl that's here to give us a lesson in the wisdom of kindness, empathy, diversity, overcoming challenges, and just getting on with life," said her mother.

Somewhere in that appreciation is wisdom for me. I was blessed to have met Mya.