ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines some key features of the climate crisis, drawing on contemporary literature to consider the calamitous effects of anthropogenic climate change on natural and human systems. The crisis is both immediate and future-oriented, including global ecological collapse, the sixth major extinction event, mass displacement of human populations, increased global mean temperatures and cascading climate effects that have begun to produce a runaway, irreversible chain of events. However, at this moment, there are multiple points of hope and rupture within the inert and impotent political and economic apparatus, including the School Strike for Climate protests, the Occupy movement, Extinction Rebellion and other acts of resistance and fighting for a future, which are driven by young people. This chapter considers how these collective acts of resistance against political cowardice and inertia can provide important examples of democratic practice as a public pedagogy, which is both for, and of, young people.
