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How Teens Today Are Different from Past Generations

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How Teens Today Are Different from Past Generations

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Every generation of teens is shaped by the social, political, and economic events of the day. Today's teenagers are no different-and they're the first generation whose lives are saturated by mobile technology and social media.

In her new book, psychologist Jean Twenge uses large-scale surveys to draw a detailed portrait of ten qualities that make today's teens unique and the cultural forces shaping them. Her findings are by turn alarming, informative, surprising, and insightful, making the book-iGen:Why Today's Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy-and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood-and What That Means for the Rest of Us-an important read for anyone interested in teens' lives.

Who are the iGens?

Twenge names the generation born between 1995 and 2012 "iGens" for their ubiquitous use of the iPhone, their valuing of individualism, their economic context of income inequality, their inclusiveness, and more.

She identifies their unique qualities by analyzing four nationally representative surveys of 11 million teens since the 1960s. Those surveys, which have asked the same questions (and some new ones) of teens year after year, allow comparisons among Boomers, Gen Xers, Millennials, and iGens at exactly the same ages. In addition to identifying cross-generational trends in these surveys, Twenge tests her inferences against her own follow-up surveys, interviews with teens, and findings from smaller experimental studies. Here are just a few of her conclusions.

iGens have poorer emotional health thanks to new media. Twenge finds that new media is making teens more lonely, anxious, and depressed, and is undermining their social skills and even their sleep.

iGens "grew up with cell phones, had an Instagram page before they started high school, and do not remember a time before the Internet," writes Twenge. They spend five to six hours a day texting, chatting, gaming, web surfing, streaming and sharing videos, and hanging out online. While other observers have equivocated about the impact, Twenge is clear: More than two hours a day raises the risk for serious mental health problems.

She draws these conclusions by showing how the national rise in teen mental health problems mirrors the market penetration of iPhones-both take an upswing around 2012. This is correlational data, but competing explanations like rising academic pressure or the Great Recession don't seem to explain teens' mental health issues. And experimental studies suggest that when teens give up Facebook for a period or spend time in nature without their phones, for example, they become happier.

The mental health consequences are especially acute for younger teens, she writes. This makes sense developmentally, since the onset of puberty triggers a cascade of changes in the brain that make teens more emotional and more sensitive to their social world.

Social media use, Twenge explains, means teens are spending less time with their friends in person. At the same time, online content creates unrealistic expectations (about happiness, body image, and more) and more opportunities for feeling left out-which scientists now know has similar effects as physical pain. Girls may be especially vulnerable, since they use social media more, report feeling left out more often than boys, and report twice the rate of cyberbullying as boys do.

Social media is creating an "epidemic of anguish," Twenge says.

iGens grow up more slowly. iGens also appear more reluctant to grow up. They are more likely than previous generations to hang out with their parents, postpone sex, and decline driver's licenses.

Twenge floats a fascinating hypothesis to explain this-one that is well-known in social science but seldom discussed outside academia. Life history theory argues that how fast teens grow up depends on their perceptions of their environment: When the environment is perceived as hostile and competitive, teens take a "fast life strategy," growing up quickly, making larger families earlier, and focusing on survival. A "slow life strategy," in contrast, occurs in safer environments and allows a greater investment in fewer children-more time for preschool soccer and kindergarten violin lessons.

"Youths of every racial group, region, and class are growing up more slowly," says Twenge-a phenomenon she neither champions nor judges. However, employers and college administrators have complained about today's teens' lack of preparation for adulthood. In her popular book, How to Raise an Adult, Julie Lythcott-Haims writes that students entering college have been over-parented and as a result are timid about exploration, afraid to make mistakes, and unable to advocate for themselves.

Twenge suggests that the reality is more complicated. Today's teens are legitimately closer to their parents than previous generations, but their life course has also been shaped by income inequality that demoralizes their hopes for the future. Compared to previous generations, iGens believe they have less control over how their lives turn out. Instead, they think that the system is already rigged against them-a dispiriting finding about a segment of the lifespan that is designed for creatively reimagining the future.

iGens exhibit more care for others. iGens, more than other generations, are respectful and inclusive of diversity of many kinds. Yet as a result, they reject offensive speech more than any earlier generation, and they are derided for their "fragility" and need for " trigger warnings " and "safe spaces." (Trigger warnings are notifications that material to be covered may be distressing to some. A safe space is a zone that is absent of triggering rhetoric.)

Today's colleges are tied in knots trying to reconcile their students' increasing care for others with the importance of having open dialogue about difficult subjects. Dis-invitations to campus speakers are at an all-time high, more students believe the First Amendment is "outdated," and some faculty have been fired for discussing race in their classrooms. Comedians are steering clear of college campuses, Twenge reports, afraid to offend.

The future of teen well-being

Social scientists will discuss Twenge's data and conclusions for some time to come, and there is so much information-much of it correlational-there is bound to be a dropped stitch somewhere. For example, life history theory is a useful macro explanation for teens' slow growth, but I wonder how income inequality or rising rates of insecure attachments among teens and their parents are contributing to this phenomenon. And Twenge claims that childhood has lengthened, but that runs counter to data showing earlier onset of puberty.

So what can we take away from Twenge's thoughtful macro-analysis? The implicit lesson for parents is that we need more nuanced parenting. We can be close to our children and still foster self-reliance. We can allow some screen time for our teens and make sure the priority is still on in-person relationships. We can teach empathy and respect but also how to engage in hard discussions with people who disagree with us. We should not shirk from teaching skills for adulthood, or we risk raising unprepared children. And we can-and must-teach teens that marketing of new media is always to the benefit of the seller, not necessarily the buyer.

Yet it's not all about parenting. The cross-generational analysis that Twenge offers is an important reminder that lives are shaped by historical shifts in culture, economy, and technology. Therefore, if we as a society truly care about human outcomes, we must carefully nurture the conditions in which the next generation can flourish.

We can't market technologies that capture dopamine, hijack attention, and tether people to a screen, and then wonder why they are lonely and hurting. We can't promote social movements that improve empathy, respect, and kindness toward others and then become frustrated that our kids are so sensitive. We can't vote for politicians who stall upward mobility and then wonder why teens are not motivated. Society challenges teens and parents to improve; but can society take on the tough responsibility of making decisions with teens' well-being in mind?

The good news is that iGens are less entitled, narcissistic, and over-confident than earlier generations, and they are ready to work hard. They are inclusive and concerned about social justice. And they are increasingly more diverse and less partisan, which means they may eventually insist on more cooperative, more just, and more egalitarian systems.

Social media will likely play a role in that revolution-if it doesn't sink our kids with anxiety and depression first.

Greater Good wants to know: Do you think this article will influence your opinions or behavior?

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How Teens Today Are Different from Past Generations

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A psychologist mines big data on teens and finds many ways this generation-the "iGens"-is different from Boomers, Gen Xers, and Millennials.

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What do young people (ages 13-18) like to do these days?

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Answer (1 of 5): Teenagers (13-18 years young) are a group of people that can be interesting, lousy, surprising, and challenging. They are often depicted with stereotypes such as rebellious, lazy/unproductive, messy, and self-centered. They are the figures you'll find out capable to set themselve...

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Australia's formal name is the Commonwealth of Australia. Australia is both a representative democracy and a constitutional monarchy with Queen Elizabeth II as Australia's head of state.

Federation

The Commonwealth of Australia was formed on 1 January 1901 when six partly self governing British colonies united to become states of a nation. The rules of government for this new nation were enshrined in the Australian Constitution, which defined how the Commonwealth government was to operate and what issues it could pass laws on.

The birth of our nation is often referred to as ' federation' because the Constitution created a 'federal' system of government. Under a federal system, powers are divided between a central government and individual states. In Australia, power was divided between the Commonwealth federal government and the six state governments.

Australian government

The Australian Parliament consists of the Queen (represented by the Governor-General), the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Parliament passes laws which affect the whole country. Section 51 of the Constitution defines a number of issues that the Parliament can make laws on.

There are three arms of government in Australia:

the legislature (or Parliament) is responsible for debating and voting on new laws to be introduced under the power of section 51.

the executive (the Australian Government) is responsible for enacting and upholding the laws established by the legislature. Certain members of the legislature (called ministers) are also members of the executive, with special responsibilities for certain areas of the law.

the judiciary is the legal arm of the federal government. It is independent of the other two arms, and is responsible for enforcing the laws and deciding whether the other two arms are acting within their powers.

State and territory government

Although the six states joined together to form the Commonwealth of Australia, they still each retain the power to make their own laws over matters not controlled by the Commonwealth under Section 51 of the Constitution. State governments also have their own constitutions, as well as a structure of legislature, executive and judiciary.

Territories are areas within Australia's borders that are not claimed by one of the six states. Territories can be administered by the Australian Government, or they can be granted a right of self-government.

There are eight Australian territories in addition to the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) and Northern Territory (NT): Ashmore and Cartier Islands, Australian Antarctic Territory, Christmas Island, Cocos (Keeling) Islands, Coral Sea Islands, Jervis Bay Territory, Norfolk Island and Territory of Heard Island and McDonald Islands. These territories are governed according to Commonwealth law and the laws of a state, the ACT or NT. Most have an appointed Administrator. Norfolk Island is no longer self-governing. The Norfolk Island Legislation Amendment Bill 2015 has replaced the Norfolk Island Legislative Assembly and an elected Regional Council will be established on 1 July 2016.

Unlike the states, whose powers are defined through the Constitution, the powers of these territories are defined in Commonwealth law which grants them the right of self-government. This also means that the Parliament can alter or revoke these powers at will. Under Section 121 of the Australian Constitution, territories can become states with the approval of the Parliament.

State and territory government provides more information on the six state governments, the federal-state relationship, and the government of Australia's territories.

Local government

Constitutional responsibility for local government lies with the state and territory governments. Consequently, the roles and responsibilities of local government differ from state to state. Local governments are also known as local councils.

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Australia's formal name is the Commonwealth of Australia. Australia is both a representative democracy and a constitutional monarchy with Queen Elizabeth II as Australia's head of state. The Commonwealth of Australia was formed on 1 January 1901 when six partly self governing British colonies united to become states of a nation.

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About Parliament - Parliament of Australia

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Dr Scott Brenton

Representative roles and responsibilities

At first glance political representation in a liberal democracy such as Australia is a straightforward concept: about every three years at a national level there is an election where citizens in defined geographic areas (be it a local electorate or a state/territory) choose from a range of candidates-themselves citizens living in (or near) that same area-and elect a few to sit in the national parliament as representatives of the people living in defined geographic areas. Yet both theoretically and in practice it is far more complicated. While representative democracy is often poetically described as government 'of the people, by the people, for the people', it is not only 'the people' who are represented: political parties, ideologies, states, business, unions, the environmental movement-to name but a few-are also represented. Furthermore, even the very notion of 'the people' is amorphous as a representative cannot possibly represent the full diversity of 'the people' and all their divergent and conflicting interests.

These complexities actually relate to the actors rather than the institutions. That is, the practice of being a representative and the act of representing is less straightforward than the institutions of political representation, as the institutional norms are clearly defined. In this regard, Blom defines representation 'as a set of procedures or rules that select people to formulate and legislate the public interest in an accountable way ... representation is the accountable aggregation of interests'.[1] The Constitution and standing orders of the Houses of Parliament circumscribe the functions and powers of the legislature and the actions of those within it, which a learned judiciary adjudicates, guided by widely accepted precedents and conventions. Yet the roles and responsibilities of the legislators outside the institutions are not so clearly defined, as they are contested and ultimately judged by a more unpredictable populace. It is this activity of representing, or the conception of representation as 'acting for' others, that this monograph is most interested in, which Pitkin defines in terms of what the representative does and how s/he does it.[2]

Delegates with a mandate or trustees with independence?

There is much literature on the idea of representative democracy and how to institutionalise and practise this idea, while the roles of political actors are overlooked or subordinated. Rather it is the roles of citizens and their engagement with representative democracy that excites interest and invites further investigation. Of the comparatively smaller number of scholars who have focused on the role of representatives, eighteenth-century political philosopher Edmund Burke, and more recently, American political theorist Professor Hanna Pitkin, are two of the most cited theorists in this area. In his famous Speech to the Electors of Bristol at the Conclusion of the Poll (when he was elected to Parliament as a member for Bristol) Burke expressed his now famous 'trustee' view of representation. Burke writes:

Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests, which interests each must maintain, as an agent and advocate, against other agents and advocates; but Parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole-where not local prejudices ought to guide, but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole. You choose a member, indeed; but when you have chosen him he is not a member of Bristol, but he is a member of Parliament.

While this view is still popular and useful for analysing the behaviour of contemporary politicians, his work has been criticised for its inconsistencies. Proceeding cautiously, Pitkin devotes a chapter to Burke in her landmark work The Concept of Representation (1967). Representatives have also been variously conceived as agents, trustees, deputies and delegates. Reflecting language norms of the time, the quotes in this monograph are reproduced with the author's gender-bias. Pitkin asks: 'Should (must) a representative do what his constituents want, and be bound by mandates or instructions from them; or should (must) he be free to act as seems best to him in pursuit of their welfare?'. Pitkin summarises the mandate-independence debate:

A number of positions have at one time or another been defended, between the two poles of mandate and independence. A highly restrictive mandate theorist might maintain that true representation occurs only when the representative acts on explicit instructions from his constituents, that any exercise of discretion is a deviation from this ideal. A more moderate position might be that he may exercise some discretion, but must consult his constituents before doing anything new or controversial, and then do as they wish or resign his [post]. A still less extreme position might be that the representative may act as he thinks his constituents would want, unless or until he receives instructions from them, and then he must obey. Very close to the independence position would be the argument that the representative must do as he thinks best, except insofar as he is bound by campaign promises or an election platform. At the other extreme is the idea of complete independence, that constituents have no right even to exact campaign promises; once a man is elected he must be completely free to use his own judgment.

Further complicating this debate is the issue of the national interest, political parties and the challenges of representing a diverse constituency. Mandate theorists favour local interests on the basis that the representative is elected locally, and argue that the sum of local interests equals the national interest. Conversely, independence theorists hold that representatives must pursue the national interest, as the sum of local interest does not necessarily result in the national interest.

Local, national or party interests?

These ideas of national representation and the national interest conflict with Australia's electoral design, whereby citizens vote together as a local community or as a state/territory to elect representatives, rather than as a nation. Representatives are referred to as the 'Member for Griffith' or the 'Senator for Queensland'. Yet the national parliament is preoccupied with national politics; as previously mentioned, parliamentarians divide along national party lines rather than regional or local lines. The Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, despite being local members, speak as national representatives on national issues.

The dilemma for political theorists in this context has been that if a person represents a particular local electorate in the parliament, should they pursue that electorate's interests, or the national interest? Given the choice between electorate and nation interests, most members would probably claim that their local electorate is their prime concern as ultimately their political survival is based on their electorate's opinion. For senators, the situation is more complicated as the party's electoral performance and the senator's position of the party ticket are important factors. Parties are variously portrayed as links between local and national interests, antithetical to the national interest, or binding the member to a party program, which a constituency endorses. A parliamentarian can also be seen as more representative of a party than a constituency or the national interest. Most parliamentarians have to be very sensitive to party concerns and cultivate relationships with party colleagues, especially party leaders and other powerful figures. In Australia, party discipline in the major parties is remarkably strong, and in the case of the Australian Labor Party is formalised with a signed pledge binding parliamentarians to vote on party lines. Stilborn argues that: 'criticisms of the delegate theory on the grounds that the required independence of individual Members of Parliament is incompatible with the demands of responsible government are equally applicable to the "trustee" conception of representation. Trusteeship also requires independence from party discipline'.

The 'good' representative

As Pitkin acknowledges in her summary of the debate, most of the positions are at the extremes and representatives act within 'an elaborate network of pressures, demands and obligations', chief among them being re-election. 'Good' representatives have been broadly conceived as either 'delegates' reflecting constituent concerns or as paradoxical given the multiple and competing demands. Fundamentally, democratic representation is characterised by regular free and fair elections, with citizens evaluating 'good' (and bad) representation. Yet doing what a representative thinks is best for his or her constituents does not ensure re-election, while re-election does not mean that representative has been a good representative. There are many examples where defeated parliamentarians have still been regarded as outstanding representatives, and vice versa. Dovi argues that:

A good democratic representative is not likely to be approved by, or even appreciated by, every one of her constituents, let alone by all citizens. Thus my claim is not that a good democratic representative will be valued by every citizen (or even a majority of citizens); rather, my claim is that a good democratic representative will be the unbridled advocate of her own constituents.

Yet it is difficult to reconcile this normative value with the electoral reality. Presumably if the majority of citizens do not value good democratic representation, it will result in a negative electoral evaluation. The extent to which a representative is bound by the wishes of their constituency is the subject of a central debate within the literature and there are many compromise positions, with some theorists even maintaining that both extremes are true without offering any practical reconciliation of the inherent tensions. Some theorists argue a representative can advocate different constituent positions, while ultimately voting according to their own (or their party's) judgement; others argue that constituent desires are generally temporary and representatives must take a longer-term view; some cynically contend that constituents only need to be heard at election time. In practice, representatives arguably do all of these things; just not necessarily at the same time. Defining a static and universally applicable representative role is problematic. Zappalà through an overview of previous studies of representation exposes (although perhaps unintentionally) the tendency to typologise representative roles, and the simplicity of reducing the demands and pressures of a representative to the 'unholy trinity' of constituents, party and conscience. Only Independents, and to a lesser extent Greens, claimed that they were able to vote on conscience on all issues. According to Pitkin, Burke regarded political representation as the representation of an abstract interest, which is objective, impersonal and unattached from reality. Pitkin extends this idea to 'representing people who have interests' in the liberal philosophical tradition, such as property interests, which has (and continues) to form the basis of suffrage qualifications. Bicameralism developed to simultaneously accommodate democratic ideals of equal representation (in the lower house) and traditional aristocratic rule (in the upper house). While the founders of Australia's bicameral legislature rejected this classic democracy/aristocracy division between the houses, democratic election of both house alone does not guard against the emergence (or reinforcement) of a political class acting like an aristocracy. Pitkin discusses Burke's idea of virtual representation, or representation beyond strict constituency demarcations, where the virtuous elite govern for the good of the whole nation, or in Pitkin's words, 'Representation has nothing to do with obeying popular wishes, but means the enactment of the national good by a select elite'. Under this conception, Pitkin reasons that the representative has no special relation to his or her constituency, and elections are merely the mechanism for determining the membership of the natural aristocracy, which consists of national representatives. Pitkin writes:

Representing as a substantive activity may often have seemed remote from the realities of political life. A political representative-at least the typical member of an elected legislature-has a constituency rather than a single principal; and that raises problems about whether such as unorganized group can even have an interest for him to pursue, let alone a will to which he could be responsive, or an opinion before which he could attempt to justify what he has done. These problems are further heightened when we consider what political science teaches about the members of such a constituency, at least in a modern mass democracy-their apathy, their ignorance, their malleability. Furthermore, the representative who is an elected legislator does not represent his constituents on just any business, and by himself in isolation. He works with other representatives in an institutionalized context at a specific task-the governing of a nation or a state. This reintroduces the familiar problem of local or partial interests versus the national interest, and the question of the political representative's role with respect to them.

Michael Saward explores the relationship between representatives and constituents, arguing that: 'representation in politics is at least a two-way street: the represented play a role in choosing representatives, and representatives "choose" their constituents in the sense of portraying them or framing them in particular, contestable ways'. Saward conceptualises this relationship in terms of representative claims, with political representatives making claims about themselves (being the best representatives), their constituents, and their relationship with their constituents. Saward argues that: 'The world of political representation is a world of claim-making rather than fact-adducing'. These representative claims are at the heart of this study: who (or what) do parliamentarians claim to represent? Are members and senators representing the same of different things?

In terms of representation, respondents were presented with a range of options and asked to choose one that best described who or what they primarily represented. The options were: defined geographic area; party; geographic area through a party (or vice versa); particular interest/social groups; parliamentarian-at-large/national representative; and ideology/ philosophy. Respondents were also given the opportunity to record if they felt that they could not choose just one category and were able to add in a different category. The category 'the people' was deliberately not included as it is (perhaps naïvely) a given in a representative democracy. Furthermore, 'the people' are represented through most of the categories and the purpose is to determine how the people are represented, although respondents were free to write it in the 'other' category. 'The states' was also not included as a state is covered by the 'defined geographic area' category, which was chosen instead to provide continuity between the surveys for senators elected by the people of a state/territory and members elected by the people of a division/electorate.

The responses are presented in Figures 24a and 24b. The major difference is not a single House respondent chose their party, while about a fifth of Senate respondents did so. This is despite strong party discipline in both houses, and the importance of party identification in determining voting behaviour among the populace. While most senators are elected on a party ticket, party labels are equally as important for lower house candidates, and most also use their party leader and in local campaign material as branding. Thus parties and leaders often become the focus of election campaigns.

Rather, a third of House respondents chose a defined geographic area, which is more than twice the proportion of Senate respondents. The only other notable difference is that none of the Senate respondents used the 'other' category, while 11 per cent of House respondents wrote in their own categories, which included: regional Australia; the Australian people, as represented by those in my electorate; my beliefs and people; and the interests of the people within the seat boundaries. Yet three of those responses could be categorised as 'defined geographic area'. The other categories elicited similar proportions of respondents from both the Senate and the House. About a quarter choose 'geographic area though a party (or vice versa)'. About a fifth found it too difficult to choose just one category, while less the 10 per cent chose each of the remaining categories. None of the respondents claimed to primarily represent particular interest/social groups.
Figure 24a: Who or what current parliamentarians think they primarily represent
There was more variation in the responses of former senators and members, with larger proportions of respondents seeing themselves as parliamentarians-at-large and national representatives, and representing an ideology or philosophy. There was also a minority who chose interest/social groups. Yet the difference once again was that more members than senators (five times more) chose 'defined geographic area' and more senators than members (three times more) saw themselves primarily as party representatives.
Figure 24b: Who or what former parliamentarians thought they primarily represented
One interviewee saw Senate representation as also representing the government (or opposition) by ensuring that the government gets it right through inquiries and policy and expenditure reviews. A minor party senator, despite only being elected by a small proportion of the state, still saw themselves as representing all of the state through a philosophy. Minor party senators also tended to look at themselves as more national representatives as their party often did not have representatives from all parts of Australia.

One House interviewee argued members have a representational role while senators have a broader look at things and take an 'academic' approach in stepping away from things. Another member talked about aspiring to represent the local area, through involvement in party politics only at the local level. One parliamentarian, who switched from the Senate to the House, did so feeling the desire to represent the local area and had a much greater affinity serving the local area.

These findings show how contested the concept of representation is among the political actors themselves, and also the distinct roles that different parliamentarians play despite performing the same job in the same institution. This is not particularly surprisingly given the array of personalities, backgrounds, aspirations, interests, causes, and expertise that politicians bring to parliament. Furthermore, not all of the categories are discrete or mutually exclusive, and respondents were instructed to choose only the one that they primarily represented. The most notable difference between Senate and House respondents was in relation to party representation. As previously mentioned, most parliamentarians in both houses are members of parties and generally 'toe the party line', yet it is often only the Senate that is referred to as a parties' house. Perhaps this is partly because the concept of a 'states' house' is redundant (and senators divide on party rather than state lines), or because more parties are represented in the Senate and legislation usually requires cross-party negotiation to pass. This external institutional identification of the Senate has perhaps led to self-identification among the senators as party representatives. Lower house members emphasised wanting to be local representatives.

The preselection procedures of the parties and the voting system of the Senate also distinguish Senate candidates as more party-oriented than House candidates. In most parties, Senate preselection is conducted at a state-wide level and requires a high-profile within and across the party organisation, whereas preselection for House seats is generally decided by local electorate members. Most voters for the Senate vote for a group rather than individual candidates, whereas the voting system for the House of Representatives is based on individual candidates contesting a single-member electorate. Furthermore, as previously discussed, senators have also become important campaigning agents for the major parties.

Senators from the Australian Capital Territory and Northern Territory felt most similar to members of the House of Representatives, in terms of connection to a local electorate and expectations and awareness of their representative role. Indeed, two interviewees from the territories served in both Houses and therefore offered a unique perspective on the similarities, while also stressing that the similarities were due to the nature of the representation of the territories in the national parliament. One interviewee described being a territory representative as more personality based, while all interviewees who represented the territories reported generally higher levels of constituent inquiries than their state counterparts. Currently both territories have two Senate seats and two House seats, and their Senate terms are tied to the House of Representatives rather than fixed at six years as for state senators. The quota for election is closer to a majority at 33.3 per cent as opposed to only 14.3 per cent for state Senators at half-elections, and 7.7 per cent at full-Senate elections.

The Greens were the only party to refer to being representatives of the whole planet. One Green argued that most politicians want to make Australia a better place, whereas the Greens want to make the planet a better place.

The practice of representation

One independent saw their role as reflecting what the electorate thinks, and they often represent views and advocates for constituents that they may not agree with. They argued that major party parliamentarians often try and convince constituents who they do not agree with that they are wrong, as they are as much party representatives within the electorate as representatives of that electorate. However, Pitkin concedes that due to voters' ignorance, apathy and irrationality and the diversity of views and interests of thousands (and in the case of the Senate, millions) of constituents, it is difficult for representatives to accurately gauge the views and interests of the electorate.
Figure 25a: The primary method current parliamentarians use to find out what their constituents think Figure 25b: The primary method former parliamentarians used to find out what their constituents thought
Pitkin interrogates the Federalist's assumptions about interest and representation, as the interests that representatives are expected to pursue are subjective, shifting, and unstable. Pitkin asks: 'Can a representative really know such interests well enough to pursue them?' and 'are interest and opinion identical? Can a representative know his constituents' interests better than he can know their opinions?'. While representatives will have strong views and opinions on certain issues, interest and pressure groups, party leaders and colleagues, lobbyists, and the media are also influential in opinion formation and change. They are useful filters of vast amounts of information and views, particularly as the population continues to grow. Furthermore, as Stilborn observes, the opinions and interests of constituencies are often processed through interest groups that have greater influence than individual constituents. According to Stilborn, interest groups can provide streamlined representational inputs, greatly assisting parliamentarians in an environment of ever increasing policy and legislative outputs. Furthermore, a representative faced with many competing demands and pressures cannot possibly devote the time required to communicate with enough constituents to be considered as a reliable method of gauging the views and opinions of the entire constituency. Advances in mass and electronic communication and the use of polling also means that traditional face-to-face contact with constituents becomes less necessary. Yet at the same time, if a parliamentarian identifies as a representative of a constituency, they will probably still consider direct communication with constituents as paramount. Survey respondents were asked which method they find most reliable in determining what their constituents think, with the collated responses presented in Figures 25a and 25b.

Among the 'other' responses included an admission that they 'did not care' along with claims of intuition and the statement 'Regrettably, I don't think I had any reliable method!'

Party representatives

'There are only two rooms in Parliament House that are important-the Prime Minister's office and the Leader of the Opposition's' - current senator

'If the best debate is happening within the party rooms, why not have cameras in there?' - current senator

Another interviewee supported this claim, stating that the best speeches are made in the party room rather than in the parliament. However, this parliamentarian maintained that some things need to be said behind the scenes.

Many interviewees and survey respondents, particularly former parliamentarians, were critical of stronger party discipline. A conservative parliamentarian was critical of the centralisation of power in the executive and the threats to the independence of the parliament and the Senate as institutions. Parliamentarians cede power to the party, which cedes power to the leader. They argued that true conservatives should be prepared to cross the floor. They blamed Labor for caucusing and binding members, which was electorally successful and thus the Liberals imitated. One senator proposed sitting in state groups rather than parties, making 'divisions' and 'crossing the floor' redundant.
Figure 26a: Proportions of current parliamentarians according to approximate percentage of time spent on party business
One House interviewee argued that as much as you are representing your electorates view to the party, you have stood as a party candidate, so voters expect that you will be voting with the party. Despite party discipline, a House interviewee argued that members also bring a view based on their local electorate, which then feeds into the party's policy. One interviewee advised that while being conscious of preselection panels in a survival sense, if you carve a niche you will retain preselection, even if your views are not completely supported by the party.
Figure 26b: Proportions of former parliamentarians according to approximate percentage of time spent on party business
Slightly higher proportions of senators spend more time on party business, consistent with the stereotype of party 'machine men' in the Senate.

For most respondents, party business takes up 10 per cent or less of their time, with only minor differences between the two groups. The only discernible difference is that a higher proportion of Senate respondents spend more than 10 per cent of their time on party business, which is consistent with the earlier finding that some Senate respondents identify as primarily party representatives.

Minor party and independent perspectives

Many minor party interviewees argued that while they held more regular and in-depth party room meetings than the major parties, that they actually spent less time arguing about a common position than in the major parties. As the Greens currently have no lower house representation, they often work on certain issues with the independent crossbench. Independents, without the benefits of party support, rely on staff to get across the detail of legislation and learn 'to pick your fights'. However, being independent or in a minor party can help to leverage gains from both sides of politics, regardless of which side is in government. A strong belief was expressed by many interviewees that being a crossbench senator meant that you had a 'real' voice in parliament.

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At first glance political representation in a liberal democracy such as Australia is a straightforward concept: about every three years at a national level there is an election where citizens in defined geographic areas (be it a local electorate or a state/territory) choose from a range of candidates-themselves citizens living in (or near) that same area-and elect a few to sit in the national parliament as representatives of the people living in defined geographic areas.

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Australia's climate is changing. Observed changes over the 20th century include increases in global average air and ocean temperature, rising global sea levels, long-term sustained widespread reduction of snow and ice cover, and changes in atmospheric and ocean circulation and regional weather patterns, which influence seasonal rainfall conditions. ​

These changes are caused by extra heat in the climate system due to the addition of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. The additional greenhouse gases are primarily due to human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas), agriculture, and land clearing. These activities increase the amount of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The pattern of observed changes in the climate system is consistent with an increased greenhouse effect. Other climatic influences like volcanoes, the sun and natural variability cannot explain the timing and extent of the observed changes.

The evidence of climate change is supported by extensive scientific research performed and reported across the world. Past and present climate information is collected from observations and measurements of our environment, including trapped air in ice from thousands of years ago. Climate models are used to understand the causes of climate change and to project changes into the future.

Many of the impacts of climate change pose risks to human and natural systems, through more frequent and severe heat waves, coastal inundation due to sea level rise, disruptions to rainfall patterns and other effects. Analyses of a range of climate scenarios indicate the most severe risks of climate change can largely be mitigated if greenhouse gas emissions are reduced to the point they are no longer accumulating in the atmosphere.

Greenhouse gas effect

The greenhouse effect is a natural process that warms the Earth's surface. When the Sun's energy reaches the Earth's atmosphere, some of it is reflected back to space and some is absorbed and re-radiated by greenhouse gases.

Greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, ozone and some artificial chemicals such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs).

The absorbed energy warms the atmosphere and the surface of the Earth. This process maintains the Earth's temperature at around 33 degrees Celsius warmer than it would otherwise be, allowing life on Earth to exist.

Increased greenhouse effect

The problem we now face is that human activities - particularly burning fossil fuels (coal, oil and natural gas), agriculture and land clearing - are increasing the concentrations of greenhouse gases. This is increasing the greenhouse effect, which is contributing to warming of the Earth.

Greenhouse effect

Step 1: Solar radiation reaches the Earth's atmosphere - some of this is reflected back into space.

Step 2: The rest of the sun's energy is absorbed by the land and the oceans, heating the Earth.

Step 3: Heat radiates from Earth towards space.

Step 4: Some of this radiative heat is trapped by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, keeping the Earth warm enough to sustain life.

Step 5: Human activities such as burning fossil fuels, agriculture and land clearing are increasing the amount of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere.

Step 6: This is trapping extra heat, and causing the Earth's temperature to rise, along with other effects like ocean acidification noted in the figure below.

Observed changes

Alternate text for "There are multiple lines of evidence that show the climate system is changing"

There are multiple lines of evidence that show the climate system is changing. These include:

record high surface air temperatures

increased average number of hot days per year

decreased average number of cold days per year

increasing intensity and frequency of extreme events (e.g. fires, floods)

changing rainfall patterns

increasing sea surface temperatures

rising sea levels

increasing ocean heat content

increasing ocean acidification

changing Southern Ocean currents

melting ice caps and glaciers

decreasing Arctic sea ice

Australia is already experiencing the impacts of a changing climate, particularly changes associated with increases in temperature, frequency and intensity of heatwaves, hazardous fire weather and drought conditions. Climate observations and future projections show that these changes from the historical climate are ongoing and long-term, and that they cannot be explained by natural variability (though they do interact with underlying natural variability).

Australia's changing climate

Air temperatures have increased globally by around 1.2 degrees Celsius since the late 1800s. This is when modern meteorological record keeping became widespread and reliable enough to produce global datasets. Most of the warming from 1880 to present has occurred since the 1970s. The observed increase in temperatures has occurred across the globe, with rising temperatures recorded on all continents and in the ocean. 2016 and 2020 are tied for the world's warmest year on record, and years 2015 and 2017 were the equal second warmest years on record globally.

Australia's weather and climate are changing in response to a warming global climate. Australia has warmed on average by 1.44 ± 0.24 °C since 1910, with most warming occurring since 1950 and every decade since then being warmer than the ones before.

Australia's warmest year on record was 2019, with an average temperature 1.52°C above the 1961-1990 average. The seven years from 2013 to 2019 all rank in the warmest years on record. This long-term warming trend means that most years are now warmer than almost any observed during the 20th century. When relatively cooler years do occur, it is because natural drivers that typically cool Australia's climate, such as La Niña, act to partially offset the background warming trend (Figure 1).

Ocean warming and sea level rise

One of the strongest indicators of climate change is the amount of heat stored in the world's oceans. The heat content of oceans has increased during recent decades and accounts for more than 90 per cent of the total heat trapped by added greenhouse gases and accumulated by the land, air and ocean since the 1970s. Ocean warming is continuing, especially in the top several hundred metres of the ocean. In the Australian region, the average sea surface temperature for each decade since 1900 has been warmer than the previous decade (Figure 2).

Average sea surface temperature in the Australian region has warmed by more than 1°C since 1900, with eight of the ten warmest years on record occurring since 2010. The warmest year on record was 2016, associated with one of the strongest negative Indian Ocean Dipole events on record.

The greatest ocean warming in the Australian region since 1970 has occurred around southeastern Australia and Tasmania. The East Australian Current now extends farther south than in earlier decades, creating an area in the Tasman Sea where the warming rate is now twice the global average. There has also been warming across large areas of the Indian Ocean region to the southwest of Australia. Warming of the ocean has contributed to longer and more frequent marine heatwaves.

The increasing frequency of marine heatwaves around Australia in recent years has caused significant impacts on marine ecosystem health, marine habitats and species. These impacts include depleting kelp forests and sea grasses, a poleward shift in some marine species, and increased occurrence of disease. Recent marine heatwaves are the primary cause of mass coral bleaching and widespread damage to coral reefs around Australia, including the Great Barrier and Ningaloo reefs. Other pressures such as tropical cyclones, nutrient runoff and disease also affect the health of some areas of the Great Barrier Reef.

There is clear evidence that sea levels have risen as a result of climate change, based on observations from tide gauges, measurements of our past climate and satellite measurements.

Global mean sea level rise is accelerating. Tide gauge and satellite altimetry observations show that the rate of global mean sea level rise increased from 1.5 ± 0.2 cm per decade (1901-2000) to 3.5 ± 0.4 cm per decade (1993-2019). The dominant cause of global mean sea level rise since 1970 is anthropogenic climate change. Australia, like other nations, is already experiencing sea level rise. Sea level varies from year to year and from place to place, partly due to the natural variability of the climate system from the effect of climate drivers such as El Niño and La Niña. Based on satellite altimetry observations since 1993, the rates of sea level rise to the north and southeast of Australia have been significantly higher than the global average, whereas rates of sea level rise along the other coasts of the continent have been closer to the global average. (Figure 3).

Ocean currents are also changing, particularly in the Southern Ocean. Studies have shown that the deepest ocean water in the Antarctic, which is normally the coldest water, has warmed and become less saline since the 1980s. The world's deep ocean currents play a critical role in transporting heat around the planet, thus regulating the climate. Warming of these currents alters their ability to perform this function.

Another serious impact of the increasing concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide is ocean acidification. Around a quarter of the carbon dioxide produced by humans is absorbed by the oceans. As the carbon dioxide dissolves in sea water it forms carbonic acid, making the ocean more acidic. There are early indications that some marine organisms are already being affected by ocean acidification.

Many marine species that have low mobility or rely on specific habitats or narrow temperature ranges for survival, such as marine plants, corals, and other invertebrates, may not be able to move to new or more suitable habitats. If they cannot move, then as the oceans become warmer and more acidic it becomes harder for these organisms to evolve quickly enough for populations to remain viable. For those marine organisms that form shells or bodies of calcium carbonate minerals, (for example, molluscs and corals), it also becomes more difficult for them to capture and absorb the minerals they need from the sea water to maintain and grow their bodies.

Initially these changes are likely to have the greatest impacts on marine environments such as coral reefs as well as the Arctic and Antarctic ecosystems. Eventually almost all aquatic ecosystems will be affected by increasing levels of ocean warming and acidification if greenhouse gas emissions are not curbed and reversed.

Extreme weather events

Extreme weather and climate events have serious impacts on our economy, society and environment. Extreme weather events include heatwaves, bushfires, tropical cyclones, cold snaps, extreme rainfall including flash flooding, and droughts.

There is increasing evidence that the frequency and intensity of many types of extreme weather events are changing. Extreme hot days in Australia are getting hotter, with the frequency of very hot (greater than 40°C) daytime temperatures increasing since the 1990s (Figure 4).

In addition, there has been an increase in extreme fire weather and fire season length across large parts of Australia since the 1950s, with a rapid increase in the late 1990s to early 2000s at many locations in south-eastern Australia.

Individual extreme events occur as a result of a number of contributing climatic factors. A growing body of research provides estimates of the relative contribution of natural variability and anthropogenic (human-caused) climate change to individual extreme events. For example, a study by the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science analysed the record heat and record low rainfall in winter 2017. It found that conditions were 60 times more likely to have occurred because of climate change than they would have otherwise.

Understanding the influences on such events helps us to better understand how and why extreme events are changing and allows us to plan for the future impacts of these events in Australia.

Rainfall patterns

Rainfall patterns are changing around the world. Research shows the global water cycle is intensifying with a warming climate, which means wet areas are likely to get wetter and dry regions are likely to be drier in response to climate change.

Australian rainfall is highly variable. Average annual rainfall has slightly increased since 1900, with a large increase in northwest Australia since 1970. Trends in rainfall over recent decades include:

increased spring and summer monsoonal rainfall across the north

higher than normal rainfall across the centre

decreased late autumn and winter rainfall across the south.

A climate change signal has been identified in the observed long-term reduction of cool season rainfall in southern Australia, with significant declines since the 1970s in southwest Western Australia (17 per cent), and since the mid-1990s in south-eastern Australia. South-eastern Australia experienced the most persistent rainfall deficit between 1997 and 2009 since records began at the start of the 20th Century.

More information on general climate impacts across Australia is provided in the State of the Climate 2020 report or on the website Climate Change in Australia.

Climate resources

Climate change science provides the information needed to understand and plan for climate change impacts, thereby increasing community resilience and reducing the cost of climate change impacts to society. Australian scientists are at the forefront of global efforts to understand the science behind climate change. Australia has a unique interest in and responsibility for leading climate change research in the southern hemisphere.

Climate change science is provided to the Australian Government by agencies such as the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology, state and territory government agencies, as well as university research groups and cooperative research centres. Climate change science from these sources is reliable and quality assured because it goes through a stringent process of peer-review during which other scientists check the results of the research.

Peer-reviewed research

The peer-review process involves scientists evaluating the quality of other scientists' work. It provides a mechanism to quality control scientific discourse and peer-reviewed papers, by ensuring that the work is rigorous, coherent, uses past research and adds to what we already know. Climate change science that has been peer-reviewed therefore provides a reliable and quality assured source of information.

To publish in most scientific journals, conference proceedings, and to apply for grants, scientists have to go through a peer review process. The peer review process is usually a 'blind' review. This means that the authors do not know the identity of the reviewers. This process is designed to ensure evaluation is independent.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assesses the peer-reviewed literature on climate change every five to six years, and publishes its findings in Assessment Reports. The IPCC reports are themselves subject to an intense peer-review process involving hundreds of scientific experts and government reviewers. This unprecedented level of peer and government review makes this compendium of climate change science one of the most scrutinised documents in the history of science.

Read more

See more

Temperature

Oceans

Extremes

Rainfall

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Australia's climate is changing. Observed changes over the 20th century include increases in global average air and ocean temperature, rising global sea levels, long-term sustained widespread reduction of snow and ice cover, and changes in atmospheric and ocean circulation and regional weather patterns, which influence seasonal rainfall conditions.​

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The Greenhouse Effect and Greenhouse Gases

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The Greenhouse Effect and Greenhouse Gases

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for children (simplified)

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The Greenhouse Effect and Greenhouse Gasses

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You might hear people talking about the greenhouse effect as if it is a bad thing. It is not a bad thing, but people are concerned because Earth's greenhouse is warming up very rapidly. This is happening because we are currently adding more greenhouse gases to our atmosphere, causing an increased greenhouse effect.

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Meteorological variables such as wind, temperature and humidity are measured by instruments attached to balloons and relayed by radio to ground stations on land or on ships. by Kyle D. Gahlau

Climate change is a change in the pattern of weather, and related changes in oceans, land surfaces and ice sheets, occurring over time scales of decades or longer

Weather is the state of the atmosphere-its temperature, humidity, wind, rainfall and so on-over hours to weeks. It is influenced by the oceans, land surfaces and ice sheets, which together with the atmosphere form what is called the 'climate system'. Climate, in its broadest sense, is the statistical description of the state of the climate system.

Climate change is a change in the statistical properties of the climate system that persists for several decades or longer-usually at least 30 years. These statistical properties include averages, variability and extremes. Climate change may be due to natural processes, such as changes in the Sun's radiation, volcanoes or internal variability in the climate system, or due to human influences such as changes in the composition of the atmosphere or land use.

Weather can be forecast with considerable skill up to about a week in advance. Short term fluctuations in climate, such as droughts, can be predicted with limited skill from season to season. In contrast, changes in the long-term statistics of the climate system (climate change) can be predicted if caused by long-term influences that are known or predictable (Box 1.1).

Box 1.1: If weather can only be forecast about a week in advance, how can we determine future climate?

The challenges of predicting weather and climate are very different. Predicting the weather is like predicting how a particular eddy will move and evolve in a turbulent river: it is possible over short time scales by extrapolating the previous path of the eddy, but eventually the eddy is influenced by neighbouring eddies and currents to the extent that predicting its exact path and behaviour becomes impossible. Similarly, the limit for predicting individual weather systems in the atmosphere is around 10 days. On the other hand, predicting climate is like predicting the flow of the whole river. It requires a consideration of the major forces controlling the river such as changes in rainfall, the operation of dams, and extraction of water. Projections of human-induced climate change over decades to centuries are possible because human activities have predictable effects on the future atmospheric composition, and in turn a predictable effect on climate.

Climate is determined by many factors that influence flows of energy through the climate system, including greenhouse gases

Energy from the Sun is the ultimate driver of climate on Earth. The solar energy received by Earth depends on how much the Sun emits and the distance between Earth and the Sun. Part of this sunlight is reflected directly back to space by the atmosphere, clouds, and land, ice and water surfaces. Aerosols (tiny particles in the atmosphere, some coming from human activities) can increase the reflection of sunlight.

Eventually the solar energy absorbed by Earth is returned to space as infrared (heat) radiation. In the process it interacts with the whole climate system-atmosphere, oceans, land surfaces and ice sheets. The flows of radiation in the atmosphere (Figure 1.1) are very important in determining climate. The main gases that make up the atmosphere, nitrogen and oxygen, do not interact with infrared radiation. However, certain gases present in smaller quantities absorb infrared radiation flowing upwards from Earth's surface and re-radiate it in all directions, including back downwards. By doing this they impede the outward flow of infrared energy from Earth to space. This is called the 'greenhouse effect', and the gases that cause it by interacting with infrared radiation are called greenhouse gases. The most important are water vapour, carbon dioxide (CO ₂) and methane. The greenhouse effect was identified more than a century ago; Earth's surface would be about 33°C cooler without it, so it keeps Earth habitable.

Figure 1.1: The rates at which energy enters the Earth system from the Sun, and leaves the system, approximately balance on average globally. Energy absorbed at the surface is transferred to the atmosphere via infrared radiation, conduction of sensible heat, and evaporation of water whose latent heat is released later when the water condenses again. Energy leaves the system mostly via infrared radiation from the atmosphere. The arrows show global average energy transfer rates in units of Watts per square metre. With more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, but no other changes, the system must reach a higher temperature to maintain balance. Adapted from IPCC (2013), Fifth Assessment Report, Working Group 1, Figure 2.11.

Changes in climate can occur through both natural and human-induced causes

Global climate varies naturally over time scales from decades to thousands of years and longer. These natural variations can originate in two ways: from internal fluctuations that exchange energy, water and carbon between the atmosphere, oceans, land and ice, and from external influences on the climate system, including variations in the energy received from the sun and the effects of volcanic eruptions.

Human activities can also influence climate by changing concentrations of CO ₂ and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (Box 1.2), altering the concentrations of aerosols and altering the reflectivity of Earth's surface by changing land cover.

Box 1.2: How do human activities enhance the 'greenhouse effect'?

Today, human activities are directly increasing atmospheric concentrations of CO ₂, methane and nitrous oxide, plus some chemically manufactured greenhouse gases such as halocarbons ( Question 3). These humangenerated gases enhance the natural greenhouse effect and further warm the surface. In addition to the direct effect, the warming that results from increased concentrations of long-lived greenhouse gases can be amplified by other processes. A key example is water vapour amplification (Box 1.3). Human activities are also increasing aerosols in the atmosphere, which reflect some incoming sunlight. This human-induced change offsets some of the warming from greenhouse gases.

A disturbance to the climate system can trigger further changes that amplify or damp the initial disturbance

ABOVE: Surface meteorological observing station at Cranbourne, Victoria, typical of stations used for observing climate around the world. Photo: Bureau of Meteorology

There are close connections between temperature, atmospheric water vapour, the extent of polar ice sheets and the concentrations of long-lived greenhouse gases (especially CO ₂) in the atmosphere.

When one of these is disturbed, the others react through 'feedback' processes that may amplify or dampen the original disturbance. These feedbacks occur on a wide range of time scales: those involving the atmosphere are typically rapid, while those involving deep oceans and ice sheets are slow and can cause delayed responses.

An example of a rapid feedback is the role of water vapour as explained in Box 1.3. An example of a slow feedback is the ice age cycles that have taken place over the past million years, triggered by fluctuations in Earth's rotation and orbit around the sun. These fluctuations changed the distribution of solar radiation received by Earth, which caused temperatures to change, in turn inducing changes in ice sheets and carbon cycling that together amplified the temperature response. ( Question 2).

Box 1.3: If water vapour is the most important greenhouse gas, why all the fuss about CO₂?

Water vapour accounts for about half the natural greenhouse effect. Its concentrations in the atmosphere are controlled mainly by atmospheric temperatures and winds, in contrast with the concentrations of other greenhouse gases which are directly influenced by human-induced inputs of these gases to the atmosphere. When global average atmospheric temperatures rise, global water vapour concentrations increase, amplifying the initial warming through an enhanced greenhouse effect. In this way, human activity leads indirectly to increases in water vapour concentrations.

The reality of the water vapour feedback is supported by recent observations and analyses. Increased water vapour concentrations have been observed and attributed to warming, and this feedback approximately doubles the sensitivity of climate to human activities.

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Weather is the state of the atmosphere-its temperature, humidity, wind, rainfall and so on-over hours to weeks. It is influenced by the oceans, land surfaces and ice sheets, which together with the atmosphere form what is called the 'climate system'. Climate, in its broadest sense, is the statistical description of the state of the climate system.

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National Geographic

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Glaciers are melting, sea levels are rising, cloud forests are dying, and wildlife is scrambling to keep pace. It has become clear that humans have caused most of the past century's warming by releasing heat-trapping gases as we power our modern lives. Called greenhouse gases, their levels are higher now than at any time in the last 800,000 years.

We often call the result global warming, but it is causing a set of changes to the Earth's climate, or long-term weather patterns, that varies from place to place. While many people think of global warming and climate change as synonyms, scientists use "climate change" when describing the complex shifts now affecting our planet's weather and climate systems-in part because some areas actually get cooler in the short term.

Climate change encompasses not only rising average temperatures but also extreme weather events, shifting wildlife populations and habitats, rising seas, and a range of other impacts. All of those changes are emerging as humans continue to add heat-trapping greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, changing the rhythms of climate that all living things have come to rely on.

What will we do-what can we do-to slow this human-caused warming? How will we cope with the changes we've already set into motion? While we struggle to figure it all out, the fate of the Earth as we know it-coasts, forests, farms, and snow-capped mountains-hangs in the balance.

Understanding the greenhouse effect

The "greenhouse effect" is the warming that happens when certain gases in Earth's atmosphere trap heat. These gases let in light but keep heat from escaping, like the glass walls of a greenhouse, hence the name.

Sunlight shines onto the Earth's surface, where the energy is absorbed and then radiate back into the atmosphere as heat. In the atmosphere, greenhouse gas molecules trap some of the heat, and the rest escapes into space. The more greenhouse gases concentrate in the atmosphere, the more heat gets locked up in the molecules.

Scientists have known about the greenhouse effect since 1824, when Joseph Fourier calculated that the Earth would be much colder if it had no atmosphere. This natural greenhouse effect is what keeps the Earth's climate livable. Without it, the Earth's surface would be an average of about 60 degrees Fahrenheit (33 degrees Celsius) cooler.

In 1895, the Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius discovered that humans could enhance the greenhouse effect by making carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas. He kicked off 100 years of climate research that has given us a sophisticated understanding of global warming.

Levels of greenhouse gases have gone up and down over the Earth's history, but they had been fairly constant for the past few thousand years. Global average temperatures had also stayed fairly constant over that time- until the past 150 years. Through the burning of fossil fuels and other activities that have emitted large amounts of greenhouse gases, particularly over the past few decades, humans are now enhancing the greenhouse effect and warming Earth significantly, and in ways that promise many effects, scientists warn.

Aren't temperature changes natural?

Human activity isn't the only factor that affects Earth's climate. Volcanic eruptions and variations in solar radiation from sunspots, solar wind, and the Earth's position relative to the sun also play a role. So do large-scale weather patterns such as El Niño.

But climate models that scientists use to monitor Earth's temperatures take those factors into account. Changes in solar radiation levels as well as minute particles suspended in the atmosphere from volcanic eruptions, for example, have contributed only about two percent to the recent warming effect. The balance comes from greenhouse gases and other human-caused factors, such as land use change.

The short timescale of this recent warming is singular as well. Volcanic eruptions, for example, emit particles that temporarily cool the Earth's surface. But their effect lasts just a few years. Events like El Niño also work on fairly short and predictable cycles. On the other hand, the types of global temperature fluctuations that have contributed to ice ages occur on a cycle of hundreds of thousands of years.

For thousands of years now, emissions of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere have been balanced out by greenhouse gases that are naturally absorbed. As a result, greenhouse gas concentrations and temperatures have been fairly stable, which has allowed human civilization to flourish within a consistent climate.

Now, humans have increased the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by more than a third since the Industrial Revolution. Changes that have historically taken thousands of years are now happening over the course of decades.

Why does this matter?

The rapid rise in greenhouse gases is a problem because it's changing the climate faster than some living things can adapt to. Also, a new and more unpredictable climate poses unique challenges to all life.

Historically, Earth's climate has regularly shifted between temperatures like those we see today and temperatures cold enough to cover much of North America and Europe with ice. The difference between average global temperatures today and during those ice ages is only about 9 degrees Fahrenheit (5 degrees Celsius), and the swings have tended to happen slowly, over hundreds of thousands of years.

But with concentrations of greenhouse gases rising, Earth's remaining ice sheets such as Greenland and Antarctica are starting to melt too. That extra water could raise sea levels significantly, and quickly. By 2050, sea levels are predicted to rise between one and 2.3 feet as glaciers melt.

As the mercury rises, the climate can change in unexpected ways. In addition to sea levels rising, weather can become more extreme. This means more intense major storms, more rain followed by longer and drier droughts-a challenge for growing crops-changes in the ranges in which plants and animals can live, and loss of water supplies that have historically come from glaciers.

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Glaciers are melting, sea levels are rising, cloud forests are drying, and wildlife is scrambling to keep pace.

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Greenhouse effect definition, an atmospheric heating phenomenon, caused by short-wave solar radiation being readily transmitted inward through the earth's atmosphere but longer-wavelength heat radiation less readily transmitted outward, owing to its absorption by atmospheric carbon dioxide, water vapor, methane, and other gases; thus, the rising level of carbon dioxide is viewed with concern.

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Wiki Article

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Student activism at the university level is nearly as old as the university itself. Students in Paris and Bologna staged collective actions as early as the 13th century, chiefly over town and gown issues. Student protests over broader political issues also have a long pedigree.

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Go off, #SchoolStrike4Climate

The students behind the School Strike 4 Climate promised they'd be back, and they kept their word - around the country today, thousands of students are crashing their local MPs offices to demand that they step up their climate leadership.

There are more than 70 climate strikes happening today, including at the offices of Scott Morrison, Bill Shorten, and Tony Abbott. The students want to make it clear that despite plenty of talk about climate change this election, they won't be satisfied until their demands are met.

Those demands, if you've forgotten, are pretty clear: They want Parliament to stop Adani's Carmichael coal mine, commit to approving no new fossil fuel projects, and introduce a target of 100 percent renewable energy by 2030. The targets are ambitious, but so are these kids. I mean, look at them go:

Proud to see my daughter protesting on the steps of City Hall in #Geelong, demanding that our political leaders take action on #climatechange. Young people - I hear you, I support you, and I am deeply sorry. #SchoolStrike4Climate pic.twitter.com/RRPkedn7US

- Dr Fiona Gray (@FionaGrayPhD) May 3, 2019

#ClimateStrike #Fridaysforfuture @GretaThunberg #Manly pic.twitter.com/iM14jeW7MF

- Alex Martiniuk (@AlexMartiniuk) May 3, 2019

#SchoolStrike4Climate leaders are sacrificing their education to send @billshortenmp a message that young people demand climate action. ALP policy is stronger then the Liberals, but sitting on the fence on Adani and spending $1.5 billion on new gas is doing climate damage. pic.twitter.com/zIE1lu6PLr

- 💧Environment Victoria (@EnviroVic) May 3, 2019

Newcastle school students have turned out again for this #ClimateElection #SchoolStrike4Climate pic.twitter.com/DkipMmaxoT

- Georgina Woods (@georgefwoods) May 3, 2019

As Sara McKoy, a sixteen-year-old striking in Brisbane today, put it, "May 3rd is our last chance before the election to push politicians to commit to real, meaningful action on climate change".

"We, students, are leading this fight - but everyone will be affected, and so we invite the whole community to get involved in urging our politicians to show the climate leadership we need."

#SchoolStrike4Climate signs are once again on point #ClimateElection #StopAdani pic.twitter.com/enLAz3lUZt

- School Strike 4 Climate (@StrikeClimate) May 3, 2019

Student strikers out in force in Tony Abbott's electorate of Warringah! #SchoolStrike4Climate pic.twitter.com/xZjw1F7ELO

- GetUp! (@GetUp) May 3, 2019

#Townsville #Herbert #StopAdani #StopFossilFuels #RenewableEnergy
Listening to the soon to be active voters. #ClimateStrike #SchoolStrike4Climate #1point5 @c_otoole @billshortenmp @terributlermp @Bowenchris @AlboMP #ClimateEmergency#AUSVotes2019 #VoteThemOut #StopFracking pic.twitter.com/z9zEnA2ztI

- DeeL_Me_Out (@DeeL_TALE) May 3, 2019

The students want to make clear that they're not just protesting one party's policies, either - the way the School Strikers see it, no party is currently doing enough. While Labor has made a real effort to present itself as a climate leader this election, Doha Khan, who has helped organise several student strikes in Adelaide, is skeptical.

"Federal Labor just committed 1.5 billion dollars to unlock gas reserves in the Northern Territory and Queensland - a move that can only be described as an utter disappointment," she pointed out today.

"Why are our politicians sticking up for the coal and gas industries ahead of young people like us, whose futures are on the line if climate change remains ignored? We deserve a Government that takes climate change seriously."

School strikers and friends are gathering at @Birmo office! #climateactionnow #stopadani #schoolstrike4climate #ausvotes #auspol #adelaide @StrikeClimate @stopadani @AYCC pic.twitter.com/2AHOJsZou0

- Climate Action Adelaide (@AdelaideStop) May 3, 2019

Big crowd protesting outside the office of @AlboMP in Marrickville today! #StopAdani #SchoolStrike4Climate #auspol2019 @CentralNewsUTS pic.twitter.com/NGcSop1hxr

- Ashlea Wheeler (@ashleawheeler_) May 3, 2019

#SchoolStrike4Climate at Wollongong office of @SharonBirdMP . More to come @illawarramerc pic.twitter.com/edRu6Y52SF

- agron latifi (@agrifi7) May 3, 2019

Thanks for coming to our #ClimateStrike @billshortenmp! When are you going to step up for our futures and commit to #StopAdani? #ClimateElection #voteclimate pic.twitter.com/Xo1F2MAP6C

- School Strike 4 Climate (@StrikeClimate) May 3, 2019

"Don't Shorten Our Lives" - #schoolstrike4climate at @billshortenmp's office this morning. Labor must do better. pic.twitter.com/SHvuHWDNOO

- James (@_spock) May 3, 2019

Just two weeks out from an election, this latest strike should come as a final warning for candidates from all parties: the youth want climate action, and they want it now. Given that young voter enrolment is at an all time high, the strikers hold a fair bit of power here. You'd be a fool to ignore them.

If you want to support your local school strike, or stay up to date on future actions, check out the School Strike 4 Climate website.

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The School Strike Kids Are Crashing MPs' Offices Around The Country To Call For Climate Action

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Go off, #SchoolStrike4Climate The students behind the School Strike 4 Climate promised they'd be back, and they kept their word - around the country today, thousands of students are crashing their local MPs offices to demand that they step up their climate leadership.

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Student activism or campus activism is work by students to cause political, environmental,economic, or social change. ... Some student protests focus on the internal affairs of a specific institution; others focus on broader issues such as a war ordictatorship.

Student activism - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Student_activism

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In the social sciences, a political movement is a social group that operates together to obtain a political goal, on a local, regional, national, or international scope.

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A: Since the Industrial Revolution, the global annual temperature has increased in total by a little more than 1 degree Celsius, or about 2 degrees Fahrenheit. Between 1880-the year that accurate recordkeeping began-and 1980, it rose on average by 0.07 degrees Celsius (0.13 degrees Fahrenheit) every 10 years. Since 1981, however, the rate of increase has more than doubled: For the last 40 years, we've seen the global annual temperature rise by 0.18 degrees Celsius, or 0.32 degrees Fahrenheit, per decade.

The result? A planet that has never been hotter. Nine of the 10 warmest years since 1880 have occurred since 2005-and the 5 warmest years on record have all occurred since 2015. Climate change deniers have argued that there has been a "pause" or a "slowdown" in rising global temperatures, but numerous studies, including a 2018 paper published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, have disproved this claim. The impacts of global warming are already harming people around the world.

What causes global warming?

A: Global warming occurs when carbon dioxide (CO ₂) and other air pollutants collect in the atmosphere and absorb sunlight and solar radiation that have bounced off the earth's surface. Normally this radiation would escape into space, but these pollutants, which can last for years to centuries in the atmosphere, trap the heat and cause the planet to get hotter. These heat-trapping pollutants-specifically carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, water vapor, and synthetic fluorinated gases-are known as greenhouse gases, and their impact is called the greenhouse effect.

How is global warming linked to extreme weather?

A: Scientists agree that the earth's rising temperatures are fueling longer and hotter heat waves, more frequent droughts, heavier rainfall, and more powerful hurricanes.

In 2015, for example, scientists concluded that a lengthy drought in California-the state's worst water shortage in 1,200 years-had been intensified by 15 to 20 percent by global warming. They also said the odds of similar droughts happening in the future had roughly doubled over the past century. And in 2016, the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine announced that we can now confidently attribute some extreme weather events, like heat waves, droughts, and heavy precipitation, directly to climate change.

The impacts of global warming are being felt everywhere. Extreme heat waves have caused tens of thousands of deaths around the world in recent years. And in an alarming sign of events to come, Antarctica has lost nearly four trillion metric tons of ice since the 1990s. The rate of loss could speed up if we keep burning fossil fuels at our current pace, some experts say, causing sea levels to rise several meters in the next 50 to 150 years and wreaking havoc on coastal communities worldwide.

What are the other effects of global warming?

A: Each year scientists learn more about the consequences of global warming, and each year we also gain new evidence of its devastating impact on people and the planet. As the heat waves, droughts, and floods associated with climate change become more frequent and more intense, communities suffer and death tolls rise. If we're unable to reduce our emissions, scientists believe that climate change could lead to the deaths of more than 250,000 people around the globe every year and force 100 million people into poverty by 2030.

Global warming is already taking a toll on the United States. And if we aren't able to get a handle on our emissions, here's just a smattering of what we can look forward to:

Disappearing glaciers, early snowmelt, and severe droughts will cause more dramatic water shortages and continue to increase the risk of wildfires in the American West.

Rising sea levels will lead to even more coastal flooding on the Eastern Seaboard, especially in Florida, and in other areas such as the Gulf of Mexico.

Forests, farms, and cities will face troublesome new pests, heat waves, heavy downpours, and increased flooding. All of these can damage or destroy agriculture and fisheries.

Disruption of habitats such as coral reefs and alpine meadows could drive many plant and animal species to extinction.

Allergies, asthma, and infectious disease outbreaks will become more common due to increased growth of pollen-producing ragweed, higher levels of air pollution, and the spread of conditions favorable to pathogens and mosquitoes.

Though everyone is affected by climate change, not everyone is affected equally. Indigenous people, people of color, and the economically marginalized are typically hit the hardest. Inequities built into our housing, health care, and labor systems make these communities more vulnerable to the worst impacts of climate change-even though these same communities have done the least to contribute to it.

Where does the United States stand in terms of global-warming contributors?

A: In recent years, China has taken the lead in global-warming pollution, producing about 26 percent of all CO2 emissions. The United States comes in second. Despite making up just 4 percent of the world's population, our nation produces a sobering 13 percent of all global CO2 emissions-nearly as much as the European Union and India (third and fourth place) combined. And America is still number one, by far, in cumulative emissions over the past 150 years. As a top contributor to global warming, the United States has an obligation to help propel the world to a cleaner, safer, and more equitable future. Our responsibility matters to other countries, and it should matter to us, too.

Is the United States doing anything to prevent global warming?

A: We've started. But in order to avoid the worsening effects of climate change, we need to do a lot more-together with other countries-to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and transition to clean energy sources.

Despite the lack of cooperation from the Trump administration, local and state governments made great strides during this period through efforts like the American Cities Climate Challenge and ongoing collaborations like the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. Meanwhile, industry and business leaders have been working with the public sector, creating and adopting new clean-energy technologies and increasing energy efficiency in buildings, appliances, and industrial processes. Today the American automotive industry is finding new ways to produce cars and trucks that are more fuel efficient and is committing itself to putting more and more zero-emission electric vehicles on the road. Developers, cities, and community advocates are coming together to make sure that new affordable housing is built with efficiency in mind, reducing energy consumption and lowering electric and heating bills for residents. And renewable energy continues to surge as the costs associated with its production and distribution keep falling. In 2020 renewable energy sources such as wind and solar provided more electricity than coal for the very first time in U.S. history.

Is global warming too big a problem for me to help tackle?

A: No! While we can't win the fight without large-scale government action at the national level, we also can't do it without the help of individuals who are willing to use their voices, hold government and industry leaders to account, and make changes in their daily habits.

Wondering how you can be a part of the fight against global warming? Reduce your own carbon footprint by taking a few easy steps: Make conserving energy a part of your daily routine and your decisions as a consumer. When you shop for new appliances like refrigerators, washers, and dryers, look for products with the government's ENERGY STAR ® label; they meet a higher standard for energy efficiency than the minimum federal requirements. When you buy a car, look for one with the highest gas mileage and lowest emissions. You can also reduce your emissions by taking public transportation or carpooling when possible.

And while new federal and state standards are a step in the right direction, much more needs to be done. Voice your support of climate-friendly and climate change preparedness policies, and tell your representatives that equitably transitioning from dirty fossil fuels to clean power should be a top priority-because it's vital to building healthy, more secure communities.

You don't have to go it alone, either. Movements across the country are showing how climate action can build community, be led by those on the front lines of its impacts, and create a future that's equitable and just for all.

This story was originally published on March 11, 2016 and has been updated with new information and links.

This NRDC.org story is available for online republication by news media outlets or nonprofits under these conditions: The writer(s) must be credited with a byline; you must note prominently that the story was originally published by NRDC.org and link to the original; the story cannot be edited (beyond simple things such as grammar); you can't resell the story in any form or grant republishing rights to other outlets; you can't republish our material wholesale or automatically-you need to select stories individually; you can't republish the photos or graphics on our site without specific permission; you should to let us know when you've used one of our stories.

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What is global warming? Global warming causes, effects, extreme weather, facts, and relation to climate change.

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The Vietnam War was a long, costly and divisive conflict that pitted the communist government of North Vietnam against South Vietnam and its principal ally, the United States.

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Community Broadcasting Association of Australia

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As in all forms of communication, knowing who you are talking to, how they think and what they want is crucially important.

Download complete toolkit Factsheet: Community Radio & Government Factsheet: Election Guidelines | |

Who do I need to know?

Federal

State/Territory

LOCAL MEMBER: The voice of your community in your state or territory parliament, this local politician is likely more available than your federal MP. Some states - Victoria, Tasmania and Western Australia - have Upper Houses that have geographically distinct areas.

MINISTERS & SPOKESPEOPLE: State and territory level politicians are more likely to visit your local area than their federal counterparts. Target them for funding partnerships across service areas, e.g. youth, education and ATSI.

Local council

MAYOR: Likely to be your most accessible high-profile politician, wanting to regularly promote Council activities in your local community.

COUNCILLORS: Will generally be available to discuss local issues.

What do politicians want?

Despite rumours to the contrary, politicians are as human as the rest of us, and have similar needs. By understanding what politicians want you will be able to engage with them more productively

POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT:

People are very quick to complain to politicians when something happens they don't like - which is fine because dealing with these concerns is a core part of a politician's job - but very few people will get in touch to say 'well done'.

Finding ways to acknowledge the positive work your local representative does can go a long way to building a healthy and respectful relationship.

SIMPLE REQUESTS WITH SIMPLE OUTCOMES:

Politicians get asked to do multiple things every day. Some of these issues are extremely complex and some have no solution. There's nothing an under-pressure politician likes more than being a simple request that they can respond to and action immediately. It's worth keeping this in mind as you engage with MPs.

Also note that you don't need to rush everything into the first time you meet or talk. A series of simple encounters can give the time needed to build a more nuanced relationship.

KEEPING THEIR JOBS:

The job of politicians is to represent their constituencies at their particular level of government. To continue doing this job they need to get re-elected every 3-4 years (or longer if they're in the Senate or some Upper Houses).

The six months leading up to an election, or immediately following a state or federal budget, can be good times to target politicians, who will be wanting increased community engagement at this time. Highlight to politicians that by engaging with your station they will be engaging directly with their constituents in a meaningful way.

What can politicians do?

People often unrealistically expect politicians to be able to solve their problems, not understanding what different politicians can actually do, either within government, a political party, or in the community. Having an understanding of exactly what politicians can and can't do is crucial.

In the community

Communication and outreach: All politicians have a communications allowance that they use to connect with their constituents, often via email or direct mail. They will also invariably have strategies to reach difference parts of the community, including by hosting events, round tables and even sending cards to people on their birthdays.

Community events: Local representatives are frequently asked to attend and speak at events occurring in the community, from café openings to citizenship ceremonies. This provides politicians with a wide network within their local area.

Funding opportunities: In some legislatures, particularly at a state level, a certain amount of money is put aside per electorate to give small grants to community and not-for-profit organisations. Local politicians can play a key role in deciding where this money is spent.

Directly for your station

1. ON-AIR - Regular scheduled appearances will cement your station as a conduit between a politician and the community. Even occasional news interviews will help connect your listeners to what happens in state or federal parliament. Politicians may purchase sponsorship minutes to promote their activities (if your station permits political sponsorship).

2. OFF AIR - Extend an invitation for politicians to visit your station and see what you do first hand. If you run fund-raising or other station events, invite politicians to attend and make a contribution via a short speech.

3. CONNECTIONS - All politicians have networks they are connected to and communications systems in place to reach them. Make sure you're on your MPs email or media lists, keeping an eye out for events and opportunities.

In the halls of parliament or council chambers

Legislation

MPs often look for ways to make their speeches on legislation relevant to their local community.

Legislation

Same principle as in federal parliament. Politicians love being able to mention local constituents and organisations in legislation debates.

All councillors can put motions on the agenda of meetings to change council policy on particular issues. These are invariably focused on in the local area.

* The exact actions your state/territory MP is able to take will depend on which state/territory they are in.
** Different councils will have different practices and procedures.

Quick resources

READ MORE

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As in all forms of communication, knowing who you are talking to, how they think and what they want is crucially important. Download complete toolkit Factsheet: Community Radio & Government Factsheet: Election Guidelines | | Who do I need to know?

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March against gun violence/laws

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The actual website for when students were skipping Friday to protest climate change

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School Strike 4 Climate Australia pays our respects to the countless Traditional Custodians who have cared for this land for tens of thousands of years.

​We acknowledge that we meet, organise and strike on stolen Country, and that sovereignty has never been ceded. First Nations peoples are disproportionately on the frontlines of the climate crisis, and therefore must be enshrined at the forefront of the climate movement.

There can be no climate justice without First Nations justice.

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Home | School Strike 4 Climate Australia

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School Strike 4 Climate Australia pays our respects to the countless Traditional Custodians who have cared for this land for tens of thousands of years. ​We acknowledge that we meet, organise and strike on stolen Country, and that sovereignty has never been ceded.

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On February 16, 2018, two days after a 19-year-old took an Uber to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and killed 17 students and staff with a semi-automatic rifle, 19-year-old Julian Lopez-Leyva held a demonstration alone.

The Phoenix native and sophomore at Bunker Hill Community College in Boston knew gun violence intimately. His cousin had been paralyzed from gunshot wounds; an administrator at his elementary school was killed in a parking lot; a masked man had held a pistol to his head before taking his phone and wallet. But he had scant experience organizing protests. For 17 hours, one for each Parkland victim, Lopez-Leyva stood on a bench in a small park across from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, waving handmade signs and asking passersby for solutions to "our gun epidemic." He returned home exhausted and exasperated.

Two days later, Lopez-Leyva watched five survivors of the Parkland massacre announce on CNN that they were organizing a national March for Our Lives to demand stricter background checks for gun buyers and to "Never Again" witness a school shooting. They were teenagers, in the midst of attending their friends' funerals, but they spoke with conviction, clarity, solemnity, and vision, a maturity unprecedented - from children and adults alike - in the wake of the 193 American school shootings since Columbine in 1999. Their "sudden resilience, the way they stared beyond the camera," Lopez-Leyva says, "awakened me, gave me a new hope." A few minutes later he created a Facebook event for a March for Our Lives in Boston. Through social media and visiting nearby campuses, he soon helped connect 94 bipartisan student groups (including multiple chapters of College Democrats and College Republicans), civic organizations, and teachers unions. When he stepped onto Boston Common on March 24, this time he was joined by nearly 100,000 demonstrators, along with some 2 million at 800 simultaneous rallies in every U.S. state and on six continents. In five weeks, students organized one of the largest youth protests since the Vietnam War.

"I was blown away," says Lopez-Leyva. Still, he was soon asking the same questions he asked after his solo demonstration: "How do we keep this going? How do we get results?"

Millions of students are asking the same questions amid the most forceful surge of youth activism since the 1960s. From the hunger strike, encampment, and football-team boycott demanding the ouster of the University of Missouri's president; to a New York University student dragging a mattress to class for an entire year in protest of sexual violence; to marches against visiting supporters of President Donald Trump; to die-ins for racial justice, including one at the Ed School, unrest spreads among American students. In 2016, an annual UCLA survey of undergraduates nationwide found that 1 in 10 expected to partake in protests while in college, the highest rate since 1967.

"We're in a groundswell moment of youth activism," says Professor Meira Levinson, who studies civic and multicultural education. In the weeks after the Parkland shooting, to help educate first-time protesters, Levinson co-created the online learning resource Youth in Front (with Justin Reich, Ed.D.'12, executive director of MIT's Teaching Systems Lab, and Doug Pietrzak, Ed.M.'11, founder of the instructional design firm Fresh Cognate). After surveying more than 3,000 high school and college students in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Mississippi, Levinson and her team built how-to guides and fielded video interviews with 30 scholars and activists (Lopez-Leyva included) to answer the students' most common questions: Why protest? Will I be alone? Will I get in trouble? How can teachers be allies?

By far the most elusive question, Levinson admits, is, how a march can become a movement. "This is depressing but true," she says. The mode - the most common outcome - "is that activism doesn't work." Countless forces keep youth uprisings "permanently fragile"- from distrust and dismissal from adults; to co-optation; to attrition by graduation, infighting, or simply other obligations as students. Especially for low-income students and youth of color, "it's much harder to get recognized as fighting for positive change as opposed to posing a threat." Still, "there's a deep affinity between generational change and social change," says Marshall Ganz, a senior lecturer at the Kennedy School. "Young people come of age with three tools essential for renewal: a critical eye of the world, a clear view of the its needs and pain, and hopeful hearts that give a sense of the world's promise and possibilities." Students have been activists since they've been students. From 1229 to 1231, the entire student body at the Sorbonne went on strike, until Pope Gregory IX (a Sorbonne alumnus) declared students were exempt from the city's jurisdiction. Nearly 1,000 years of protests later, Levinson says, we have found "no magic formula" to affecting change. But we have learned a few causes and tactics that tend to boom, and doom, uprisings.

*****

In the beginning, students fought for their rights with knives, stones, and fists. As the first universities opened in medieval Europe - Bologna, Cambridge, Paris - students often brawled with citizens over their license to roam the town free, which most often resulted in bolstered protections for students. When the University of Vienna was founded in 1365, for example, the Duke of Austria declared that if a nonstudent dismembered a student, authorities were to sever the same body part from the nonstudent.

Until the 20th century, American activism was slipshod and provincial. In 1639, Harvard students testified in court against the school's vile cuisine and the violent punishments given by inaugural schoolmaster Nathaniel Eaton. The magistrates fired Eaton and his wife, who admitted to serving students "mackerel ... with their guts in them, and goat's dung in their hasty pudding." American college students wouldn't stage a real protest until 1766, with Harvard's Great Butter Rebellion. After Asa Dunbar (class of 1767) allegedly mounted his chair and bellowed, "Behold, our butter stinketh! Give us, therefore, butter that stinketh not," students boycotted the dining hall for a month until President Edward Holyoke suspended more than half of the student body. Culinary outcries regularly erupted at Harvard until the Civil War.

National student movements began in the 1920s and climaxed during the Great Depression as socialist-oriented organizations such as the National Student Federation and National Student League opened hundreds of chapters and held rallies and conferences on liberal education, democracy, and labor rights. World War II and the antisocialist wave of the Cold War fractured many of these groups and drowned out a generation of student progressivism while conservative organizations such as the prowar Student League of America and the evangelical Campus Crusade for Christ (CCC) grew. Founded at UCLA in 1951, CCC had 40 chapters in the U.S. by 1959, and hundreds more in 25 countries a decade later.

May 8, 1970: In the wake of the Kent State shootings, students from Harvard and other local colleges (below) gathered outside Harvard Stadium.

Then, in February 1960, four African American freshmen at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University sat at a "whites only" lunch counter in Greensboro. Their nonviolent protest of segregation sparked widespread student involvement in the civil rights movement; the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) formed later that year and soon had active members at colleges across the country. Among them was Ganz, who dropped out of Harvard before his senior year in 1964 to join the SNCC-led Mississippi Summer Project (a campaign to register black voters) and later spent 16 years as the United Farm Workers' director of organizing.

Radicalism, over civil rights, the Vietnam War, the free speech movement, and feminism, increased each year until 1968, "The Year of the Student" according to Mark Edelman Boren, author of Student Resistance: A History of the Unruly Subject. Students rioted and took over universities, factories, and government buildings in France, Ireland, Germany, Italy, Senegal, the Congo, and Pakistan. Across the United States, once sleepy, conservative campuses regularly held demonstrations. At Harvard in 1967-68, some 300 students charged into Mallinckrodt Laboratory and held captive a job recruiter for napalm manufacturer Dow Chemical for seven hours; others boycotted their commencement speaker, the shah of Iran; and Law School Professor Alan Dershowitz taught a class on how students could legally dodge the draft.

But 1968 was also the year student movements began to unravel. The assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy set back the civil rights and antiwar movements. A lack of leaders brought a dearth of tactics and goals. "Leadership is fundamental to growing and sustaining a movement," Ganz says. "They shift the power balance by empowering a community to come into being. Without strong leaders and leadership development, movements end up embracing structurelessness, and that just produces chaos." Simultaneously, college administrations and local and state authorities alike grew more aggressive in squashing demonstrations. In 1968 police shot to death three student protestors in Orangeburg, South Carolina, and one in Berkeley, California. Boren summarizes the subsequent demise: "The increasing militancy of groups such as the Black Panthers, the drug culture ... and even the murders of the Charles Manson gang - all served to exacerbate public disaffection with any 'revolutionaries.' ... As students were faced with either resorting to violence or retooling their resistance machines for slower, less confrontational tactics, many students chose simply to drop out of the political scene." Growing conservatism further dampened resistance throughout the 1970s. It reawakened in the mid-1980s, when protest against South Africa's extreme and often violent racial suppression began in African American church groups and soon spread to college campuses. And today, a renaissance has emerged amid #BlackLivesMatter, #MeToo, and #NeverAgain.

Over these historical tides, a few tactics have kept resistance afloat and on course. For one, "the most successful formula students have followed is convincingly making an off-campus issue also a campus issue," says Julie Reuben, professor of the history of American education at the Ed School. Antiwar protests were most effective not when students marched against U.S. involvement in Vietnam, but when they boycotted their campus ROTC chapters. Harvard, for example, downgraded its ROTC program to an extracurricular activity in 1969 after hundreds of students occupied University Hall and 10,000 declared a strike. Anti-apartheid campaigns were most effective not when students marched against the U.S. government's support of racist policies in South Africa, but when students demanded their universities divest. After Columbia students occupied the main academic building for three weeks, the board of trustees agreed to sell its $39 million in stock of U.S. companies with ties to South Africa, 4 percent of its portfolio. By 1988, 155 schools had divested more than $1 billion, more than half of them after protests inspired by the Columbia campaign. "Localizing an argument is a compelling strategy to engage students and awaken administrations," says Reuben, who taught the course Campus Activism in the 1960s at the Ed School for many years. More recently, dozens of universities have been quick to dismiss and discipline Black Lives Matter (BLM) protesters who've staged "die-ins" to raise awareness of police brutality. But students have had more success when directing the racial dialogue that BLM has opened at their own campuses; for example, in 2015, protesters at the University of Missouri and Claremont McKenna College in California forced their president and dean, respectively, to resign over mishandling racial incidents.

Younger students, however, have a better chance to build a movement with the opposite tack. "High school activism takes place best when it's focused on the outside community, not the school itself," Reuben says. "Whereas college students are often considered adults, teenagers are often dismissed as acting out when they challenge adult authority within their administration." (There are rare exceptions. Sixteen-year-old Barbara Johns' walkout in protest of disgraceful conditions at her all-black high school became a foundational case in Brown v. Board of Education.)

The sight of children addressing national issues, however, has captured the country's imagination. In 1917, a white mob killed 38 and injured hundreds more African Americans in St. Louis. In response, hundreds of black children dressed in white and marched hand-in-hand, leading 10,000 African Americans through Manhattan in the Silent Parade, which aimed, as The New York Times reported, to make President Woodrow Wilson aware of the "lawless treatment" of black Americans nationwide. It became a blueprint for the civil rights movement. In 1963, when more than 1,000 children skipped school to march in Birmingham, Alabama, images of police spraying fire hoses and unleashing attack dogs on them ignited a furor that forced the city to desegregate and paved the way for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Children's Crusade, as it became known, "turned around the entire civil rights movement," Levinson says. And today, the vigor and anger of children who had just watched their classmates bleed to death in their hallways has propelled the most serious national debate over gun control in years.

No youth movement has succeeded without adult allies. "Faculty provide internal pressure that students can't," Reuben says. The Berkeley free speech movement, the first major act of campus civil disobedience of the 1960s, quickly galvanized thousands of students to advocate for their rights to assemble and to academic freedom. But students gained leverage only when a group of faculty agreed to create the Board of Educational Development (BED) in 1964 and allowed students to help create experimental curriculum. And it was the 1968 elimination of the bed - which then-Governor Ronald Reagan demanded - that quashed the free speech movement. Fifty years later, faculty are generally much more diverse, liberal, and willing to aid student resistance. "The downside is it's often too easy to gain faculty allies," Reuben says. "Today it doesn't necessarily provide the insider-outsider dynamic useful for making change."

The quintessence of this trend: In 2015 a University of Missouri communications professor protesting with students was fired after she was approached by a video journalist and yelled, "Who wants to help me get this reporter out of here? I need some muscle."

*****

The never again movement begun by Parkland survivors contains many ingredients to draw wide support. There were the years of tragedies and political inaction that fomented frustration. According to The Washington Post, since the Columbine massacre on April 20, 1999, more than 187,000 students have experienced a shooting at their school. (Dozens of other mass shootings in the same period - at a movie theater, nightclub, concert, church, etc. - enflamed the anger.) There are charismatic student leaders, all born after Columbine, with impassioned, morally grounded messages, such as Parkland survivor Emma González citing a litany of excuses NRA-supported politicians have made for inaction, and shouting "We call B.S." after each. "Framing the issue as a moral question can grant students a certain moral authority over the authorities," Reuben says. Ganz adds, "It takes a lot of moral resources to respond to loss in the way that they have. Narrative storytelling is essential to building a movement, and the story the Parkland kids are telling is a redemptive pathway to hope."

December 9, 2014: Dozens of students and others from the Ed School staged a die-in (opposite) on the first floor of Gutman Conference Center following non-indictments of the police officers who killed Eric Garner and Michael Brown.

It also helps that the student leaders lived in a town that was 84 percent white and with a median household income more than double the national median. As Reuben notes, even though "non-whites are much more affected by gun violence, the issue is deeply racialized." Black student activists had campaigned against gun violence even years before the Black Lives Matter movement began in 2013, but they've often been overlooked, demonized, and criminalized. "They've had to push against the fear white Americans feel when they see large gatherings of youth of color," Levinson says. Parkland students, however, have been "able to speak to audiences who in the past have dismissed this issue."

As the Never Again movement received millions in donations and celebrity support, and when Florida Governor Rick Scott agreed to meet with survivors to discuss policy changes within a week of the shooting, many contrasted the response with the reception of the Dream Defenders. After the shooting of unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin in 2012, the student-led Dream Defenders formed to campaign against police brutality and to end Florida's "stand your ground" defense law, which states that a person who is present at a place where he has a right to be also has the right to use deadly force on another if he "reasonably believes" it is necessary to protect himself or others. For a year and a half they held demonstrations, even occupying the capitol for 31 days, but Governor Scott refused to meet with them.

"Even the most transcendent movements never fully transcended prejudice," Levinson adds. She points to the "profound misunderstanding" today that Martin Luther King Jr. was "always widely respected, even cuddly." In a 1968 Harris poll, after the bus boycotts, the March on Washington, and the Selma to Montgomery Marches, three-quarters of Americans disapproved of King. Whereas the of Americans disapproved of King. Whereas the Parkland survivors drew immediate, widespread support, when students of color have built movements, "it has always been in spite of prejudice, in spite of fear, in spite of skepticism," says Levinson. Youth of color also face greater risks from police when protesting - clubbed in Greensboro, hosed in Birmingham, pepper-sprayed in Ferguson.

The Parkland students also benefit and suffer from social media, which wields the power to burgeon and bludgeon global movements within minutes. Just as student activists of the 1960s used the latest technologies - the mimeograph and laser printing - to spread the word from campus to campus, today's students build coalitions with Google Docs and camera phones. During a national school walkout one month after the Parkland shooting, for example, 15-year-old Justin Blackman was the only student to participate at his high school in North Carolina. But a self-made video of his lone protest garnered more than 6 million views, 14,000 Twitter followers, and an interview on CNN.

Social media also bears "the risk that activism will start and end online, and achieve little," Levinson says. Though organizing the March for Our Lives in Boston would have been "impossible" without social media, Lopez-Leyva saw much higher turnout from the student groups he met with than the ones he tweeted to. "When you're seeing the faces of tragedies among cat videos, the seriousness of these issues can get nullified," he says. And the more visible student leaders become, the more they subject themselves to trolling. Fake stories "exposing" Parkland survivor and Never Again leader David Hogg as a hired "crisis actor" were widely spread through Google, YouTube, and Facebook. On the other side, after posting a photograph of herself holding a graduation cap and an AR-10 rifle, a gun rights activist at Kent State University received hundreds of death threats. "Social media is as essential to student activism today as it is impossible to control," Reuben says.

March 19, 2003: Students at Leonard Flynn Elementary in San Francisco (opposite) protest the threatened war against Iraq.

In Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest, Zeynep Tufekci, a faculty associate at Harvard's Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, compares the relationship between protesters and the internet to that of climbers of Mount Everest and Nepalese Sherpas, who "give a boost to people who might not otherwise be fully equipped to face the challenges." What once took semesters' worth of meetings and debates can now be achieved in a few keystrokes. But without the slog of on-the-ground grassroots organizing, Tufekci writes, activists who begin online often lack the "collective capacities that could prepare them for inevitable challenges they face and give them the ability to respond to what comes next."

In the age of social media, youth activists have struggled to enact change. Considering four of the the most prominent youth-led movements this decade - Occupy Wall Street (#occupy), Black Lives Matter (#blm), deferred action for deportation (#Dreamers), and protests against the Dakota Access Pipline (#nodapl) - Levinson says, "Each has had a tangible effect on the world: slowing down DAPL, raising awareness of the 1 percent, Justice Department investigations and consent decrees in a number of cities including Ferguson and Baltimore, DACA - but none yet has a solid, permanent win."

Most recently, the student survivors of Parkland named their movement Never Again, aiming to end all school shootings. There were 10 in the two months after Parkland. On May 19, after 10 students were killed at a high school in Santa Fe, Texas, a local newscaster asked 17-year-old survivor Paige Curry whether she was surprised by the shooting. "No," she said. "It's been happening everywhere. I've always kind of felt like eventually it was going to happen here, too."

Hearing these words, Lopez-Leyva felt "heartbroken, and recognized that our movement remains incomplete." While organizing the March for Our Lives in Boston, he missed many classes, his grades slipped, and much more strenuous work remains to secure the movement's larger goal of voting out of office opponents of stricter gun control. "Making change requires a long-term commitment on multiple fronts. The work is often boring and almost always slow. What we have on our side," says Lopez-Leyva, "is patience, perseverance, personal liberties, and the ballot."

Ganz says that "because the status quo is always going to have more money and political power, failure is an inevitable, and in some ways essential, part of youth movements. The challenge is to turn them into learning opportunities and have the moral resources for the resilience that it takes to do that."

As Martin Luther King Jr. said, quoting an 1853 speech from the abolitionist minister Theodore Parker, "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." Throughout his 13 years as a civil rights leader, King often invoked these words to maintain activists' hopes and fervor. Fifty years after his death, even amid a new Year of the Student, they are words in constant need of repeating.

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A look back at the history of student activism and whether today's protesters are making a difference.

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Almost 12,000 people have registered their interest in a Facebook invite for the Sydney and Brisbane marches, which are expected to cause traffic chaos.

Sydney Strike Noon, Town Hall, march to Hyde Park North after 1PM.

Brisbane Strike 1pm, Queens Gardens Park, march to Parliament House after 1.45PM

"Australia is in the thick of the climate crisis," the invite says.

It's claimed the protests are led by students but in a professional media release, SchoolStrike4ClimateChange says "students have this year extended an open invitation to everyone, including the union movement, health groups and the faith community".

The Australian reports marches are actually being run by the Australian Youth Climate Coalition, an activist organisation that is registered as a charity with 68 adult staff.

SYDNEY CBD: Some roads are planned to close btwn 1pm and 3pm for a march from Town Hall to Hyde Park via Park St. Avoid the area. https://t.co/NKmAToCRoo

- Live Traffic Sydney (@LiveTrafficSyd) March 14, 2019

City of Sydney Council voted to stand in solidarity with students taking part in the strikes and also approved a $20,000 donation to the activist group secretly organising the rallies.

Councillor Christine Forster tells Steve Price she voted against the motion.

"There's no doubt about the fact that this is purely and simply a political activist group.

"And frankly, ratepayers shouldn't be asked to give their money to political parties and politically motivated groups."
Click PLAY below to hear the full interview
14-year-old Ambrose Hayes is one of the many children who will take to the streets today.

He phoned Steve Price to debate climate change and deliver the three demands of the student protesters.

Steve quizzed Ambrose on some of the finer points of his climate change beliefs.
Click PLAY below to hear the full interview
School principals Jason and Mark phoned Steve Price to denounce the student strikes.

Principal Jason
"I don't know of any of my students, if they're going today. I would certainly hope not.

"I couldn't physically stop them but I don't think, given the culture of my school, I don't think they'd do that."

Principal Mark
"Why wouldn't every truancy officer in the state be down at that protest checking these kids out?"

Click PLAY below to hear their calls
Liberal MP Craig Kelly says he is astounded by the protesting students' lack of knowledge on climate issues.

"They're not even getting half the story," he tells Chris Smith.

"What I've found when I speak to some of these kids is their knowledge in this area is just so shallow.

"They'd be lucky to know about five per cent of the area that they're talking about."
Click PLAY below to hear the full interview

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'Student-led' climate protests actually organised by adult activists

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Almost 12,000 people have registered their interest in a Facebook invite for the Sydney and Brisbane marches, which are expected to cause traffic chaos. Sydney Strike Noon, Town Hall, march to Hyde Park North after 1PM. Brisbane Strike 1pm, Queens Gardens Park, march to Parliament House after 1.45PM "Australia is in the thick of the climate crisis," the invite says.

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Young people have emerged as some of the most compelling climate activists in recent years, propelled by a desire to ensure the future inhabitability of the planet. They're calling on governments to prioritize environmental sustainability across all levels of society. You can join us in taking action on this issue here.
What started with one Swedish high school student's weekly protest against climate inaction has going global, with hundreds of thousands of students around the world joining similar protests in recent weeks, according to Buzzfeed News.

Greta Thunberg's "School Climate March," in which she cuts class on Fridays to protest in front of the Swedish parliament in Stockholm, has struck a chord with young people who are tired of waiting for governments to prioritize environmental sustainability. Her protests have especially resonated with girls, who are marching out of classrooms and onto the streets with posters and chants calling for stronger climate change policies, according to Buzzfeed.

Now student activists in the US who were involved in the "March for Our Lives" protests against gun violence are looking to transfer the organizing knowledge they gained to this global movement.
Take Action: Ensure All Communities Can Withstand Climate Disaster
"There aren't very many spaces that I can be in charge of, and what I'm going to say is going to be heard," Jamie Margolin, the 17-year-old founder and executive director of Zero Hour, a climate action movement, told Buzzfeed about her reasons for joining the protests.

In recent weeks, Thunberg has become a kind of moral celebrity for her unflinching critique of governments and companies that are contributing to climate change.

Although 195 countries have signed the Paris climate agreement, which seeks to keep global temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperature levels, few countries are actually living up to the pact's commitments.

A young woman shouts slogans as she marches with thousands of others during a climate change protest in Brussels, Jan. 24, 2019.
Image: Francisco Seco/AP

At the World Economic Forum on Jan. 23, Thunberg gave a speech challenging the people in the room to do more to cut global emissions.
Read More: 'Act as if the House Was on Fire': Teen Calls Out Davos Elite With Fierce Climate Activism
"Adults keep saying we owe it to the young people to give them hope," she said. "But I don't want your hope. I don't want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic," she said.

"I want you to feel the fear I fear every day. And the I want you to act. I want you to act as if you were in a crisis. I want you to act as if the house is on fire. Because it is," she urged.

The high school student's bold activism has inspired other students throughout Europe to join her efforts.

In Belgium, more than 12,000 students joined a protest last month outside the Hague, the UN's international court of justice, calling for climate action.

Similar mass protests have occurred in Germany and youth activists from other countries have pledged to join Thunberg's cause as well.

Thousands of young people march to the European Parliament in Brussels to demand action on climate change.

Many of the marchers were students who skipped school in order to attend. https://t.co/lf3hhFBtuq pic.twitter.com/U02GFROG2P
- ABC News (@ABC) January 19, 2019
Read More: What's in the Green New Deal, Congress' Bold New Climate Plan
The protest will likely reach the US on March 15, when an international day of action is planned, according to Buzzfeed.

Other youth-led protest movements in the US are already changing the dialogue around government action on climate change. For example, the Sunrise Movement rapidly inspired politicians to support their call for a Green New Deal - an ambitious plan to phase out fossil fuels by 2030 - through sit-ins and other forms of protests in the House of Representatives.

As climate change intensifies around the world, calls to transition to renewable energy will only grow louder.

Just stepped off the train and into a Climate March in Lucerne, Switzerland led by school students and teachers. 🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻

"Why should we go to school if you don't listen to the educated." 👈🏼👈🏼👈🏼 pic.twitter.com/ci7A0wjjU0
- Emily Calandrelli (@TheSpaceGal) January 18, 2019
Read More: 5 Things You Can Do Now in Response to the UN's Terrifying New Climate Report
"We really need to do something - the younger generation understand it more," Anuna De Wever, a 17-year old climate activist in Belgium told BuzzFeed News.

"This system is just wrong," she added. "It discriminates against people. We're not taking care of this planet."

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Student-Led Climate Protests Sweeping the Globe Are Coming to the US

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Young people have emerged as some of the most compelling climate activists in recent years, propelled by a desire to ensure the future inhabitability of the planet. They're calling on governments to prioritize environmental sustainability across all levels of society. You can join us in taking action on this issue here.

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7 Times in History When Students Turned to Activism (Published 2018)

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The survivors of the Parkland, Fla., high school shooting have surprised many with their public activism. But they are hardly the first students to push the adult world for political change.