Students have made climate change the issue of this generation. They watched Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth in droves, helped push President Barack Obama into the White House and attended events such as last March’s Power Shift conference in huge numbers.
This past weekend, many participated in an international protest to cut atmospheric carbon concentrations to 350 parts per million. Sunday, students from this university and across the state gathered for the first-ever Maryland Power Shift to learn how to lobby and pressure their representatives to support climate change legislation.
Students have demonstrated that they can grab hold of an issue and put in the time and energy needed to propel it to global awareness. Such enthusiasm from students is a good thing and demonstrates that young people really can shape the national conversation.
But this enthusiasm for climate change leads us to wonder why fewer students show commitment to forming grassroots organizations centered on other causes. Where are the student groups protesting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? Where are the students marching in the streets for health care reform? Why do so many care about an issue that has such far-off consequences instead of issues with a more immediate impact?
Despite the fact that health care reform has dominated the headlines for the past several months, most students don’t seem to care. Congress is in the midst of crafting legislation that would forever change the entire health care industry, which makes up about 17 percent of the nation’s economy. Today’s college students will grapple with this legislation’s impact for six more decades. Students could also lose out in the short term. As the legislation stands now, students who have a university-sponsored health care plan (like the one offered by this university) would no longer be covered under that plan and be forced to seek another one, which might not necessarily be accepted by the University Health Center. This is an issue that could dramatically affect students and cause severe inconveniences. And yet students, by and large, remain silent.
While some students are genuinely apathetic toward the political process, health care reaches beyond that. As the climate change movement and Obama’s candidacy have shown, students are willing to organize and put their opinions out in the open when they feel energized to do so. Issues like health care and Afghanistan don’t necessarily energize students because few see their part in it. With no military draft, few care about a surge in troops to Afghanistan, and most students with a clean bill of health don’t care if they’re insured or about the complexities of a public option. But a decade down the road, many could be regretting such feelings.
That said, the energy is there, waiting to be tapped. Earlier this month, thousands of students showed their support for equal rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans. And now, only a few weeks later, a bill making hate crimes federal offenses sits on Obama’s desk and will likely be signed into law. That bill sits where it does today because ordinary citizens showed their support for it by marching, voting and being heard. They organized and made a difference.
We must remember that grassroots aren’t only green. Climate change is a serious issue, but it’s not the only issue. Change for the better is possible — we just need the energy to organize.
