Craig Stanbury is a Ph D candidate, Monash University, Australia) (This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license) Is acting on climate change as important as love and bedtime stories? What makes a good parent? Most would say a good parent loves and nurtures her children with the ultimate aim of helping them flourish — now and into the future. Good parents will feed their children, give them space to play and time to use their imagination, make sure they get an education and medical care, listen to their troubles, and teach them to evolve into autonomous adults. However, does being a good parent involve anything more than this? In her book, Parenting on Earth (2023), philosopher and mother Elizabeth Cripps argues that to do right by their kids, parents must also attempt to do something about the problems caused by climate change. Many affluent parents, Cripps says, make two assumptions. The first is that their children will grow up (and grow old) avoiding environmental disasters. They will not experience starvation, famines, and wars over natural resources. Their future will be safe. The air they breathe will be clear, and the water they drink will be clean. The second assumption is that broader institutions — such as governments and the World Health Organisation — will take care of these issues. Both assumptions, she argues, are erroneous. Regarding the first assumption, consider the Paris Climate Agreement, which aims to avoid catastrophic climate change by preventing the world from warming by 2°C from pre-industrial levels. Unfortunately, we are not on track to do this. Failing to achieve this objective, will cause tens of millions of deaths in the 21st century and an unquantifiable amount of suffering short of death. Heat extremes that used to happen every 50 years will occur every three. The number of people living in poverty will increase significantly as fundamental human rights to food, water, shelter and security are compromised. Every child on Earth will suffer at least one climate-related hazard, in her lifetime. Simply stated, says Cripps, future generations — the very people that parents bring into the world — may not have the same opportunities to flourish as many of us have had. Regarding the second assumption, the global institutions we rely on are not doing enough to combat climate change. In a better-organised and just world, governments and international bodies would prevent climate-related problems on our behalf. The fact they are not doing so, has ramifications for parents. Indeed, Cripps explains that the world’s collective failure to adequately address climate change alters “the rules of the parenting game”. Imagine, for instance, your child scooting down a road with a giant hole in the pavement. Even though it’s the municipal council’s job to fill in this hole or fence it off, you would not sit back and let your child crash into it while claiming it was someone else’s job to fix it. You are obligated to step in and attempt to…
