Whenever we run out of things to say, it’s customary to turn towards the weather to rescue us.
Idioms and anecdotes roll off our tongues, and suddenly we find ourselves in terra firma in awkward social situations.
But now, the weather is awkward — a roller coaster of the climate crisis and our actions. We constantly seem to be vying to break the hottest-year record annually, so much so that even the Guinness World Records might not be able to keep up with this extraordinary feat.
Warmest January on record already. Warmest 2023 since “global records began in 1880” (NASA). 2024 seems to be all set to beat this unenviable record. Delayed snow in the Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh regions. India emerged as a top contender for climate hotspot in a study conducted by researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology and the University of Augsburg, Germany. Yet again, we are witnessing a tsunami of heat waves that the IMD has warned about. Hottest days. Increased daytime temperatures. And worse, rising death tolls, with so many Indians not having the means or the access to adapt to soaring temperatures.
That is the planet we are all set to bequeath to the next generation. We pass on many things to our children — property, genes, traits, et al. But we are also the generation that passes on a climate-changed planet.
What would our last will and testament look like? To me, it’s one that offers them an inheritance of a better climate future. Because a clean future is a right. One that the Supreme Court of India recognised in March — a distinct right “to be free from the adverse effects of climate change”.
While working on the picture book We Hope: Children on Climate Change (Pratham Books), my (former) colleague Smit Zaveri and I combed through hundreds of forms and letters written by children living in different habitats of India. From Agumbe, a place that was once known as the Cherrapunji of the south for its abundant rainfall, 15-year-old Sathvik wrote, “There is a lake near my house which has water only during the monsoon. The rest of the time it is dry due to the heat.” Thirteen-year-old Dilip Mashya from Dahanu noted, “Our village used to look like a forest. Now it does not look like a forest.”
Every entry was a cause for heartbreak. Like when 15-year-old Atharva Raut from Mumbai wrote, “My lungs are tired” and Mehran Shafi from Jammu and Kashmir, all of 12, said, “I feel upset about my future on this planet, because children have to face it the most and I am also feeling sorry for the Earth.” Burning fossil fuels has made us all pyromaniacs, culpable in our individual and collective way, but especially to the next generation.
As we read, a pattern began to emerge. We realised that while the concepts of climate change might not always be coherent to students, they were keen observers of the weather around them, ticking off “more rain”, “more hot”, “flooding”, “water shortage”, “animal extinction”, “pollution” and “change in the time that flowers bloom”.
What made my heart sink was that, increasingly, as research underscores across the world, their relationship with nature has degenerated into something that’s either transactional — as the provider of food, air, water etc — or is anxiety-ridden. In the section where the children wrote letters to Dear Earth, most were apologetic about human action and promised to do better. That’s not the sort of burden that homework-grappling children should have to deal with. Algebra’s scary enough.
In 2023, UNICEF estimated that “76 per cent of children in South Asia are exposed to extreme high temperatures where 83 or more days in a year exceed 35°C.” That’s 460 million children under the age of 18. And that, “3 in 4 children in South Asia are already exposed to extreme high temperatures compared to only 1 in 3 children (32 per cent) globally.” Additionally, each unprecedented weather event is embedded with trauma and stress. Our children are one of the most vulnerable to the climate crisis.
Their present is already at stake, it’s a sad fact that we’re already getting to witness the adverse effects of climate change. As grown-ups, we remember our weather heritage from when we were children. The MRF Rain Day predicting ads. The snowfall-time holidays. The changing of the seasons, heralding festivities, seasonal foods, and wardrobe planning.
But each generation’s understanding and acceptance of their environmental conditions are constantly being lowered — a phenomenon called Shifting Baseline Syndrome. That means a child in Delhi comes to consider the soaring AQIs as a regular part of winter, the donning of smog masks as much a ritual as the airing of woollens and the eating of gajak and other winter foods. Or, a student in Assam or Chennai expects frequent school disruptions because of flooding. And walking further and further for water in Maharashtra is part of a daily routine for some. In Bengaluru, children squint at purple skies heavy with smog when looking for stars. Little wonder that I continuously have classroom interactions where children sensorially describe their city with negative connotations — suffocating like a grave, a polluted chamber that’s claustrophobic, too loud with horns and people complaining, it reeks of cement, smoke, and garbage.
This is a new normal. An unacceptable one.
Last year, when I spoke to a group of middle graders in Ahmedabad, I asked them which passage from my book, A Cloud Called Bhura (Talking Cub) in which a group of tweens go on a climate quest against a brown cloud of pollution, I should read from. They had already read the book, so they began to offer suggestions. The overwhelming one was from the chapter, “When it Rains, It Pours”, where the protagonists find themselves wading through a flash flood. As I finished, there was an outpouring from the children sharing their experiences of the floods that year. Sometimes, as the grown-ups in the room, what they expect us to do is listen. So, I did.
Like, listen to 10-year-old Bethany from Dimapur, for instance, who wrote, “I will try to protect you, Earth, from this changing weather.” Let us.
The Bengaluru-based writer is a children’s author, editor and climate worrier
