Our Children's Future
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OUR CHILDREN'S FUTURE John Scales Avery November 29, 2019 2 Contents 1 GIVING OUR CHILDREN A FUTURE 11 1.1 We must create a livable future world . 11 1.2 Only immediate climate action can save the future . 30 1.3 Worldwide school strike, 15 March, 2019 . 34 1.4 The World Meteorological Organization's report . 41 1.5 Only 12 years left to limit climate change catastrophe . 41 1.6 Naomi Klein on the urgency of the Green New Deal . 42 2 RIGHTS OF THE CHILD 51 2.1 Adoption by the UN General Assembly . 51 2.2 Human rights versus national sovereignty . 58 2.3 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child . 58 2.4 Text of the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, 1924 . 61 2.5 Text of the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, 1959 . 61 3 EVERY WAR IS A WAR AGAINST CHILDREN 65 3.1 The text of Kathy Kelly's essay . 65 3.2 The life and work of Eglantine Jebb . 71 3.3 Children of Hiroshima and Nagasaki . 75 3.4 The threat of nuclear war . 79 3.5 The Russell-Einstein Manifesto . 111 3.6 Against the Institution of War . 114 3.7 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, 2017 . 128 3.8 Hope for the future, and responsibility for the future . 129 4 CHILD LABOR AND SLAVERY 137 4.1 Economics without ethics . 137 4.2 The Reform Movement . 143 4.3 Literary protests against child labor . 161 4.4 Child slavery . 166 3 4 CONTENTS 5 PREVENTING DEATHS FROM DISEASE AND STARVATION 175 5.1 Child mortality rates . 175 5.2 The threat of large-scale famine . 176 5.3 Optimum population in the distant future . 178 5.4 Population growth and the Green Revolution . 179 5.5 Energy-dependence of modern agriculture . 182 5.6 Effects of climate change on agriculture . 184 5.7 Harmful effects of industrialized farming . 189 5.8 The demographic transition . 191 6 EDUCATION: AN INVESTMENT IN THE FUTURE 199 6.1 Universal education . 199 6.2 The importance of education for women . 205 6.3 Education for peace . 216 7 CHILDREN SINGING 253 7.1 Children's choirs around the world . 253 7.2 More photos of children singing . 263 Introduction1 Loving care for our children We give our children loving care, but it makes no sense to do so unless we do everything in our power to give them a future world in which they can survive. We also have a duty to our grandchildren, and to all future generations. Today we are faced with the threat of an environmental megacatastrophe, of which the danger of catastrophic climate change is a part. We also face the threat of an all-destroying nuclear war. Finally, because of population growth, the effect of climate change on agriculture, and the end of the fossil fuel era, there is a danger that by the middle of the present century a very large-scale famine could take the lives of as many as a billion people. We owe it to our children to take urgent action to prevent these threats from becoming future realities. We must also act with dedication to save our children from other social ills that currently prevent their lives from developing in a happy and optimal way, for example child labor, child slavery, starvation, preventable disease and lack of education. These, too, are threats to our children’s future. The climate emergency: Urgent action is needed The annual Emissions Gap report from the U.N. Environmental Program (UNEP), released on November 26, 2019, warned that nations’ commitments under the Paris climate accord - from which U.S. President Donald Trump began formally withdrawing this month - are not nearly sufficient to bring about the widespread changes needed to avert climate catastrophe. The report stated that global temperatures are on track to rise as much as 3.2oC by the end of the century, meaning only drastic and unprecedented emissions reductions can stave off the most devastating consequences of the climate crisis. What is needed, according to the report, is a complete halt in the production of fossil fuels. Renewable energy is now cheaper than fossil fuels, so the transition to re- newables could be driven by economic forces alone, if governments worldwide would stop their sponsorship of fossil fuel industries, to which they currently give enormous tax benefits and other subsidies. 1This book consists of roughly 50% new material and 50% material that I have previ- ously published, selected because it bears on the question of our children’s future. Other urgently needed actions are a halt to deforestation, combined with massive reforestation, substitution of other building materials for cement, better climate coverage in the mass media, abandonment of growth-oriented economic goals, shift to more plant-based diet, and cuts in military activities. We must rid the world of nuclear weapons A Treaty banning nuclear weapons was adopted by an overwhelming major- ity vote on the floor of the UN General Assembly, following the precedent set by the Arms Trade Treaty. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons was passed on 7 July, 2017. It prohibits the development, testing, production, stockpiling, stationing, transfer, use and threat of use of nuclear weapons, as well as assistance and encouragement to the prohibited activi- ties. For nuclear armed states joining the treaty, it provides for a time-bound framework for negotiations leading to the verified and irreversible elimina- tion of its nuclear weapons programme. The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) campaigned vigorously for the adoption of the Treaty, and was awarded the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize for its efforts. Although bitterly opposed by nuclear weapons states, the Treaty has great normative value, and one fervently hopes that the force of public opinion will eventually force all governments to give their citizens what the vast majority long for: a nuclear-weapon-free world. It is generally agreed that a full-scale nuclear war would have disastrous effects, not only on belligerent nations but also on neutral countries. As long as there are nations that possess nuclear weapons, there is a danger that they will be used, either deliberately or through a technical or human error, or through unconcontrollable escalation of a conflict. Only a nuclear-free world will be safe for human society and the biosphere. We must address the threat of widespread famine As glaciers melt in the Himalayas, depriving India and China of summer water supplies; as sea levels rise, drowning the fertile rice fields of Viet Nam and Bangladesh; as drought threatens the productivity of grain-producing regions of North America; and as the end of the fossil fuel era impacts modern high-yield agriculture, there is a threat of wide-spread famine. There is a danger that the 1.5 billion people who are undernourished today will not survive an even more food-scarce future. People threatened with famine will become refugees, desperately seeking entry into countries where food shortages are less acute. Wars, such as those currently waged in the Middle East, will add to the problem. What can we do to avoid this crisis, or at least to reduce its severity? We must urgently address the problem of climate change; and we must shift money from military expenditure to the support of birth control programs and agricultural research. We must also replace the institution of war by a system of effective global governance and enforcible international laws. We must eliminate child labor and child slavery Worldwide 10 million children are in slavery, trafficking, debt bondage and other forms of forced labor, forced recruitment for armed conflict, prostitu- tion, pornography and other illicit activities, according to the International Labor Organization, (ILO). 151.6 million are estimated to be in child labor (ILO). 114 million child laborers are below the age of 14 (ILO). 72 million children are in hazardous work that directly endangers their health, safety and moral development (ILO). More than 700 million women alive today were married before their 18th birthday. More than one in three (about 250 million) entered into union before age 15 (UNICEF). 300,000 children are estimated to serve as child soldiers, some even younger than 10 years old (UNICEF). 15.5 million children are in domestic work worldwide - the overwhelming majority of them are girls (ILO). Child labor is undesirable because it prevents children from receiving an education. Furthermore, when parents regard their children as a source of labor or income, it motivates the to have very large families, and our finite earth, unlimited growth of population is a logical impossibility. Population growth increases the threat of large-scale famine as well as ecological catas- trophe. Child slavery is unacceptable, as is any form of slavery. Forced marriage, and very early marriage of girls as young as 9 in some countries are also unacceptable practices. The international community has a duty to see that existing laws against these practices are enforced. We must reduce starvation and preventable disease According to a recent report published by the World Health Organization, in 2018 alone, 15,000 children died per day before reaching their fifth birthday. A WHO spokesman said, “It is especially unacceptable that these children and young adolescents died largely of preventable or treatable causes like infectious diseases and injuries when we have the means to prevent these deaths,” the authors write in the introduction to the report. The global under-five mortality rate fell to 39 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2018, down from 76 in 2000 - a 49% decline.