The environmental movement is a social movement that “seeks to protect the natural world and promote sustainable living”. It dates back to the environmental movement of the 1900s and has since consisted of a series of smaller movements within the movement as a whole. Currently, the most important environmental movement is the climate change movement, more specifically the youth climate change movement. Over the last decade, youth leaders have taken the world by storm and created their own youth climate movements because they are dissatisfied with the effort (or lack thereof) made by older generations to protect the planet. The emergence of youth leaders has led to climate change and environmental issues becoming part of mainstream culture, something that has not been achieved by past environmental movements. Today's youth climate movement is more effective than previous environmental movements because of the use of social media, technological progress, and because young people see this crisis as a moral imperative. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay To start, social media benefits the youth movement in many ways. First, leaders of the youth climate movement have used social media to gather a larger following of people around the world. This allows like-minded people to connect and organize much larger and more organized protests than in previous years, which makes the movement more effective. For example, on September 20, 2019, “people in all 50 US states and more than 150 countries, from Germany to Australia, took to the streets to declare a climate emergency in a student-led global climate strike ”. These demonstrations were inspired by 17-year-old Greta Thunberg and her #FridaysForFuture movement. #FridaysForFuture started with Thunberg walking out of school alone to protest, but thanks to her use of social media it has grown into a worldwide movement. Likewise, social media has benefited the youth climate movement by enabling strong youth leaders to unite young people around the world. Many young people often feel that their opinions don't matter or that they can't have an impact, but by exposing them to youth leaders like Greta Thunberg and Jamie Margolin, young people are inspired to take action. “Greta Thunberg's actions have sparked a movement,” said Jake Woodier (a climate activist): “In a world where we are often made to feel individualized and atomized, that we are small and cannot make a difference, Thunberg is was a great inspiration for many young people." It is well known that there is strength in unity, but to be successful there must be a leader with whom followers can associate. Young people may associate better with youth leaders not only because of their common age, but because these leaders are micro-celebrities. This means that youth leaders are normal, everyday people who have become famous through the use of online media, thus making them more similar to their followers. Subsequently, by uniting such a large and diverse group of people, youth leaders' use of social media has successfully brought the issue to public attention and made climate and environmental issues part of the mainstream media. The visibility of the movement on social media and in the press has created a vicious circle. While young people can't actually pass legislation, all the media attention they've created is putting pressure on those who can. For example, in July 2019,German Chancellor Angela Merkel has cited pressure from youth activists as one reason her government plans to act more aggressively to reduce carbon emissions. Furthermore, across much of Europe, the youth strike movement has helped put climate change higher on the political agenda of both politicians and voters. Overall, the youth climate movement's use of social media has made the movement more effective, inspires and unites young people, and puts pressure on governments to prioritize the environment. Additionally, the advancement of technology greatly benefits the youth climate movement for a variety of reasons. First, there are many different types of technology that can monitor the damage done to the Earth. “Satellites orbiting the Earth and other technological advances have allowed scientists to see the big picture, gathering many different types of information about our planet and its climate on a global scale. This set of data, collected over many years, reveals signs of climate change." Subsequently, this improvement in technology has allowed for more in-depth research into the damage that has been done and is currently being done to the planet. . In the past, most people didn't believe climate change was real, but all the technical developments and new technologies that track the damage done to the planet have provided researchers with irrefutable evidence that climate change is real. The most important part is that almost all of this research is easily accessible online. Having all the research easily accessible allows people of all ages to educate themselves and take action. With these technological advances, governments can no longer deny the effects of human activity on the planet, so they can no longer deny movement as easily as before. Finally, the most important way technological progress benefits the youth climate movement is because technology currently exists that can be used to prevent and/or reverse the effects of climate change. Some of these technologies include sustainable energy (solar, hydroelectric, wind), electric cars, GMO products, plant-based meat products, livestock supplements to reduce methane emissions, and carbon removal technologies. These technological advances allow young people to recommend new solutions and develop new solutions of their own. Therefore, those in power can no longer claim that there are no solutions or that technology is not advanced enough, because solutions exist and the youth movement knows it. By being informed about these technological solutions, young people are able to convince those in power to save the planet in a different way than in the past. In the past, implementing technology and/or legislation to help the environment was more difficult due to limited available technology requiring governments to go all out and invest in expensive products and without much research regarding the success rate. As a result of all this progress, young people are able to discuss sustainable ways to reverse the effects of climate change that have proven effective. Therefore, the youth movement only needs to convince those in power that these investments are worth it. For example, youth leaders might try to convince companies to issue electric or hybrid company cars rather than cars that use gasoline because known reserves of gasoline can only last up to 52 years longer. This means that in the not too distant future petrol prices will rise as it becomes harder to come by and evencheaper to use greener cars. While it is disturbing that many must be convinced that saving the planet is profitable rather than doing it because it is the right thing to do, it is still an effective way to protect the planet. To conclude, the advancement of technology greatly benefits the youth climate movement because it allows the effects of climate change to be monitored and provides the youth movement with effective solutions that can be used to initiate the necessary change in society. The youth climate movement is also more effective because it treats this crisis as a moral imperative. A moral imperative is defined as “something that must happen because it is the right thing.” Young people see this movement as such because it has a greater impact on their future. They see it as a profound injustice and an existential threat to their generation and those that will follow. The impact of climate change on young people has also been noted by many people from older generations, including United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, who has supported the climate school strikes that have taken place around the world, saying : “My generation has not been able to adequately respond to the dramatic challenge of climate change. This is very much felt by young people. No wonder they are angry.” Furthermore, seeing climate change in this new way allows this movement to be more effective than previous environmental movements because their message is no longer just an environmental message, but is now a human-environmental message. Harriet Thew, an environmental social scientist at the University of Leeds, UK, observes that “we are increasingly talking about people's problems and really recognizing the human-environment connection”. Their message isn't about saving the rainforest or the whales; it's about saving the most vulnerable people on Earth. Young people see this crisis more as a moral imperative because the damage done to the planet is so extensive that many young people say they can't imagine bringing their own children into the world. Lana Perice (youth activist) went so far as to say that “having children is unethical. It's literally a house on fire." This perspective highlights how immoral it is to not attempt to save our planet because, according to section seven of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, “everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.” The longer society waits to implement environmentally friendly policies, the more aggressive they will have to be to enforce their freedom. To summarize, viewing this issue as a moral imperative makes the youth climate movement more effective than previous environmental movements because it places ethics at the center of the movement. There are many who may not believe climate change is real and who may debate its effects. . The first argument to address is that young people have no political impact as they cannot vote or run for office. While it is true that young people cannot actually participate in politics, they can still influence it. As previously mentioned, in July 2019, German Chancellor Angela Merkel cited pressure from youth activists as one of the reasons her government plans to act more aggressively to reduce carbon emissions. Second, youth activists have been shown to remind adults why they care about the environment. Connie Roser-Renouf (a climate communications researcher at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia) says that about a quarter of adults in a 2018 survey thought the most important reason to act on.