Young People Want a Better Future, Let's Teach Them How

A bunch of kids around the world played hooky Friday—many with their teachers' encouragement—to protest governments' alleged lack of action on climate change. They claim to represent an entire generation that believes the planet will change irrevocably in their lifetime, creating a massive economic crisis and potentially the end of the world as they know it. Every generation has its own cause, and youthful idealism is a marvelous thing. Yet the fact that this is even happening demonstrates a remarkable failure to teach young people basic critical thinking and history. If people were educated on the law of unintended consequences, the role free markets have played in solving similar problems in the past and the importance of reading an entire scientific study rather than relying on simplistic presentations of selected headline findings, then our society could have a much more fruitful conversation about this issue.