FOR centuries, the younger generation of the day has been the subject of hand-wringing and lamentation from their seniors, who bemoan how the inheritors of the future are feckless, soft, and generally unprepared for adulthood. Any commentary on millennials or their Generation Z successors, therefore (perhaps including this one) is best taken with a pinch of history-conscious salt.

Nonetheless, today's younger demographics have arguably good reasons for appearing dissolute or inadequately committed to planning for their future: simply because said future faces the genuine existential threat of climate change.

This has perhaps been mostly clearly expressed by Gen Z climate activist Greta Thunberg, who has galvanised an international youth movement of climate strikes. As she put it on Monday to an audience of world leaders at the United Nations Climate Action Summit, which notably failed to deliver urgent climate action: "You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words."