Content Gazette - September 2019 - Cover2

president's message
Ali H. Sayed | IEEE Signal Processing Society President | ali.sayed@epfl.ch

People's Needs or People's Greed

t is an amazing sign of the times when
the youth across many nations are uniting in their will to raise awareness
about the perils of global warming and
the need for immediate action.
Former U.S. President Obama cautioned about the urgency of this debate
when he declared at the UN Climate
Change Summit in September 2014 in
New York [1], "For all the immediate
challenges that we gather to address this
week-terrorism, instability, inequality,
disease-there is one issue that will define the contours of this century more
dramatically than any other, and that is
the urgent threat of a changing climate."
Eight years earlier, former U.S. Vice
President Al Gore helped raise awareness of global warming through his
2006 Academy Award-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth. There is
also a push in the U.S. Congress toward
adopting legislation in favor of a Green
New Deal to address challenges posed
not only by climate change, but also by
economic inequalities. It is not clear
how successful this legislative effort
will be due to its broad scope and the
many critics of its viability. However,
it is testimony to how the dynamics in
the realm of climate change is evolving
across continents.
Fewer than five years after Obama's
remarks, we now witness a wave of
protests sweeping the globe led by the

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MSP.2019.2899335
Date of publication: 26 April 2019

zil, Japan, the Middle East, and other
younger generation. They are driven by
locations. It is fascinating to note that
the inaction at higher levels of decision
most of the participants in these strikes
power, and by the lack of a political will
belong to the younger generation of stuto address the problem of global warmdents who cannot yet vote in their couning more systematically. Although 97%
tries! However, their voices cannot be
of climate scientists agree that some of
silenced and should not be ignored. That
our actions are contributing to warming
would be a fatal mistake.
and climate change with a high degree
The youth are determined to send a
of confidence [2], we have nevertheless
message, loud and clear, that the future
been slow at adopting viable counter
matters because the future belongs to
measures and policies. Some even go as
them. They even published a letter in
far as disputing the validity of the
Th e G u a rd i a n . I n
scientific evidence. Uncharacteristic youthderstandably, there
middle and high school
ful enthusiasm they
are many issues at
students are skipping
declared [3], "We, the
play, including the
school and demanding
young, have started to
nontrivial economic
action to address the
move. We are going
implications for any
perils of climate change.
to change the fate of
new pol icies a nd
humanity, whether
their impact on the
you like it or not. United we will rise unmodern way of life. Perhaps Gandhi put
til we see climate justice. We demand the
it best when he stated, "Earth provides
world's decision makers take responsibilenough to satisfy every man's needs, but
ity and solve this crisis. You have failed
not every man's greed." This beautiful
us in the past. If you continue failing us
quote motivated the title of the editorial.
in the future, we, the young people, will
Since earlier this year, there has been
make change happen by ourselves. The
an expansive line of protests moving
youth of this world has started to move
through Western European countries
and we will not rest again."
(Ireland, Belgium, Germany, SwitzerPoliticians should take notice. It
land, France, The Netherlands, and the
is only a matter of time before these
United Kingdom) that are spreading
younger activists march confidently into
into other continents. Middle and high
the voting booths.
school students are skipping school and
The 16-year-old Swedish student
demanding action to address the perils
Greta Thunberg has inspired this recent
of climate change. On 15 March 2019,
call for action. In the summer of 2018,
literally hundreds of youth strikes took
while in ninth grade, she initiated her
place in more than 50 countries in Eucampaign by staging a sitting protest
rope, the United States, Australia, Bra-

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