Why schools must prepare young people for an uncertain future

THE WAY THINGS AREParakeets in London are as ubiquitous as seagulls in my hometown in Ireland. Invasive species have become common, sometimes depleting native species, causing problems for farmers, then the question of culling arises. We are an invasive species that culls other people for gain not survival. If we, superfluous destroyers of this planet, became extinct, we would not be missed. Earth evolved according to an evolutionary chain, initiated its patterns of weather and climate changes, then human activity began to interfere with that ancient, delicate balance. Climate deniers say the heatwaves sucking countries dry, causing hideous fires this summer, are part of a natural cycle. Whatever you believe, change is evidently here. Governments worry about low birthrates, how robots or AI will take work from the young and how that will affect the financing of the aged. If the heat upgrading continues, many old and vulnerable will die, problem partially solved. New viruses released by heat or intent, could cause pandemics, killing thousands. ‘AI will destroy us!’ came up. Donald Trump, in Walter Mitty mode, supports AI’s ‘Tremendous self-policing’. No entity, human or otherwise, should ‘self-police’. Experts say AI needs strict control; we’ve seen its ability to play truant beyond programmed, specified areas. Trump denies climate change while Pakistan transitions to solar energy to enhance its power grid. The word “commie” is often thrown at the US’ political left, yet its president ostentatiously courted a Communist country he once despised, China, which has a far more practical approach to renewable energy while he clings to polluting oil and gas. I heard a commentator say the launching of Elon Musk’s enormous rocket carrying multiple satellites into space was akin to a creature giving birth to young as they were released. The space above our planet is a beehive of satellites. We cannot read the unpredictable universe beyond as we can the weather on earth, asteroids sail, meteors surge and land, a collision with either would cause huge destruction above and below. If that happened would the young, who depend so much on rapid tech devices for their instantaneous information flotsam and jetsam not held in memory, have any basic, intuitive responses to such catastrophes? Could they function without tech or AI assistance? Will they lose the power to reason, evaluate, foresee, react instinctively? Schools prepare our youth for life, teach our past history, dead times that can only touch us if used as a political memory tool to agitate. The swiftly changing stormy present is evident all around us, we are living it. The EU is also starting to become tribal in clumps of differing alliances, though still economically unified. Some countries whose political agendas clash with other established EU members, could, with incentives, rupture unity. Trump’s presidency temporarily traumatised his allies but the EU, Canada and others have learnt to read Trump’s mood swings and are recovering from and adapting to his methods of doing business. He has made the future even more uncertain. Studying that uncertain future needs to become a curriculum subject. For decades, governments knew about rising temperatures, pollution, yet acted like snails. The event horizon is no longer distant, it has crept closer. Our young should be aware of the possibility that life could alter completely, as war adds to climate change heat. How stupid we humans are knowing as we kill each other, our very existence on earth could be threatened and still not doing our utmost to protect our young from the ominous tomorrow we have consciously instigated for them. Cyprus dithers, it should do all in its power for peace. Our alternative is what ca be seen in Gaza – eventually, and will new allies fight for us? Probably not.