Baby boomers will be among the hardest hit by climate change.
Climate change is a problem whose consequences will fall most heavily on other generations, but when you look at the demographics, it’s clear the baby boomer generation is going to be hit very hard indeed — and they’ll be hit when they’re least able to cope. Temperatures are rising faster than you think, and climate change is happening now.
We are already seeing the consequences of 1 degree Celsius of global warming through more extreme weather, rising sea levels and diminishing Arctic sea ice, among other changes. Climate change is happening now, and the effects are just going to get worse every year. All the graphics point to how disastrous things will be in 2100, when all the baby boomers will be well and truly dead. But it will still plenty be hot in 2050.
There are a lot of baby boomers —and they’re younger than you think and the youngest of them were born in 1964. They’re going to be around for a while.
There will still be a lot of baby boomers in 2050
The vast majority of baby boomers will still be around in 2030 and a lot of them (perhaps 21 million) will still be kicking in 2050.
So what’s life like for an ageing boomer between 2030 and 2050?
This is a projection for 2100, but things are happening fast. (Photo: Carbonbrief)
Who knows? Most projections are still out to 2100. But the latest evidence is that climate change is happening even faster than predicted. Evidence suggests things are going to get worse fast, which means we have to act fast.
In every disaster, the older population suffers most. They’re not as mobile, they are affected by the heat and cold the most, they are susceptible to disease. The Young Foundation did a report called Heatwave, looking at the unprecedented European heat wave of 2003, and the vast majority of the 15,000 people who died in France were over 75 years old, which is similar to the stats from the heat wave in Chicago in 1995.
In 2050, roughly one in three baby boomers will still be alive — 21 million old people who will need help, whose retirement properties will be too hot to bear, whose houses may well be flooded out, or burned. If their pensions had been invested in oil and gas, they will likely be living in poverty.
Young people are far more resilient and adaptable than the old, and they can follow the jobs and the water. Old people are often stuck. Paying the consequences of our actions or inaction maybe!!
