Where Are We With The "Crisis"?

It has been a decade since the 2008 financial crisis. And on 30 November 2018, thousands of Australian students quit school for a day to protest the climate change inaction of the "grown-ups".

The Australian students were influenced by Greta Thunberg, a 15-year-old Swedish student. Thunberg is quitting school every Friday for a day to protest against the global lethargy towards climate change. She penned an article for the Guardian, saying the following:

The adults have failed us. And since most of them, including the press and the politicians, keep ignoring the situation, we must take action into our own hands, starting today.

Have we really failed them?

This podcast by the New Yorker's David Remnick reflects on how the concept of crisis shapes our world 10 years after the financial crash of 2008. The "crisis" is a looming concept lingering over our lives, "particularly with the rise of right-wing populism and the ever-worsening climate crisis", as Remnick puts it.

One of the highlights of this podcast is the former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson explaining why he embraced a carbon tax. Paulson is the former Treasury Secretary under President George W. Bush, and he subsequently became an advocate for sustainable growth.

As far as "disillusionment by adults" are concerned, journalist Eliza Griswold discusses how the Obama Administration’s stimulus bill (that was supposed to fuel a green-energy sector) led to a boom in the highly controversial industry of fracking.

Finally, three New Yorker writers—Jill Lepore, Adam Davidson, and George Packer—discuss with David Remnick why short-term thinking is so resilient in the U.S., and in fact, as today's protesting students draw attention, around the world.