Contributed by Ben Wilson
Hundreds of school students around the country are expected to take part in a strike on 28,29 and 30 November.
A prominent environment organisation, the Australian Youth Climate Coalition, is erncouraging participation.
The idea for the strike originally came from the Castlemaine (Victoria) students, who have already been protesting outside the offices of their local representatives and built a core group of a bout 50 local students.
This is now becoming a nationwide movement, as more young people around Australia get involved.
They are deeply concerned about global warming, and what they see as the failure of politicians to date, to do enough about it. They want urgent action about what they say is a climate emergency.
By taking part they are learning how to organise, building a social media network, and therefore, becoming a voice to be heard.
Fourteen-year-old Fort Street high school student, Jean Hinchliffe from Sydney said,
“We’ve got involved because at this stage we can’t vote, we’re not politicians and we want to make a difference,” she said. “We can’t stand around waiting.
“I think it’s because climate change is scary seeing that it’s our future. This is a fact and not to be debated.”
Fifteen-year-old Greta Thunberg, a Swedish student, who has been sitting outside the parliament in central Stockholm to draw attention to the fears younger generations hold about the global climate crisis and the failure of countries to take urgent action, has been a major inspiration, and Australian students are now in regular contact with her.
Some schools, like Bendigo High School last week, have already had walkouts.
It must be remembered, these young people face considerable pressure not to do what they are doing. That they are prepared to push on anyway, indicates the strength of their resolve. They know that they are the ones who will inherit the legacy of what the present older generation does.
In discovering their own voice and using it, they set a good example for all of us.
How stupid is this crap Kids being programmed by their teachers .
It is great to see that the younger generation will not just sit idly by and worry about being left with this terrible climate legacy by the greed and uncaring attitudes of their predecessors.
They should be encouraged and supported in what they do as it is THEY and their kids that will ‘wear’ the massive climatic traumas, not us older ones. We see just the ‘thin edge of the wedge’ now, especially those of us in the tropical areas. It’s time to ban any new fossil fuel searching and move over fully to the various and increasing numbers of non fossil alternatives. That also includes our politicians many of whom are ‘dead fossil brained’ “Old Fossils”, we need new ones.
Fact: The IPCC does NOT include the sun in any of their climate predictions and modeling. That’s right. Fudge the numbers, fiddle with the stats, add and remove variables so you get the doomsday numbers you want. That’s what their hamstrung climate scientists are doing.
Seriously, if you think the sun plays ZERO part in out climate then you’re sadly joining the many morons that already populate our world.
It is sad to see there are drongos like “the General” wanting the IPCC to include the sun. It is included, in a sense, by the way in CSIRO studies are conducted it is NOT ignored. Our star, the Sun has a massively long lifespan with variations that have been taken into account. In any climatic studies and trends, these issues plus mankind’s influences direct and indirect, are all studied. The CSIRO scientists are not fools, they have been studying climatic trends for many decades, they lead the world and were doing so in the 1960’s, right up to now, even though the idiotic LNP government tried to close off such study a year or two ago. How do I know? I worked on much of the instrumentation used by them in my younger days. So please, Mr General, stick to your “yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir” kind of thinking, be the general of the post office or stamp licking procedures or such like and leave science and scientific studies to the scientists. Your comments show you to be fit only for the “Yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir” type of operation, not genuine scientific study.