This Friday, November 30, thousands of Australian students will go on strike, demanding their politicians start taking serious action on climate change.
The movement, School Strike 4 Climate Action, has been inspired by a 15-year-old Swedish student, Greta Thunberg, who started boycotting classes before parliamentary elections in her nation on September 9, and continues to skip school every Friday. She also has a particular message for Australia.
Students in each state capital and across 20 regional Australian centres will walk out of their classrooms this week to tell politicians that more of the same climate inaction is not good enough.
Here are some of the lessons they hope to teach.
'If we really want a better planet Earth'
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| Lucie Atkin-Bolton, an 11-year-old student and school captain at Forest Lodge Public School, wants an end to 'coal-sourced energy', and is willing to go on strike for it. Credit: Christopher Pearce |
"Right now the political leaders aren’t doing very much at all," Lucie says. "They’re more promoting coal-sourced energy when, if we really want to have a better planet Earth, we need renewable energy."
Climate change "is a crisis", she says. "It’s not going to happen in two or three decades - it’s happening now."
Lucie says "whole islands will disappear" as warming lifts sea levels, and the time for thinking is running out.
"We can’t just talk about it, we have to act," she says. "We have to make a change."
While Lucie hopes to attend the main strike event at NSW Parliament, school principal Stephen Reed has been supportive, she says. Students remaining behind are expected to be involved in school-wide activities.
'Fear' is a motivator
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| Vivienne Paduch, a 14-year-old student from Manly Selective school, says 'striking for climate action is more important than missing a day of school'. Credit: Christopher Pearce |
The 14-year-old says Australia needs to cut its carbon footprint "dramatically" and soon. The run of "crazy, extreme weather events" - from the NSW drought to destruction of the Great Barrier Reef and recent unusual fires within the Arctic Circle - are part of her motivation.
"Firstly it's fear," Vivienne says. "I'm really scared for me and for my generation and the generations that are going to come after me from the implications of what climate change will mean.
"It's only going to get worse if we don't take action now.
"Striking for climate action is more important [to me] than missing a day of school.
"With all the support we've got this year, I can see it happening again next year," Vivienne says. "It's very important to keep pressure on the politicians."
'Young people have to step up'
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| Aisheeya Huq, a 16-year-old student from Auburn Girls High School, says young people 'are going to have to face the consequences' of climate change long after the current political leaders are gone. Credit: Christopher Pearce |
The 16-year-old says her generation can't ignore climate change and environmental destruction and the justice issues that flow from them.
"We’re going to have to face the consequences [from the work of] a lot of the policymakers and politicians ... due to their lack of understanding and perhaps care for the future," Aisheeya says.
"Young people have realised that because we are going to be affected, we have to step up, and we have to do something about it."
Politicians talk about the importance of education and shouldn't be surprised when students join the climate dots. "If you care so much about our education and what you’re teaching us, why aren’t you doing anything about it?" she says.
'Massive emergency'
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| Callum Neilson-Bridgefoot (left) and Tully Boyle, Castlemaine students who helped set off an Australian campaign. Credit: Eddie Jim |
Tully Boyle, a 15-year-old at Castlemaine Secondary College, has already taken part in several school boycotts, and this week took a train into Melbourne with other students to deliver demands to politicians.
"It's a massive emergency," Tully says. "We want all governments to take it seriously."
She says heatwaves, flooding and worsening bushfires are a portent of much worse to come if temperature rises reach 4-5 degrees - the course they are now on.
Tully would like to see support for renewable energy and greater promotion of electric vehicles given priority.
"Climate change matters more for us," she says. "We need to fight for our future."
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| Students from Castlemaine in central Victoria journeyed down to Melbourne this week to press the issue for urgent climate action from our political leaders. Credit: Eddie Jim |
"Sacrificing a little bit of my education will help in the long term," Callum said. "I work really hard when I'm at school.
"Any political leader can really make a difference - they have much more power than we do," he says. "Right now what they are doing is not enough."
Greta's actions were a key inspiration. "I was really moved," Callum says. "It was really brave and very powerful."
'It was so easy'
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| Greta Thunberg, the 15-year-old Swedish student whose 'school strike' has drawn international attention and many followers. Credit: Anders Hellberg |
"The thing I think surprised me the most was that it was so easy," she tells Fairfax Media, via email.
"I remember thinking before I started 'why has no one ever done this before?'"
The solution, she says, is to keep climate change in front of the public's attention.
"All we need to do is treat it like a crisis with headlines and news reporting all the time. And I mean A L L the time," she writes. "As if there was a war going on."
Greta wants her Australian acolytes to know she is aware of their actions: "I would tell them that they are making a huge difference. I read about them in newspapers up here in Europe and it's hopeful beyond my imagination.
"And Australia is a huge climate villain, I am sorry to say. Your carbon footprint is way bigger than Sweden and we are among the worst in the world."
Greta says leading by example is important, as is "saying the things that are too uncomfortable to say".
"We may not like that we have to change some of our habits, like flying or eating meat and dairy. But we do have to. Because our carbon budget has been spent and there is nothing left for future generations or the ecosystems we rely on," she says.
Links
- School Strike 4 Climate Action
- Australian Students Plan School Strikes To Protest Against Climate Inaction
- Why We're Striking From School Over Climate Change Inaction
- Join The Melbourne Big Walk Out: 12 Noon November 30
- Join The Sydney Big Walk Out: 12 Noon November 30
- Join The Brisbane Big Walk Out: 12 Noon November 30
- The Fifteen-Year-Old Climate Activist Who Is Demanding A New Kind Of Politics
- The Swedish 15-Year-Old Who's Cutting Class To Fight The Climate Crisis
- Giant Postcard On Swiss Alps Glacier Sends Kids' Climate Change Messages
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