Yes, Prime Minister, I'm Striking From School: Consider It A Climate Lesson

Fairfax - Veronica Hester*

I am Veronica, 15 years old, from Scott Morrison’s electorate. Despite our Prime Minister’s calls for students not to strike from school today (Friday), we’re choosing to no longer be powerless. We will be striking with thousands of other students, to show we will not stand for our government’s inaction on climate change.

Veronica Hester, a 15-year-old student from Sutherland Shire, who will be among young Australians striking from school on today.

Mr Morrison has condemned the strike, saying he does not support our schools being turned into parliaments. “More learning and less activism,” he said. If he and our politicians listened to the climate science we have been taught, and took action like those of us in school, we wouldn’t have to resort to strike action.

In school, we have seen the raw truth of climate change: videos of our dead and dying Great Barrier Reef, increasingly shocking statistics, forecasts of a worrying future.

Seeing this, we students do not shout at each other across the classroom. We sit in a shocked silence. Afterwards, we shout, with our signs and our demands. Because how can an educated person know all we know, and do nothing?
Mr Morrison and his government continue to overlook the danger of climate change, while not seeming to have a problem helping coal miners such as Adani dig up and burn more coal. It’s surreal to watch nothing significant happening on the parliamentary floor, when the solutions have been made so clear. We are one of the sunniest and windiest countries in the world, yet our government chooses to burn more coal.

When Mr Morrison refuses to implement a climate policy that keeps fossil fuels in the ground and transition to 100 per cent renewable energy, he isn’t representing us, our community, or the majority of Australians who want urgent climate action.

Tackling climate change isn’t just about looking out for our young people. We’ll all live with extreme heat and changing weather patterns, not to mention the sense of helplessness in losing our natural world.

By making a stand and organising our communities, we can push our politicians to represent us, not lumps of coal.
A 15-year-old Swedish student, Greta Thunberg, was alone and frustrated when she started striking from school to protest climate inaction in politics. Now she’s sparked a global movement.

I’m not old enough to vote, but the strike has taught me that I’m old enough to do something. All of us are.
Greta’s one request was that “we treat this climate crisis as a crisis”.

That is all we want – for a serious problem to be treated seriously by our politicians. We need the fire of climate change to be confronted, not left to engulf my generation.

*Veronica Hester is a school student from the Sutherland Shire.

Links

• 'We'll Be Voting Soon': Students Take On PM Over Climate Change
• Why Aren't They Doing Anything?: Students Strike To Give Climate Lesson
• 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