Students Strike for Climate Change

By Sue Abbott

THIS Friday school children around Australia are going on strike.

Yes, Australian school children intend to temporarily sacrifice their education in a bid to save their futures from dangerous climate change.

They are fed up that we, the adults, are not listening to them in relation to climate change action, and that we, the adults, clearly don’t care about their future judging by decisions we, the adults, routinely make or don’t make on their behalf.

In a nutshell our children want to know why they should care about their future when we don’t.

It is in the spirit of the inspirational 15 year old Swedish school student Greta Thunberg who first brought this sentiment to the world’s attention when she sat outside the Swedish Parliament in the lead up to the Swedish elections two months ago.

Now, Australian school students plan to tell our politicians that things have to change, that business as usual can no longer be the order of the day, that we don’t have time, that we only have one planet, and that they want decisions made by our political leaders that safeguard their future rather than that of vested interests.

So, this Friday, Australian school students are picking government buildings, any government buildings, nationwide for their school strikes.

And we’re all invited!

Yes Australian school students have invited us all to join them in their climate school strike as they call for urgent political action on climate change.

Schools in Melbourne, Sydney, Newcastle, Adelaide, Canberra, Perth, Hobart, Byron Bay, Hobart, the Whitsundays, Grafton, Maitland, Lismore, Inverell, Port Macquarie, the Gold Coast, Townsville, Albury-Wodonga and the Sunshine Coast, and in many other towns and cities right across Australia will witness their school students putting down their books and walking out of class.

So what about you?

I’ll be in Sydney with my daughter and granddaughter so we’ll be protesting with climate school strikers outside Parliament House in Macquarie Street.

But maybe you could join the one in Maitland or the one in Newcastle, or maybe you could even create your own Upper Hunter Big Walk Out event –  check out this excellent planning resource for some handy tips School Strike 4 Climate – and organise a protest outside the Upper Hunter Shire Council Building.

And perhaps you could arrange with our local members to meet you there so you can tell them that you are striking from school in order to tell Australian politicians to take your futures seriously and to treat climate change for what it is – a crisis.

And perhaps you could tell them that they could show you that they care about you by taking urgent action to move Australia beyond fossil fuel projects and getting the job done of moving all of us to 100% renewable energy quickly …

… oh, and if you need a megaphone, I have a spare one with brand new batteries!