The New Zealand Herald

THE STUDENT: Stella Fish

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I’ve known about climate change for my whole life, but it was never really a tangible thing. It was sort of a far-off distant problem.

That was until a few years ago when I really started getting involved in environmen­tal studies at my school and learning all of this stuff and suddenly I thought, this is quite scary.

Over the past four years, it’s become a lot more talked about. We are actually seeing changes in our natural environmen­t and it’s really terrifying because the future is so uncertain.

And if you talk to adults about it, they say it’s “your generation’s problem”. But we are still learning about this stuff, so how are we meant to fix it if we haven’t yet lived to that point in our education?

Personally, I have a lot of anger towards older generation­s and the inaction that has happened is really insulting.

Politician­s, corporatio­ns . . . I hold a lot of anger towards how, economical­ly, they hold so much power and don’t really care. I guess for me, it’s about opening a conversati­on. It’s a really big thing and it can be overwhelmi­ng and seem like the world is ending and everything is going to be on fire. But as kids, we actually have a pretty powerful say.

I understand that climate change isn’t black and white, but there is no excuse for inaction. Right now, we should be creating a stronger Zero Carbon Bill. It’s a good start, but it doesn’t have enough teeth.

I have a lot of anger towards older generation­s and the inaction that has happened is really insulting.

 ??  ?? Stella Fish, a 17-year-old student at Epsom Girls Grammar School, was an organiser of the Auckland School Strike 4 Climate protest.
Stella Fish, a 17-year-old student at Epsom Girls Grammar School, was an organiser of the Auckland School Strike 4 Climate protest.

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