Striking school children should be seen and heard
The grown-ups in charge actually haven’t done enough to deal with climate change.
I have a memory of my grandfather saying that, when he was young, children were to be seen and not heard. Reflecting on it now, I suspect that I was being naughty at the time and he was suggesting that I might consider being seen and not heard.
On March 15, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of young people are intending to walk out of their classrooms. They will take to the streets to protest decades of complacency and inaction on climate change, on the part of the adults whose first responsibility should have been the future these children will inherit.
Since the ‘‘School Strike 4 Climate’’ was announced, a number of adults have expressed apparent concern for the impact that taking time out of school will have on the education of these young students.
But I don’t remember any concern for the impact on my schooling when I was marshalled out of class for a morning so I could wave to a fast-passing limousine bearing Prince Charles and Lady Diana on their visit to Wellington in 1983.
And no-one bats an eyelid when a student has to take time out for sport, a day off for a teacher’s only day, or because they are sick.
So why the rush of concern about the impact of taking time out to protest the lack of action on climate change? I put it down to deflection on behalf of embarrassed adults.
I’m also reliably informed that young people today call this kind of thing ‘‘concern trolling’’.
It feels a lot like they’re being told to know their place and leave this stuff to the grown-ups.
But in New Zealand, and around the world, the grown-ups in charge actually haven’t done enough to deal with climate change, ever since the problem came to our attention some 30 years ago. And now we’ve got these children getting ready to march in the streets to point that out to us.
I’m not about to tell any student that they should take time off school to participate in these protests.
Nor am I about to tell them that they shouldn’t. In my view, that is their choice to make.
I find it patronising to tell young people what they should or shouldn’t do when they’re weighing up the risk of being marked as a truant (and any attendant consequences) against fighting for the world they’re going to inhabit as adults, possibly with children of their own.
But do they need to wag school to do it?
I’ve had a number of (adult) interviewers suggest to me they could make their point on the weekend. Honestly, who is going to take much notice of children at the weekend carrying climate change banners and chanting: ‘‘There’s no planet B!’’?
Do it on a school day and look at the attention they’ve been getting ever since the plan was announced.
When you’re fighting for your future, and you are trying to get the attention of those whom you feel have let you down, following the rules and marching on the weekend isn’t going to cut it. A protest isn’t a protest if it’s on the terms of the very people you’re raising your protest with.
It wouldn’t have stopped nuclear warships entering our waters if protesters had waved placards on Auckland’s Tamaki Drive or from the Massey Memorial overlooking Wellington Harbour.
It wouldn’t have helped bring an end to apartheid if protesters had rented side-line advertising space during halftime at the All Blacks v Springboks test matches in 1981.
And homosexual law reform wouldn’t have happened if gay rights activists had stayed in the closet and out of sight.
Should children be skipping school to shout about inaction on climate change? I wish they didn’t feel they had to. I wish they weren’t left feeling like they have to fight for their futures.
That’s why I, as your Green Party minister in this Government, will make sure we bring the Zero Carbon Bill into law.
That law will establish an important certainty in Aotearoa New Zealand, that we can and must reduce the greenhouse gas pollution which is overheating our planet and threatening the delicate balance that maintains our existence.
There may once have been a time when it was considered right and proper that children should be seen and not heard. But when our children feel like they’re fighting for their future, this is not that time.
James Shaw is the co-leader of the Green Party and the Minister for Climate Change.