Students should ignore haters and embrace climate strike
Friday’s strike by school students about the impact of accelerated climate change brought some support, some negative reaction and astonishing ignorance of the subject.
Claims that students should be at school learning important skills and not wasting time on political protests overlook two important facts. The first is that senior secondary school students are no longer children to be seen and not heard. They have a voice and a right to be heard.
The second is that not all the important lessons for life are taught at school and young people need to know how hard it is to bring about change.
Hopefully they will learn that the right to protest is not a licence to break the law or impede the activities of others.
One of the things they might also learn is that not all adults and political decision makers are as well informed about accelerated climate change as many school students are. Some of the illinformed comments on social media about their strike demonstrate that. They might also learn that many adults are as concerned about the problem as they are and are as equally powerless as they are when it comes to doing anything about it.
One of the students involved in the strike, Scarlett Powell from Hamilton’s Rototuna Senior High School, discovered that she seemed to be one of a few in her school who actually cared about the issue. Most of her fellow students didn’t want to be marked as a truant and worse still, they simply didn’t care. Welcome to the reality of the adult world Scarlett. It is not a united world of intelligent, all-powerful people and good leaders are in the minority so don’t quit too easily.
Many people, including local body and national politicians, either still doubt that climate change is actually happening.
Some don’t want to face the uncomfortable fact that taking real action will cost some people a lot of money; money they are making at the expense of the environment we all rely on.
For several years the debate about climate change has become bogged down in a morass of genuine science, pseudo-science, superstition and ignorance to the point where few people can agree on what the facts are. Differences of opinion however don’t change the facts any more than the celebrity or political status of the person holding those opinions can.
Some facts however are glaringly obvious. Reliable science tells us that the world’s climate has been changing for countless millions of years. That science also shows that, until the development of civilised human society and technology, those changes have occurred over hundreds of thousands of years.
While we know some of the causes, we probably don’t know all of them.
About 50 years ago scientists predicted that the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, as a direct result of the combustion of coal and oil over a relatively short 200 years, would cause global warming.
Many of those who oppose any move to mitigate the human causes of accelerated climate change demand to ‘‘see the science’’ and, like the tobacco industry before them, either attack the credibility of the scientists or try and engage in a pointless debate about pedantic details.
There is a huge body of reliable, peer reviewed, science on the subject in most libraries and online for those who want to seek it out and read it. Those who don’t should be simply ignored and left behind.
Addressing the real issue of climate change, however, is not about laying the blame on anyone.
It is about accepting the fact that humans can and should take real action to reduce the root causes of the problem. The technology exists to do that in a relatively short time except for the influence of powerful vested interests who have much to lose if we wean ourselves off fossil fuels. That is the role of world leaders and they need to be empowered and instructed to get on with it by those who elect them.
The other, more immediate issue facing several coastal communities is how to manage and deal with the effects of climate change, which are already creating serious loss and threats to life and property. Local Government New Zealand, representing all district and regional councils, has started on that complex issue even though some councils still have their metaphorical heads in the sand. That leaves the other end of their metaphorical anatomy exposed to a sound kicking by Mother Nature. It’s on the way.
Hopefully the student strike will not be their last effort. So go for it! Make it an annual event, do it with style and respect and you may just make a difference.