Youth green protest is to be applauded

I was privileged to support the amazing turnout of students gathered in front of the Guildhall, calling for action on the climate emergency recently. It was moving to see their excitement as they participated in what must have been for many their first political action. They left their placards afterwards as a silent testimony along the tops of the iron railings: “Our Future is Burning”; “There is no planet B”; “12 Years To Go”; “The Climate is Changing, Why Aren’t We?”; “It’s Now or Never”;”stop Stealing Our Future”. Greta Thunberg, the Swedish schoolgirl whose sense of urgency sparked the school strikes, says we should respond as if our house was on fire. The burning house these young people face being trapped in, unless there is immediate action. When Greta was criticised on the grounds that striking was wasting school time, she answered that leaders had been wasting 30 years without making the changes we need. There is a climate emergency petition, calling on B&NES to go carbon neutral by 2030, by the 12 years beyond which scientists say it will be too late to avert the worst. Only B&NES residents 12 years and older, or those who work or study in B&NES, using their B&NES address, should sign, please: https://www.gopetition.com/petitions/climate-emergency-petitionto-bath-and-north-east-somersetcouncil.html. Cllr Lin Patterson (Green, Lambridge) Larkhall