Lochaber youngsters join global climate fight
Youngsters from a number of Lochaber schools joined last Friday’s national schools strike calling on politicians to do more to tackle climate change. It included Lochaber High School pupil Holly Gillibrand, parents, as well as primary youngsters from Banavie and Spean Bridge primaries. Holly’s growing profile as a young environmental activist has been boosted further with interviews with the BBC, STV and Channel 4.
As thousands of schoolchildren in towns and cities around the UK stayed away from their classrooms to take part in Friday’s national school strike for climate action, the Swedish teenager, who first sparked the movement with her lone protest outside the Swedish parliament last summer, took time to praise a fellow climate activist from Fort William.
Readers of the Lochaber Times will by now be familiar with high school pupil Holly Gillibrand, from Kinlocheil, who has been striking from school for one hour every Friday for almost two months.
Holly also recently became one of the Lochaber Times’ regular columnists, writing on environmental issues from a young person’s perspective.
From humble beginnings, the numbers joining her outside Lochaber High School each week have slowly grown and last Friday’s major day of action saw dozens of youngsters along with parents lining the roadside and waving climate action placards.
But the high school pupils were not the only Lochaber youngsters to strike in support of the call for politicians to do more to combat climate change.
A number of youngsters from both Banavie and Spean Bridge Primary Schools were also out demonstrating as part of the global phenomenon sparked by Greta Thunberg.
Asked by the Guardian newspaper for her reaction to the thousands of students and pupils in the UK taking part in school strikes, Ms Thunberg praised Holly as one of the ‘real heroes’ of the movement.
‘There has been a number of real heroes on school strike, for instance in Scotland and Ireland, for some time now.
‘Such as Holly Gillibrand and the ones in Cork with the epic sign saying ‘the emperor is naked’,’ she told the Guardian. Aged just 16, Ms Thunberg’s speeches at the UN and in front of businesses leaders at Davos more recently, have brought her to international prominence.
And a global strike planned for March 15 is expected to be the biggest yet with mobilisations in 150 cities around the world.