School Strikes: Spread the word, our voices must be heard.

30.11.18 By
This article is more than 5 years old

My name’s Tritian. I’m 16. And I am a Climate Council supporter.

Today, I joined thousands of other students around Australia, and walked out of school. 

We went on strike to demand more from our leaders, and more for our future, when it comes to climate action. 

Today we took a stand – not against education – but for our futures.

We cannot, and will not, wait any longer.

If kids can be brave and strong enough to speak out and take action, surely, our leaders can do the same.

Seeing how much young people care about our planet and how much they want to protect the places they love is empowering. Being confronted with the reality of climate change can be overwhelming. So much so that it can make you want to tune out. But it’s strikes like today that force us to tune back in, to pay attention and take action. Because it is our future, and our planet’s future that is at stake. 

We must continue to empower one another.

   

Taking action on climate change is important to me because the cost of not taking action is … incomprehensibly disastrous. Climate change is already influencing all extreme weather events. Every time I listen to the news it feels like yet another extreme weather event has struck. Another bushfire is out of control, another flood, another drought, another powerful storm, another record-breaking summer. This cannot become the new norm. We need to work together in order to tackle climate change and have a vibrant, healthy and prosperous future. 

Today we demonstrated where our priorities lie and how it is time that the Federal Government gets in line with the science

Time. is. up.

Time is up for our politicians who continue to use our future as a political point scorer when we’ll be forced to live with the decisions they make now. Our leaders are meant to represent the interests of all Australians – including us. Our Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, is 50 years old. By the end of his life, it is possible that temperatures will have risen between 1.6 and 3°C. But, by the end of my lifetime, if we don’t take dramatic action now, they could rise as high as 2.4-5.6°C. The world has agreed that temperatures must be kept well below 2°C to avoid potentially catastrophic and irreversible damage, changing life as we know it.  While our politicians won’t be around in 50 years to see this, my generation needs their active support to avert the worst possible scenario.

The good news is that we already have the solutions! 

We must accelerate the transition to renewables and storage technologies, and non-polluting, efficient transport, industry and food production. 

Already we are seeing momentum building – whether it’s state governments, cities and towns, or school students taking action. With groups like this taking the lead, the transition to a clean future will continue, no matter what our federal politicians do.

Spread the word, our voices must be heard.