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I heard this morning on Channel 5's Jeremy Vine Show that this Friday, children all over Europe are taking part in a school "walk out" in aid of raising awareness of climate change and demanding something be done by their governments to stop the damage being done to the planet. It all started with one girl who, every day after school would sit outside of her local authority to protest and demand that the government make changes to stop global warming. It's now spread throughout Europe and with the recent Yellow Jacket protesters in France it couldn't have come at a better time.
British youths are also taking part in this movement and I really hope that the news channels pick it up. They probably won't, after all, they wouldn't want to promote youth protesting and demonstrating, could end up with a revolution on their hands! But I can't wait to hear how it will affect local authorities and MP's and in turn possibly make a real change to stop using out-dated damaging practices and use or find alternatives to save the future of our children and save the Earth.
Listening to the panel on the Jeremy Vine Show I was most disappointed that they were against such demonstrating. Their opinion is that these children are losing out on precious learning time and rather than having a pointless walk-out they could do something more productive like litter picking or write to their MP's. I was really annoyed, they are supposed to be professional people yet they clearly lack the understanding of demonstrating and protesting in order to make a change. They suggest rather than lose learning time, protest after school or on the weekends. Stating that the only reason these kids are doing it in school hours is so that they can have an afternoon off to muck around and have a laugh. It was just really disheartening to listen to the way they dismissed it, no acknowlegement of what these kids are trying to achieve.
As if anyone would take notice of kids having a protest after school or in their free time! If you want the government to listen then you have to disturb the system, it's the only way it will work. Funnily enough, the majority of teachers are in favour of it. Good for them! Even junior school children are invited to join in. As they aren't allowed off school premises they are being allowed to protest in their playgrounds by litter picking, making banners and marching around with protest boards.
I think it's this kind of bravery and determination that will help to get things changed for good. But it must keep going. One protest, one march, one demo won't make much of an impact but with schools all over Europe and possibly in other Countries joining in, then it's a global demonstration that must continue. A message sent to all governments to do something now, not later.
People are getting sick of waiting around. We're getting sick of it always being 'us' to make the changes. We all "do our bit" to help but does it really make any kind of dent when massive corporations and conglomerates are churning out products fuelled by oil. The farming industry causes huge amounts of CO2 to be released into the atmosphere everyday. There's inefficient infrastructure and expensive public transport leaving people with no choice but to use their cars and hugely expensive alternative green energy systems that the majority of us just cannot afford to buy. Sure we can reduce, re-use and recycle, we can find ways to save water, we can cut down on buying plastic, walk or cycle when we can, buy second-hand furniture, turn the heating down a couple of degrees and put on a jumper and switch to a vegan diet but if global corporations and governments don't put a stop to everything that is killing the planet then our efforts will be for nothing.
These children and young adults who are taking part in the walk-out get my utmost respect. We need more people taking a stand against the man! We need change! It's got so bad that now even our children feel the need to protest about it. Maybe it's the only way things will start to change.
Do you know any mainstreamers who will be taking part in this Fridays walk-out protest? If you do, pop over to the Facebook page and leave your comments under this blog post.