Youth Strike 4 Climate

Last Friday I joined thousands of school children around the UK, who joined thousands upon thousands of school children around the world in taking a few hours off school in strike action for climate change.

Last August Greta Thunberg from Sweden started sitting outside the Swedish Parliament during school hours with her sign Skolstrejk för klimatet (school strike for the climate) and demanded that the Swedish government reduced carbon emissions as stated in the Paris Agreement.

Since then Greta has inspired students around the world not only to join in with her strikes, but to start the conversation about climate change with their friends, their parents and teachers, to start looking at the way we live, what we consume and how we can change for a better future.

During a TED Talk in November Greta stated

‘We already have the facts and solutions, we need to do something now.’

‘We need hope but more than that we need action’.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2QxFM9y0tY&feature=youtu.be

The atmosphere in Oxford on Friday was unbelievable. I was surprised at the turnout. Children from Primary schools joined University students in a common goal, to raise awareness and to show adults that young people do care and we are the ones who will have to bare the consequences.

The posters and banners displayed a mixture of anger, criticism and disappointment but also showed hope, wit and a determination to change the future.

If these strikes only do one thing, I hope it will be to make the Government realise that while every single person can make changes that will help, it is changes in Government policies and large corporations that will make a real impact.