Climate Protest
Students taking climate action into their own hands
Written by Marcail Parkinson and Edward White. Images provided.
I am scared for the future. I fill with anxiety when I consider what is at stake if we do not successfully mitigate our impact on our Earth. I am not alone. 1.4 million young people in 125 countries around the world on March 15 2019 went on strike from their places of education, and 1.6 million on May 24, to turn our fear into something productive. School students stood up and said enough is enough, we demanded our leaders commit to the significant systemic change necessary to preserve the natural beauty of our home. In New Zealand 15,000 students took part in events in 24 towns and cities right across the country. Our message was clear, the climate change crisis must be treated with urgency if we are to seriously tackle this existential threat to the health of our planet and society. But these two days of protests are just the tip of the melting ice-berg.
As a Gen Z year 13 student, I see every day the concern young people have for the state of our future. We have already resigned ourselves to the fact climate change will dramatically alter the world we inhabit by the time we sit in the seats of power and thus we understand the desperate need to flip the system upside down. We can not afford to wait for the old guard to retire and pass us their legacy of decades of inaction. Their delaying, and deferring responsibility while simultaneously benefiting from the exploitation and consumerist culture has created this climate crisis. We want a future where our children will grow up and be able to experience the beautiful environment we live in and learn to nurture and care for the world we live in.
As students we don’t necessarily know all the facts or the solutions but what we do know is that changes need to be made. Every day there are young people around the world who are fighting for climate justice. Politicians and media belittle the movement. They tell us we don’t understand what is going on and that we’re just doing it for attention. They’re right. We don’t understand what is going on, we don’t understand why change hasn’t already been made, we don’t understand why we aren’t being listened to, we want attention, we want to be heard, we want to use our voice to shed light on the biggest threat to our future.
We are the generation who are afraid to have children because we don’t know if there will be a healthy world for them to grow up in. We are the generation who are sacrificing convenience for sustainability, we are the generation who will fight for what we believe in but we are the future and we care.