Last week (15th Feb 2019), tens of thousands of young people in the UK walked out of school to join protests calling on the UK government for radical action on climate change. See here.
This was part of rolling, worldwide protests by school kids that have been going on for weeks.
They were first begun by a Swedish girl called Greta Thunberg who did a solo protest outside the Swedish parliament back in August, and it's snow-balled ever since.
The media have variously described these protesters as truants, naïve, and dupes of adults pushing an agenda.
I'm sure some of the children were truants, but I'm betting this was a very small percentage of them. If there's anything I've learnt about teenagers nowadays, it's that they are lot more worldly wise than we were back in the 20th century. This generation are lot better informed than back then and, as a consequence, care deeply about the injustices they see all around them. They haven't been duped, they know their own minds. They are concerned about their own futures and the world they'll have to live in.
Maybe they are naïve though. Naïve to think that politicians are quick to act and do the right thing.
As long ago as 1992, with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, all countries signed up to a treaty that had a stated aim of curbing dangerous greenhouse gas emissions. 27 years later, politicians are still trying to thrash out the details of how to do that. All the way along, scientists have been warning we need to act fast or face dire consequences, and yet the politicians continue to act as if they have all the time in the world. They love procrastinating, and kicking the can down the road where difficult decisions are needed.
Radical change will be needed, and that's what they can't face. The solutions are available and well-known. They just need the political will, of which, they have none.
It looks very much like nothing will be done until 2020 when the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement supposedly comes into effect. Even then, I'm sure no sense of urgency will suddenly appear.
Pity the poor children. Pity us all.
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