That image is from the School strike 4 climate Facebook page. On Friday the School Strike 4 Climate website invites people to Join school students to strike for a safe climate!. It’s part of a Global #ClimateStrike which will involve action in over 90 countries.
- Pupils from hundreds of schools in over 55 cities and towns across Australia are using the action to call on all politicians to stop Adani’s coal mine, say no to all new fossil fuels and power Australia with 100 per cent renewable energy by 2030.
That’s from a news.com.au article that you might describe as ‘balanced’.
- not everybody supports the strike, with some schools warning of consequences for truancy and education ministers such as NSW’s Rob Stokes declining to back the political movement.
“As adults, we have a shared responsibility to encourage our young people to attend school,” he told 2GB this morning.
“So that’s really got to be the first message. Turn up to school. Don’t rob yourself of the opportunities to get a great, quality education.”
Columnist Gemma Tognini wrote kids were being used as “pawns in climate wars”.
“Kids are the perfect weapon when it comes to emotive issues because there’s never any sensible centre or intelligent debate when it comes to feelings, and who better to use than children,” she wrote in The West Australian.
However, striking pupils have won the support from other political leaders, such as NSW Labor leader Michael Daley who told ABC: “They do have a democratic right of assembly, they do have a right to protest.”
If this link works, Michael Daley expanded on why he supports the strike, and why as a politician he won’t go missing on climate change.
Solarquotes blog has a post on Daley Vs. Berejiklian including a link to Daley’s National Press Club speech.
Here’s part of what he said from The Guardian article Michael Daley says NSW schoolchildren have right to strike over climate change:
-
Speaking at a National Press Club event in Sydney, Daley said he supported the rallies on Friday, even though he might soon be the premier and responsible for ensuring children attend school.
“Education is also bigger than the classroom. It is based on life experience. That is, in part, the importance of being confident and passionate enough to form beliefs and being prepared to stand up for them,” he said.
“They don’t have a microphone or money like the big end of town. But they do have their democratic right to assembly. I support that right to protest especially when it comes to climate change and our fragile environment.
“And more importantly in this inert digital age, of acting on that belief. Of standing up and taking action for what you believe in – it is called leadership.
I must say I’m impressed. Bill Shorten, please note.
news.com.au also carried an opinion piece from Corrine Barraclough bagging the kids as truants, suggesting they couldn’t care less about climate change and just wanted the day off.
The ABC, as often, bends over backwards to be balanced, highlighting Climate change student strike inspired by politically correct teaching, academic says.
The said academic is Dr Kevin Donnelly, a senior research fellow at the Australian Catholic University. Thing is, anyone who actually knows anything about education takes no notice of Dr Donnelly at all.
Having given Donnelly the headline they then, at the end, go to:
- Professor Mark Howden, director of the Australian National University’s Climate Change Institute, said young people had every right to be concerned about climate change and “the world in which they’re going to live”.
Plus all the scary stuff from the United Nations, the World Meteorological Association and the Climate Council.
Typical ABC.
The Guardian, which is truth-seeking rather than ‘balanced’, especially on climate change, Lisa Cox has an article ‘This is an emergency’: Australia’s student climate strikes and where you can find them.
Then if you scroll down, you find:
Apart from extraordinary weather in Australia this summer, The Guardian has this interesting graph on our official quarterly emissions record in recent times in Australia’s annual carbon emissions reach record high:
From this everyone, not just children, can see that apart from tree-clearing Australia is expanding its emissions.
They have every right to be concerned and a moral right to express their concern.
Update: See ‘There is no planet B’: best placards from the youth climate strike and new post What would give hope to Greta Thunberg, the girl who can’t quit?
Casual teacher and Greens candidate said:
The right wing heavies seem to be going out of their way to threaten and punish students and others who join or support the climate strike.
If anything, this heavy handed approach will strengthen people’s resolve.
I think of the days off we got for Queen’s visits, sport days etc. Can’t remember that it did any damage to my education.
The Australien Government has made an ad about climate breakdown and the Student Strike, and it’s surprisingly honest and informative!
?? Australien Government ??
Are we ruled by [gasp]
Southern Aliens ?? !!!
… come to think of it, might explain a few things….
😉
… on their planet, gold is plentiful and coal is rare and highly valued …..
my precious, my lovely, my talisman, ….
OK, fellow Earthlings: band together and toss them out.
Geoff Miell: Thanks a lot for that rare piece of honesty from our thoroughly honest government.
I have two main concerns (which I have expressed over the years):
(1). We are digging up thousands of years of easily-accessible, almost pure Carbon industrial feedstock just to waste it in old-fashioned electricity generators. We are doing this to reward rich dullard for refusing to adopt new inventions and innovations, ones that would eventually make them a lot richer than now. It is downright stupid!
(2). I do hope the nuclear power industry isn’t behind all this.
Don’t look so surprised. It wouldn’t be the first time commercial interests backed their “natural enemies” to reach a long-term goal.
Brian: I have no problem at all with school students losing a few lesson-periods in a single day on what is, essentially, a personal development and confidence-building exercise. I’m very glad that it was to express their concerns about their own future and to seek ways of bringing about life-preserving change.
Good on them.
Just so long as all the parasites and manipulators don’t hijack it all.
It should only be allowed with a signed parental permission slip for each individual student.
They are children.
I think Professor Quiggin makes an appropriate comment.
The heavy handed reaction of the powerful old coal lovers is a good sign that the kids have got them scared that the kids will influence the vote of those considered more responsible and thoughtful than rusted on LNP supporters.
Thanks for the link, Geoff M, and yes, zoot, Quiggin is on the mark.
Before posting I didn’t have time to look at the Greta Thunberg story. The article Greta Thunberg, schoolgirl climate change warrior: ‘Some people can let things go. I can’t’ is well worth a look.
Turns out she’s been diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, which means she can’t let go once she has understood that climate change means she and the rest of the human race will have no future.
She was asked to talk to the billionaire entrepreneurs in Davos.
“I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. And then I want you to act,” she told them.
She has a message for pollies who say kids should not skip class:
“They are desperately trying to change the subject whenever the school strikes come up. They know they can’t win this fight because they haven’t done anything.”
Asked whether she is now more hopeful since people have listened to her:
“No, I am not more hopeful than when I started. The emissions are increasing and that is the only thing that matters. I think that needs to be our focus. We cannot talk about anything else.”
John D.: You’ve hit the nail right on the head again. They’re really worried about being put out to pasture – and it’s far too late for them to re-run their Communist-style pre-selections so as to put up reliable puppets as candidates who could now appeal both to the young people AND to the coal corporations. Here in Central Queensland, they’ve gone absolutely bananas in their condemnation of anything any remotely related to the concept of climate change; they’ve also started a fanatical cult/religion that worships Holy Coal – so move over Elvis Presley, Evita Peron and Valentino, you’ve all been displaced here by the Marvellous Mineral.
Katharine Murphy at The Guardian, “Remember Morrison’s black-rock stunt? Well look who’s scared now.”
And Ms Murphy doesn’t hold back on the sarcasm.
Imagine that, politicians having to face sarcasm. How embarrassment.
Thanks Ambi (Re: MARCH 16, 2019 AT 5:58 AM)
Ms Murphy certainly doesn’t hold back. They deserve derision.
Posted midnight this morning at the SMH is an article by Nicole Hasham headlined As the climate warms, heat is building on politicians to respond. It begins with:
It’s reported that Adam Bandt says Labor “is trying their hardest not to talk about” coal.
The fear of climate change is transforming young identities For many of the kids who who went on strike . might expect to live another 75 years under normal conditions,, which brings them close to 2100. Look at Brian’s projections for 2100 and you can see why climate change is scaring them for both there own futures and the futures of their kids.
Strong argument for lowering the voting age.
Does anyone not realise the teachers were a driving force, if not the major one, behind this display ?
I’m not impressed by the most naive and unwise members of our society being used, with or without their parents consent, to make political statements.
In the absence of even a scintilla of evidence that a global conspiracy of teachers was behind the strike, I call bullshit.
[Of course, should you have overwhelming evidence to support your assertion I would have to tender a grovelling apology]
Jumpy: Have you forgotten that it was the Economic Rationalists and their ilk (hardly Lefties by any stretch of the imagination) who, in the name of raising standards(?) in education, closed off entry into teaching for so many people with workplace experience and values? If the kids who went on that School Strike were influenced to do so by their teachers, then I would call that poetic justice, long delayed but eventually dealt out to the ultra-right Economic Ratbags. Couldn’t happen to a more deserving bunch of galoots. Ha-ha-ha-ha.
GB, I don’t know about all that other stuff but I do know some things.
Students don’t run schools.
The term “ strike “ is a Union term for withdrawal by a group of individuals of their commodity of labour from a particular market. The students aren’t “ striking “, they are performing truancy . ( there are Saturday, Sunday and a shit load of holidays to “ protest “).
For this particular stunt to have occurred it would need the blessings of the teachers. Then normally it would require permission of every parent or guardian on an individual case, this to my knowledge never was asked for or received.
( my comments are NOT addressed to anything other than the parental rights and responsibilities of parents and teacher with regard to children { some of whom still may believe in Santa, Resurrection Bunny and the Tooth Fairy [ see image at top ]})
zoot, here’s the dumbed down left version to get you started from your ABC, feel free to research outside your comfort zone for many, many, many opinions and research from those “ experts “ you ignore.
I don’t want you to grovel, that’s demeaning and not character building, I would rather you be wiser and honest.
Jumpy, Kevin Donnelly’s opinion is not overwhelming evidence.
Your comment at 1:09 pm is still bullshit.
And while I’m here, these are the experts we ignore at their peril.
Zoot, if there were a “ student movement “ to protest during school hours to promote Adani, would it be allowed, no matter how small the group ?
You call bullshit without any debunking evidence yet don’t reciprocate when the shoe is on the other foot.
That’s a hypocritical activity that cannot further any discussion. It’s just worthless blog tactical crap that honest folk tend to avoid.
Jumpy: Fortunately the kids are smart enough not to be striking in support of Adani. However, if some coal field kids genuinely wanted to go on strike in support of Adani and jobs for their fathers I would accept this and wouldn’t be coming the heavy about a day spent away from school.
The ABC had this to say about Donnelly:
Thank you John for at least highlighting there are many scientists that don’t agree to the extent of CO2s catastrophic influence.
As for the kids, they’ve been pawns.
There’s no way students can do anything that teachers don’t condone, regardless of the parents opinion or permission evidently.
Is a world away from
Please make your mind up.
Did the teachers drive it? Or did they only condone it?
And was that the case in all of the 120 countries in which it happened?
Jumpy, the Donnelly quote John gave us simply demonstrates why he is a waste of space whose misinformation they should not be disseminating.
If people want to pontificate on the children’s motivation, they have to do them the courtesy to put in the work to ask them, systematically and scientifically. Otherwise they are just venting.
From the Brisbane Times – Sea of 10,000 climate protesters floods Brisbane’s CBD:
Everyone seems to be missing the point that the politicians themselves have very little actual power to change anything – apart from those very few politicians who have decided not to seek re-election, that is.
Jumpy:
You must have went to a different sort of school than I did. Do nothing that teachers didn’t condone? Maybe we got the cane or detention for it but my generation still did things that teachers or parents wouldn’t condone.
Didn’t go on strike but sometimes went surfing when the school rules said no.
There wasn’t the feeling then that the government was leading us to disaster. Vietnam changed that. Climate change should change that for any thinking student and adult.
Donnelly is an education eccentric who wants to return us to the good old days. Also wants teaching to to concentrate on our Angloceltic culture.
Trying to match the vision of saint jumpy the student with the grumpy old man you have become.
Ok then, Dr Donnelly is a waste of space and shouldn’t be listened to, yet these children are geniuses that have the social, economic and environmental plan to save us from ourselves. So wise that they transcend consent laws and school policies.
The teachers played no motivational role at all and didn’t condone this brave sacrifice.
Everyone can assume their motives are righteous without a scientific survey.
And I’m both wrong and bad.
They all went home, planted trees, swore off everything even remotely connected to Fossil Fuel and will walk to school on Monday wearing hemp uniforms motivated purely by fear and love.
Carry on, have a lovely day.
Jumpy:
So now school policies that want to stop those evil little school grots doing something about a threat to the little grots future (that, according to the polls, a majority of Australian adults now also believe is a serious problem) have become sacred writ?
Is it an evil altJumpy that rants and rails against government policies he doesn’t believe in?
BTW: Enjoyed your reaction. Comforting to have something predictable in this uncertain world.
Jumpy, I’m not saying you are wrong and bad. Just talking rubbish, making generalisations you can’t support, and mis-characterising what other people are saying. I haven’t hear anyone say ” teachers played no motivational role at all and didn’t condone this brave sacrifice.”
I’m saying that you and others are making up generalisations without any evidence, generalisations that seem to come from your own ideology.
The ABC pursues ‘balance’ rather than the truth, which often leads them to seek out some nutty wanker, thus highlighting views that are not worth the space and can be seriously misleading.
The children want, from the first quote in the post, three things:
1. to stop the Adani coal mine,
2. to say no to all new fossil fuels, and
3. to power Australia with 100 per cent renewable energy by 2030.
Greta Thunberg wants politicians to do something to turn down the global warming dial by reducing emissions. If you look at the article about her, she does seem to have impressive knowledge about climate science.
When my own son, Mark, was 13, he wrote an assignment that was better than anything I could have done with access to the same material. (About Mendel’s laws, from memory.)
The teacher gave him 9 and a half out of 10. Mark queried the mark, and was told it was too good to have been written entirely by a kid his age.
I’ve always said that the smartest 10% in any school are likely to be kids.
They have an absolute right to be concerned about their future. Important social change has often involved breaking laws. This one, compulsory schooling, has a problematic ethical foundation in any case. I would have thought a libertarian would be opposed to compulsory schooling.
Obviously anybody still attending an educational institution is forbidden to be a libertarian.
Doesn’t #3 make #1 and #2 redundant?
Look, you can misconstrued my position and my point all you like but the parents are the ultimate adjudicators of what activities there own children undertake , not teachers.
If a signed permission form was not given to perform this non curricula activity then that child can’t participate. If it were then all good.
If my kids were absent from even one lesson we got a “ please explain “ note sent by the teacher.
Are we aware of any such notes being distributed over this ?
It’s possible to be a Libertarian and still retain full guardianship over my own children ( that were very intelligent but also athletically driven ) and not have teachers that I employ overstep their boundaries.
Nothing I have said makes me a ‘ denier ‘ or Climate Change heretic, my initial comment wasn’t about that.
But as I said, misconstrue away.
Now that’s predictable.
Obviously not. You can have 100% renewables, and still dig up and export coal. You can use renewable energy to operate the diggers.
Jumpy, we know the responsibility of parents, but ironically one reason for compulsory schooling is to expose children to a vision of life that goes beyond what their parents can offer.
However, schools take their in loco parentis position seriously. You seem to think that the kids are just sloping off from school. I’m not close enough to schools these days to know what is going on, but I’d expect that with such a high profile event both parents and schools would know what was going on, and I’d be surprised if there wasn’t documentation to cover it.
Jumpy, I didn’t say you were ” a ‘ denier ‘ or Climate Change heretic” and I’m struggling to see where anyone else did.
Brian
was a statement not an accusation, why would you or anyone else take it as such ?
And we will have to agree to disagree on the fundamental roles school teachers are hired to perform.
Where did I say that ?
I’m not the one putting words in other peoples mouths here.
Do I detect the faint aroma of burning martyr?
Good grief, it was much more than a few kids wagging school.
My favourite placard (in translation)
Yeah, I know, arguing from authority again! So sue me. 🙂
Well, obviously our art teachers need to improve, along with literacy, numeracy and history teachers.
Hard to understand when the taxpayer spends record amounts on education year on year.
Poor old grumpy Jumpy.
Could you produce witty posters like this when you were a kid? Or understand what global warming is about?
Our art teachers have no sway in China, Austria, Germany, India, Switzerland, South Africa, etc, etc – or were you taking particular offense at the ones from Australia?
I find the quality of the posters inspiring!
Poster art is a different genre, Mr J.
Here’s a nicely argued piece rebutting the arguments of curmudgeons like Jumpy.
Oh great, I’m a curmudgeon now amongst other things, cool !
Could you please diagnose my mental disorder too zoot ?
That seems to be a hobby around these parts.
Thanks in advance, Jumpy.
What’s your problem?
I’m a curmudgeon (and quite proud of it) 🙂
I guess you haven’t noticed.
I’ve noticed many things about your behaviour ( apparently sanctioned) here.
It’s nonproductive in my opinion.
No skin off my nose, I’ve got better monkeys in my personal circus.
Have at it if it makes you feel better.
A retired teacher friend of mine had this to say about the Adelaide strike:
Brian, any information about those permission documents ?
I can’t find a single one.
We are held to the standard of proving with evidence of every utterance apparently.
Were you “ Just talking rubbish, making generalisations you can’t support, and mis-characterising what other people are saying. “ ?
My correction of a misattribution:
relates to this quote
Make your mind up Jumpy.
If you contend that carbon dioxide is not a catastrophic influence on the world’s climate you are denying evidence collected over the last 150 years.
Hahaha, that !! Jumpy
Thanks zoot.
Good night all.
Jumpy, why would you expect to find them on the interwebs?
As I said, I’m not close enough to schools these days to know what their administrative practice would be. However, as I said they take their in loco parentis role seriously, and I would expect they would do what they legally needed to in order to account for kids in their care.