Posted on 03/08/2019 5:10:11 AM PST by Magnatron
We, the youth of America, are fed up with decades of inaction on climate change. On Friday, March 15, young people like us across the United States will strike from school. We strike to bring attention to the millions of our generation who will most suffer the consequences of increased global temperatures, rising seas, and extreme weather. But this isn’t a message only to America. It’s a message from the world, to the world, as students in dozens of countries on every continent will be striking together for the first time.
For decades, the fossil fuel industry has pumped greenhouse gas emissions into our atmosphere. Thirty years ago, climate scientist James Hansen warned Congress about climate change. Now, according to the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report on global temperature rise, we have only 11 years to prevent even worse effects of climate change. And that is why we strike.
We strike to support the Green New Deal. Outrage has swept across the United States over the proposed legislation. Some balk at the cost of transitioning the country to renewable energy, while others recognize its far greater benefit to society as a whole. The Green New Deal is an investment in our future—and the future of generations beyond us—that will provide jobs, critical new infrastructure and most importantly, the drastic reduction in greenhouse gas emissions essential to limit global warming. And that is why we strike.
To many people, the Green New Deal seems like a radical, dangerous idea. That same sentiment was felt in 1933, when Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed the New Deal—a drastic piece of legislation credited with ending the Great Depression that threatened (and cost) many lives in this country. Robber-barons, ordinary citizens, and many in between were enraged by the policies enacted by the New Deal. But looking back at how it changed the United States, it’s impossible to ignore that the New Deal brought an end to the worst economic disaster in history by creating fundamental programs like Social Security and establishing new regulatory agencies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Works Progress Administration mobilized workers across the nation to build important infrastructure—including thousands of schools—that has improved Americans’ everyday life for generations.
Change is always difficult, but it shouldn’t be feared or shied away from. Even for its detractors, Roosevelt’s New Deal ended up working out quite well. The United States led the world’s economy throughout the many decades since. The changes proposed in the Green New Deal will help ensure our entire species has the opportunity to thrive in the decades (and centuries) to come. As the original New Deal was to the declining US economy, the Green New Deal is to our changing climate. And that is why we strike.
The popular arguments against the Green New Deal include preposterous claims that it will ban airplanes, burgers, and cow flatulence—claims that are spread even by some of the most powerful leaders in our nation like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Although these outlandish claims are clearly false, they reveal a larger truth apparent in the American, and world, populations: Instead of taking action on the imminent threat of climate change, our leaders play political games. Because adults won’t take our future seriously, we, the youth, are forced to. And that is why we strike.
The alarming symptoms of Climate Denialism—a serious condition affecting both the hallways of government and the general population—mark our current historical crossroads of make-it-or-break-it action on climate change. Although there are many reasons for this affliction—such as difficulty grasping the abstract concept of a globally changed climate, or paralysis in the face of overwhelming environmental catastrophe—the primary mode of Climate Denialism contagion involves lies spouted by politicians, large corporations, and interest groups. People in power, like Senator McConnell and the Koch brothers, have used money and power to strategically shift the narrative on climate change and spread lies that allow themselves and other fossil fuel industry beneficiaries to keep the fortunes they’ve built on burning fossil fuels and degrading the environment.
The current US president is a rabid climate change denier himself. President Trump pulled out of the historic Paris Agreement and repeatedly tweets about weather phenomena that he claims somehow disprove the existence of climate change—despite the fact that his own administration has reported the facts of climate change and its impact on the United States.
We are also concerned that top Democrats demonstrate their own lack of urgency about the existential threat of climate change. California senator Dianne Feinstein’s recent dismissal of a group of schoolchildren visiting her office to beg her support for the Green New Deal was very disturbing for us young people. Feinstein will not have to face the consequences of her inaction on climate change. She suggested that the children one day run for the Senate themselves if they wish to pass aggressive climate legislation. Sadly, that may not be an option for us, if she and other Democrats, like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, continue to dismiss the pleas of our generation. Faced with politicians on both sides of the aisle who belittle and ignore us, we’re forced to take a stand, and we’re doing it together on a global scale. And that is why we strike.
We strike because our world leaders haven’t acknowledged, prioritized, or properly addressed the climate crisis. We strike because marginalized communities across our nation—especially communities of color and low income communities—are already disproportionately impacted by climate change. We strike because if the societal order is disrupted by our refusal to attend school, then influential adults will be forced to take note, face the urgency of the climate crisis, and enact change. With our future at stake, we call for radical legislative action—now—to combat climate change and its countless detrimental effects on the American people. We strike for the Green New Deal, for a fair and just transition to a 100 percent renewable economy, and to stop creation of new fossil fuel infrastructure. We strike because we believe the climate crisis should be called what it really is: A national emergency, because we are running out of time.
By the way, their history teacher needs a little re-education theirself. FDR’s New Deal did not bring our economy back from depression. A little thing called WW2 did.
The New Deal made the Depression far worse.
All the TV shows kids watch today have them as the smart ones and their parents are complete doofus’s. It’s only natural for them to think that’s the way it really is....
Skipping school to show support for an anti-science hoax. That actually makes sense. A brief read also shows they are anti-history and prefer to believe history, economic as well as science propaganda instead of truth.
It’s official: man caused climate change is a childish belief.
Go live in a tent and walk around. Use a solar oven to cook whatever you can find that wasn’t raised using petro fuels.
Looks like someone has been watching a vid of 1968’s Wild in the Streets.
It looks like about 90% of the last three generations of American children have been made into a giant cult of dangerous brainwashed moron fascist Democrat voters who are opposed to their own freedom.
I’m sure they will take good care of their aging parents, especially when they become frail.
Geologist say that there have been at least five ice ages in the history of the Earth. After all of those ice ages occurred there was the follow-on change of climate which we are experiencing as well. The only difference between all those other periods of climate change both Ice Age and Recovery, I repeat, the ONLY difference in this current recovery that we are experiencing is the governmental fleecing of taxpayers.
And sure enough...every school in the nation began their chicken little story....and these children don't even know they are being used.
The internal combustion engine and the power grid (largely supplied by fossil fuel fired plants) are the two greatest innovations in man’s history. World wide, more people live better lives because of these two things than any other invention.
Sorry kids, you have no idea.
Ok
The kids demand change. Fine.
Other then tell everyone else what to do,
What are they willing to change and do
Without?
The technology that is trashing the world also
Gives them their smartphones and internet
They should be willing to give them up
Its for the sake of the world after all.
Ye reap what ye sow - except now all the rest of us sane adults have to put up with smart-mouth know-it-all kids building even taller soap boxes to display to the world how stupid they are.
Last week in Germany, this got a fair amount of negative hype by German teachers, who kinda suggested those Friday afternoon classes would be on schedule, and tests/assignments would go on (even if you were out protesting). Kids may not realize it, but in two months (if they continue the ‘gimmick’), grade slippage will occur, and some kids won’t be graduating onto the next class. This will freak some parents out, and create a whole second mess.
They have trained this generation well. They will be checking your bins and reporting you to AOC (Beloved Leader). Turns out it was Big Sista we should have been worried about all along. Should have known!
Not like they’re learning anything useful in those publicly-funded echo chambers anyway.
The next day was a Friday and she was running late as usual. She came to me said, “We gotta go, I have to go to school.” I told her that I had been thinking about what she had said the previous evening and told her that I was going to work from home that day in an effort to reduce our carbon footprint. She said, “But Dad, I have a Bio test today, we have to go.” I told her that saving the planet was more important than her Bio test. She was livid, and called some friends to see if she could get a ride. No luck. She stayed home that Friday.
I suggested she spend the weekend doing some research on global warming and energy use and see if what her teacher seemed right. She did and spent two days writing a paper for her history teacher that debunked human caused global warming. It was not an assignment but she gave it to the teacher anyway. It came back with a note at the top that said “I'll have to think about this.”
I seem to remember that she was able to take her Bio test on Monday, but the perspective and discernment she gained was more valuable than anything.
THE CHILDREN: “People who were alive in the 70s and lived with people who were alive in the 1930s don’t know what the weather was like back then. Be WE do so WE will ‘do something’.”
Makes me think of the CNN newswoman during the Bataclan attack who said “this is the first time in history that Paris has been attacked” and “this is the first time in history that France has closed its border”. A few commercial breaks later they came back with the announcement that she meant “the first time since WWII”, not the first time in history.
“history” started at their birth for many of these children. Schools don’t teach history or the scientific method any more if these children are any indication.
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