Watching the remarks by some politicians on TV ONE last night about the upcoming Student Climate Change Protest March on the 15th of this month revealed how much this action by our young people is needed and should be supported.
First up there was the sneering attitude of the National party
Judith Collins: “Their little protest is not going to help the world one bit”
Simon Bridges : “A couple of chants as they march along and maybe McDonalds afterwards. You know what I don’t know if they’d learn a lot from that”
Nikki Kay called it “ a political stunt” , Todd Muller
“ a political prank”
Proof to our young people , if proof were needed , that these politicians don’t give a damn about what students think – and THAT in itself is worthy of their protest.
Then there was the curmudgeonly Winston Peters :
“We pay a lot of money for people to get educated , attending school is compulsory in this country.
Well, yes we do Mr Peters and personally I’m very glad to see we are teaching our young people to think for themselves. As for breaking rules in a good cause, you might recall that Mahatma Ghandi and Martin Luther King used civil disobedience to help change the world.
Then there was the effusive, “we’re on to it”, Jacinda Ardern
“What I’d like to think is that in New Zealand there is less cause for protest .We’re certainly trying to do out bit”
The thing is, Prime Minister, while it is true that Labour and Greens have showed willing on the Climate Change issue if you look up Climate Tracker https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/
you’ll see that India and Ethiopia are doing far better than us on achieving the goal of preventing a 2 degrees Celsius rise in global temperature and Morocco is leading the charge on cooling down the world – not us.
We’re currently rated as doing “insufficient” to meet the 2 degree goal.
So yes, I think the students do have good reason to protest the lack of political progress on an issue that will impact hugely on their lives and I say good on them for speaking up and speaking out.
Oh, and one last thing .
National and NZ First – do keep up it . Today’s 17 year olds will be next year’s voters and they are listening to every snide and belittling thing you say about them.
Bryan Bruce is one of NZs most respected documentary makers and public intellectuals who has tirelessly exposed NZs neoliberal economic settings as the main cause for social issues.
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2019/03/06/guest-blog-bryan-bruce-planned-student-protest-gets-my-vote/
Me too Buce;
We need ‘all of us adults shamed’ into action!!!
As we are the problem currently, – since we are lazy and just vote for these lazy useless Governments; – who just sit on the fence and do nothing; – all while the planet burns.
I am ashamed as I should be so I am 100% behind our young for standing up to show that we need to also get off our butts and get in the action also.
Vote out any lazy politician and Local Body councillor who refuses to stand up and join the fight to save our planet.
As this year being our ‘Local body Elections time’ we need to hold all those ‘potential Local Body candidates to account on climate change!!!
We need to have them all sign a questionnaire on climate change, and publish their plans to “commit” to vote for climate change!!!!
Or the public should not vote for them.
“self preservation is the strongest principal’ – https://www.icomos.org/venicecharter2004/petzet.pdf
yes! Go you good things. protest, protest, protest.
I think national are underestimating our Youth they are very smart young cookies nowadays and if they want to take a day of school who cares I don’t see national complaining about people who take their kids out of school to go on overseas holiday. Is it because these people vote for them so they say nothing only when it suit there political agenda
I will be supporting our students from the Hutt Valley who are marching if they can go on holidays with family and miss school they can certainly do this. I see a lot of hypocrites coming out about wagging school the worst thing to do as they will get their backs up.
When is the government going to lead the Treasury, MoT , the NZTA and KiwiRail to get more freight off the road and onto rail? or are these organisations far too politicised to change from their current ‘heal dragging’ and waiting for a change of government and a return to ‘more highway building’ and accelerating climate change.
Fuel taxes and road user charges are a powerful incentive for any politician (left or right) to maintain the status quo. The first thing any politician learns to do is count.
C’mon Jacinda LEAD.
‘What I’d like to think’; isn’t that a great phrase? I don’t actually think it but I’d like to think it! Clever deception.
Of course politicians are going to downplay climate change and pretend it really isn’t much of a threat at all, or that they have plans to deal with it. All the perks of politics are dependent on not discussing the truth about society’s dependence on fossil fuels and the dire consequences of continuing to burn them. Betrayal is the byword of the age we live in. Indeed, betrayal [by politicians] has been the byword for a long time.
Most young people have not yet discovered the extent they have been lied to and betrayed but a few can see the writing on the wall as far as their futures are concerned, with a plethora of reports detailing how industrialised humans have caused, and are still causing, ecological mayhem, ecological mayhem which is likely to accelerate markedly over coming years as atmospheric CO2 rises inexorably in its seasonal sawtooth manner.
https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/wp-content/plugins/sio-bluemoon/graphs/mlo_two_years.png
Ten more years of business-as-usual (highly unlikely for reasons other than planetary meltdown, though planetary meltdown will obviously play a major part in disruption of BAU) would take atmospheric CO2 to around 440 ppm and annihilate any pretence of keeping overheating under control.
Good on our youth! They put us to shame and the more the establishment put them down, the more their awareness of where things are really at will grow.
Well done students! Extinction Rebellion Otepoti are right behind you!
The best bit is, the more the politicians open their mouths on this issue the more worse the problem will get (from their perspective).
The Australian PM was the butt of a lot of jokes at the rally’s held over there last November after he expressed his anger at the protests in parliament – so I’m glad to see our conservative politicians haven’t let us down 🙂
I will be walking and ask why others are not.
I don’t listen to bullshit about the economy being effected by school children striking for their future. or the set school work being more important.
Critical thinking and wider social and environmental issues should be a core part of education. Those issues have been heavily discouraged in the past and look where it has got us.
Planning for a future has little to do with GDP, share reports and business news spouted several times a day by MSM including RNZ.
BAU has got us heavily in the poo with a bleak possibility of a very short future.
Andrew, the difference between you back then and the young students of today is that those who understand it are the ones out protesting because they do understand it.
Your typical refrain is to insult and your insulting remark about those protesting not understanding the technical background maybe reflects your understanding of the issue but certainly not the understanding of those out protesting. It is obvious that they do understand the background and the issue involved and unlike you, who can only sit and criticise, at least they are out there doing something about it.
I applaud and support all of them.
Go the young people! We of the oldies have done nothing to change our ways. Plastic bags, pah, what Bullshit is that? Seriously, most oldies are deniers still stuck in there greedy, I’m entitled cause I worked so hard bloody shithead ignorant self serving who cares about useless young people life. Well I bet the young’uns will rise up and accuse the oldies of fucking their planet, of course they’ll be dead by then so just don’t give a shit, I’m living the life and you all can just suck my dick. The injustice for the young ones is unbelievable. Can’t buy a house, can’t swim in the rivers, shit wages, the list never ends. Go hard young ones, fuck the oldies and their damn system.
good on them…but why are we leaving it to the kids?
The criticism of the young by mainly older people and dried up conservative politicians illustrates very clearly the mind-set of the latter, which is they don’t care about the climate. They sometimes make all the right noises but don’t care to take any action. So now it is left up to the young – well done you guys because it is you who will save us, not the numpties who like to criticise.
Andrew, are you so poorly educated that you don’t understand that climate change is here and you have not read or heard how and why it is happening?
The question should be – what is your solution to reversing it? Go on, we’re all ears. Oh that’s right, you don’t believe in it, just like the other numpty deniers and why not? Probably because it is all a bit too hard for you to turn your mind to a real problem. Thank goodness the younger students who are striking have the intelligence and foresight to see what is happening and want to do something about it.
The point that you don’t get is that the solution to climate change and the devastation it is bringing to our planet is not one single quick answer. It will involve a myriad of actions and will take many years. Hopefully the younger members of your family will be part of that movement while you dawdle your life along in the slow lane.
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