Northern students roadside protest for the climate

STUDENTS from Helensburgh to Bulli have used their last day of the school term to make a stand for their future by joining the global School Strike for Climate.

The movement was started by Greta Thunburg in August 2018, when at the age of 15 she began skipping school to camp outside the Swedish Parliament, calling for stronger action on climate change.

Soon after, students around the globe started copying her and the movement erupted from here. Two years on and this humble act has inspired millions of students to skip school for the planet, sending a strong and unified message from the youth to the leaders of their nations.

In 2019 organisers estimated 300,000 people attended the strike events in Australia alone. Students were joined by fire fighters, nurses, lobby groups, unions and private companies with more than 2100 organisations giving staff time off to attend.

This year in order to Covid19 restrictions be respected, organisers opted for a more distributed model, inviting students to hold their own small scale protests across the nation on Friday the 25th of September.

The Bulli & Clifton has featured a slide show of students and parents from Coledale to Bulli who participated with a series of actions along Lawrence Hargrave Drive and Prince’s Highway outside their respective schools.

Other than pushing for a renewable energy future, this year’s focus was to object the Australian Prime Minister, Scott Morrison’s proposal to replace the Liddell coal fired power station with a GAS power station. 

Students took on some self imposed homework painting witty slogans in the lead up to the strike: These included “I’ve seen better cabinets at IKEA”, “Wake up! The Canary is dead”,  “Honk if you love renewables” and “You can’t fight fires with gas”

Scores of students and parents from Coledale Public School lined the road along the length of the school. They waved banners and asked for honks of support from passing cars, cheering loudly when their requests were met. Scarborough, Austinmer, Thirroul and Bulli primary schools held similar actions completing the drive-by protest experience for commuters and passers by.

Organiser, Jamie Madden said schools and their administrations were in no way involved in the strikes. Students act on their own accord outside school grounds and many students had permission from their parents.

DONATION

Would you like to make a small donation towards the running of Bulli & Clifton Times and Looking Back websites? If you would like to support my work, you can leave a small tip here of $2, or several small tips, just increase the amount as you like. Your generous patronage of my work and research, however small it appears to you, will greatly help me with my continuing costs.

A$2.00