A BRILLIANT lesson in democracy was learnt on Friday by thousands of Scottish school kids.
An hour or so lost on a Friday afternoon curriculum was spent learning about freedom of speech, freedom to protest and the democracy which allows our Scottish citizens to participate in such actions.
READ MORE: Thousands of school pupils go on strike over climate change
Theresa May was more concerned about the teachers having their timetables messed up, which somehow was damaging for the pupils’ education. I suspect a lot of those teachers may have taken part in protests themselves as students and, indeed, in strike actions for better pay and conditions to their employment contracts.
These students will be young adults in a few years’ time and so naturally are maybe more acutely aware and concerned about their environment and climate control than their adult parents. Certainly, there were some clever posters on display in the marches taking place across the country. So, more power to their young elbows and good luck with the protests planned that are to follow up on Friday’s success.
Alan Magnus-Bennett
Fife
THE ferocity of the denunciations by the right-wing media, the Prime Minster and her Tory MPs of the climate change strike by school pupils and students shows the political class are worried.
The Tories have a profound fear of the growing politicising and rejection of neo-liberal ideology by the young.
READ MORE: 'What's the point of learning if there is no future?'
This pronounced shift to the left, driven by the objective crisis of the failed capitalist system, stands in the way of the ruling class’s attempts to utilise universities and schools as centres for the promotion of free-market and militarist ideology. Immense financial and ideological resources are therefore being ploughed into a right-wing counter-offensive.
There is no “grassroots” movement of young people in favour of the social system destroying their living standards, limiting their life chances and threatening them with war. No-one is rallying to the cause of neo-liberal capitalism.
Alan Hinnrichs
Dundee
SO May thinks school children are “wasting lesson time” with their strike for action on climate change!
Since the June 23 2016 she’s done nothing except waste time by failing to have thought-out any plan about how the UK will survive Brexit without plunging into chaos. Unfortunately on past performance it’s unlikely she’ll learn a lesson from the children’s lips either.
Catriona Grigg
Embo
I HOPE other readers are as inspired as I am by the reports of young people across Britain mobilising onto the streets to draw our attention to the most important issue facing us all, and that should include politicians and businesses.
Maybe such active concern for the world’s ecology will be encouraged, instead of the sneers about the TV or computer habits of young people.
I hope that public demonstrations repeated every Friday become a feature of Scottish life so we all have to make our future ecology the priority concern.
We can all make the next “strike” on March 15 a time to get more informed and active.
Norman Lockhart
Innerleithen
“THE planet’s more important than my education,” 12-year-old Hillpark Secondary School pupil Ella Young told The National. No Ella it’s not!
Much as I applaud your participation in Friday’s protest – and I do – your education and the skills you might develop will be the very things we need to get the planet out of this mess. You and your generation are the hope we need. The planet will require your resourcefulness, creativity and inventiveness to survive. So stick in at school. Get yourself an education in environmental-related technologies and know that you really have made a difference for more than one day.
I Easton
Glasgow
THE striking children are to be admired. The main thrust of their argument that parents and elders are responsible for global warming is probably correct. However, we are all guilty ... children as well.
The strike is for the present and the future, and before they make any other move there are a few things they should consider. Where did the tablet, iPhone, MP3 player, TV etc and any other modern equipment that they take for granted come from? These are all products that cannot be produced at this time without using energy ... green or otherwise.
The young have to start now. Parent taxi services to school and elsewhere need to stop to save carbon emissions. Litter campaigns should not be one-offs. It’s all very well blaming others for situations, but the youth of today have to start looking to their children’s future
and contribute to it NOW instead of sitting in judgment of an honest, albeit not always understood, attempt to make the world a better place for them.
James Ahern
East Kilbride
THOUSANDS of school children have been on strike to demand action on global warming.
So far all that governments have done is deploy renewable energy. Wind farms have killed millions of birds and bats, and I don’t know of any other industry which is permitted to do this. Hydro schemes have dammed rivers, disrupting aquatic life. Millions of hectares of natural forest has been destroyed and converted to alien species for burning in biomass power stations. Even more forest has been cleared for bio-fuels production.
These children should be careful what they wish for.
Yet our use of fossil fuel continues to grow, so this policy has failed. I trust that these children are setting an example by walking to school, telling their parents not to have holidays, and giving up their smartphones due to the massive environmental destruction involved in their manufacture.
Geoff Moore
Alness, Highland
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