A 15-year-old explained why she’s striking for climate change and it’s really inspiring

As warnings about climate change mount with 12 years left to limit the worst effects, thousands of school pupils are expected to walk out of lessons on 15 February to draw attention to the crisis.

Young people from more than 30 cities across the UK are set to join the mass demonstration on Friday, inspired by 16-year-old Greta Thunberg who held a solo protest outside Sweden’s parliament.

And one of those taking part made an inspiring call to LBC radio to explain why she decided to join the student strike.

Scarlet, one of the organisers of the UK's Student Climate Network, told presenter Nick Ferrari why students felt they needed to “fight for their own futures”.

She said:

I’m doing this because this is the future or lack thereof that I’ve been handed.

And due to consistently being ignored by governments and not protected we’ve decided that it’s time to empower ourselves to fight for our own futures.

Nick Ferrari then asked:

In what way are you not protected?

And Scarlet replied:

Climate accord has consistently not been met. 

There has not been enough action to protect our futures and we are facing a crisis that we have less than 12 years to deal with before we reach irreversible changes.

She went on to add:

At this point personal changes aren’t enough. It’s no longer a question of behaviour change such as carpooling or turning off lights, it’s entirely about system change.

If 100 companies are responsible for over 70 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions we can’t change that unless we have governments putting restrictions on what companies and corporations can do.

And when Nick Ferrari suggested that protests aren’t always effective and what brings about change is “hard work and reasoning and diplomacy", Scarlet said:

As children who are under 18, despite having the biggest stake in this, we have absolutely no voting rights.

So it’s really rather impossible for us to communicate with our government.

The Department for Education said that the decision over whether to allow children to take time out of lessons to protest climate change was a matter for individual schools to decide.

HT LBC

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