'We should listen to the voice of young people'
If we don’t stop climate change, it will be the cause of conflicts and refugees.
The divisions over Brexit pales into insignificance when compared with this common global threat which is facing humanity NOW. The urgency of the situation was demonstrated by the international student Climate Change Crisis Strike on Friday, March 15.
They gave 10 reasons why the students were striking:
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Hide Ad1. The UN’s climate report in 2018 gives us 12 years to cut
emissions by 50 per cent to avoid catastrophe.
2. 10 per cent of the world’s population will be climate refugees by 2050, with rising sea levels and crop failure.
3. We’re the first generation to know what we’re doing and the last generation to be able to stop
it.
4. Just 100 companies are responsible for over 70 per cent of the greenhouse gas emissions on the planet, particularly fossil fuel companies.
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Hide Ad5. Our carbon emissions continue to go up, despite global government pledges.
6. 200 species go extinct every day, 1,000 times the natural rate.
7. A rubbish truck of plastic is dumped into the ocean every single minute, with most single use plastic produced as a by-product of petrochemical industry.
8. We’re in an emergency, we need unprecedented global action.
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Hide Ad9. By 2048, there will be no fish left in our oceans at the current rate of over-fishing and pollution.
10. Young people, with more of their life ahead of them, have the most to lose from an unsafe future.
We should listen to the voice of young people – it is their future which is at stake.
David Penney
Address supplied