Youth leading way with action

I welled up on Thursday evening as I listened to Triple J current affairs program ‘’Hack’’.

Sounds of passionate young people rung out through my car’s speakers; reminding me of just how incredibly hard young people have fought across the globe to push issues to the forefront of governments’ minds.

I got goosebumps as they played audio of thousands of students leading the charge on gun law reform in the United States this year.

These young people sparked something in our own students in Australia.

Just last month students exited their classrooms and took to the streets to push the issue of climate change. I admire these students. I wish I had the courage they have to be heard when I Motivated: was in high school.

The students defied the cries of Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who told them there should be less activism in the classroom. Their response? ‘‘We’ll be less activist if you be less s**t.’’

While our current national leader thinks it is a great idea to bring a block of coal to parliament and wave it around in the faces of fellow politicians, he thinks it is not such a great idea for students to lead the charge when it comes to the security of their futures.

This, to me, is baffling.

I come from a generation of young people who have often been dismissed when it comes to our get-up-and-go.

We are the children of the technology generation and with that comes connotations that we would much rather spend our time buried in our own selfish needs rather than taking an interest in the world around us.

But if these two examples, and there are plenty more, show anything, it is that this view could not be further from the truth.

Yet what reaction do young people get ‘’superiors’’?

To go back to school and to basically shut up.

And only adding salt to the students’ wounds is the complete and utter disregard of real action needed to tackle climate change by the Federal Government.

I myself was just a high school student when I first watched Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth.

It was the first time I had ever been told about the terrifying future that lay ahead for our climate and those living within it.

I remember sitting back, from their taking it all in and thinking about the small changes in my own behaviour that I could make in order to reduce my carbon footprint.

There was absolutely no question in my mind that this was a real and incredibly scary problem that would definitely affect me and my children in my lifetime.

To know that more than 10 years later, our Federal Government undoubtedly houses several climate sceptics is just ridiculous.

To even write the term climate sceptic is ridiculous.

And the fact that they are failing to meet emission reduction targets is just a real world example of their lack of inaction on the issue.

But now, we need to stand alongside these Aussie youngsters and let them know someone is listening.

If the recent wild weather across the state has demonstrated anything, it is that we are already experiencing the grips of climate change and our government needs to listen to the pleas of Australia’s young people and do something about it.

Comment from The Shepparton News by Tara Whitsed - “Youth leading way with action.”