We Strike *Because* It’s Wrong

On the 15th of March, thousands of high school students around the world will go on strike, skipping school to protest global inaction on Climate Change.

They shouldn’t be doing this, and that’s the whole point.

New Zealand National Party MP Judith Collins recently said the protest was “not going to help the world one bit.” Her colleague Nick Smith was quoted as saying “we can all find excuses to drop tools, not work, not get educated,” something he undoubtedly learned during his six years as Minister for the Environment, the bulk of which he spent making excuses for the government’s lack of meaningful climate action. Leader of the Opposition Simon Bridges helpfully added that it would be more convenient and less disruptive if the students planned their strikes to coincide with upcoming teachers’ strikes, presumably so that the demonstrations would fit neatly into his already-scheduled blocks of time set aside specifically to ignore the will of his constituents.

These politicians and the countless other commentators and keyboard warriors who have condemned these strikes are either missing the point entirely or deliberately ignoring it. The likes of Judith Collins and other seasoned political operatives certainly fit into the latter category. If anything, this further proves why the strikes are necessary; politicians have turned ignoring the threat of climate change into an art form, using different degrees of indifference and condescension to sideline efforts to speed up decarbonisation. The fact that a number of Dunedin schools could literally be under water in a matter of decades should be enough to dismiss the argument that this is a waste of potential learning time. This is the fight that should have picked up momentum as soon as we established scientific consensus on the impact of industrialisation on climate patterns back in the 1980s. Instead, it has taken decades for a global, tangible movement to emerge — and fortunately nothing Judith “Crusher” Collins or Simon “Five Percent” Bridges say will stop this momentum. If anything, their outdated and regressive comments will fuel the fire of change.

And yes, I’ll be taking the day off on the 15th.