AS HUMAN beings, we are pretty bad at understanding climate change.
Despite being shown actual science by proper experts, despite seeing evidence of its catastrophic impact all around us, we still don’t get it.
Conversations on television descend into petulant but-what-about-the-economy discussions; governments continue to allow airport extensions to be built and new coalmines to open; and the rest of us still travel by plane and buy apples wrapped in seventeen layers of plastic, with gay abandon.
It is denial, or ignorance, or maybe a bit of both, on a breathtaking scale.
And when someone does do something about it – like the young people taking part in school strikes around the world – we criticise and complain and, in one particularly harsh case recently, punish.
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Ellie Kinloch, Tyler McHugh and Isobel Deady, who are all 16, missed school to take part in a climate change youth protest in Manchester city centre in May, part of the global campaign sparked by inspirational Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg.
However, when the three students returned to school they were told they would not be allowed to attend their end of year prom.
How shortsighted of the school. Whatever you think about proms, being denied the chance to take part in their end of year celebration because they stood up for a cause they believed in is hugely unfair.
This is a school which proclaims its pride in producing young people who are “aware of their role and responsibilities within society”. In Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence it is called helping young people to be ‘responsible citizens, effective contributors’ and that message is drummed into young people ALL the time.
But when it comes to the crunch, what are we really saying to young people? That in fact, it is not okay to stand up for the causes you believe in? That burning planets and imploding futures mean nothing, because rules are rules? That is not right.
(And I say that as a thoroughly anti-rulebreaking non-rebel pupil, who would rather have died than stick her head above the parapet. I even wrote a snooty letter to the local newspaper when I was 15, chastising my fellow pupils for NOT wearing uniform or taking pride in their school. Groan.)
Edinburgh City Council announced recently pupils taking part in the strikes would not be disciplined. All local authorities should follow that lead and put the minds of young people and their parents at rest.
And the three young students at Albany Academy should be applauded for standing up for what is right.
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