Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Alexandria Villasenor, 13, hopes braving brutal polar vortex winter conditions by sitting outside UN Headquarters will inspire others in the US and China to join her school strike against global warming.
How a 7th-grader’s strike against climate change exploded into a movement
By Sarah Kaplan
February 16 at 10:00 AMNEW YORK — On the ninth Friday of her strike, 13-year-old Alexandria Villasenor wakes to a dozen emails, scores of Twitter notifications, and good news from the other side of the planet: Students in China want to join her movement.
Every week since December, the seventh-grader has made a pilgrimage to the United Nations Headquarters demanding action on climate change. She is one of a cadre of young, fierce and mostly female activists behind the “school strikes for climate” movement. On March 15, with the support of some of the world’s biggest environmental groups, tens of thousands of kids in at least two dozen countries and nearly 30 U.S. states plan to skip school to protest.
Their demands are uncompromising: Nations must commit to cutting fossil-fuel emissions in half in the next 10 years to avoid catastrophic global warming.
…
“My generation is really upset.” The deal struck at COP24, the U.N. climate meeting in December, was insufficient, she says. “We’re not going to let them . . . hand us down a broken planet.”
“Huh. Right,” the reporter says. “Big ambitions.”
Alexandria raises her eyebrows.
“Yeah,” she replies, confident.
Afterward, she changes into her striking uniform: waterproof ski pants and a down jacket, all in white, just like the congresswomen at the State of the Union and the suffragists of old. She packs her bag — planner, thermos, gloves — and grabs her plastic-encased cardboard signs, which read “SCHOOL STRIKE 4 CLIMATE” and “COP 24 FAILED US.”
…
Read more (paywalled): https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/how-a-7th-graders-strike-against-climate-change-exploded-into-a-movement/2019/02/15/e20868e2-2fb4-11e9-86ab-5d02109aeb01_story.html
What is wrong with this picture?
Thank you @blkahn! I enjoyed talking to you and you wrote a great article about my @UN #ClimateStrike and our plans for March 15th! @Strike4Youth @StrikeClimate @GretaThunberg https://t.co/PUGfdhQOv4
— Alexandria Villaseñor (@AlexandriaV2005) February 1, 2019
For me, the most striking thing in the picture is the amount of plastic on display – plastic covered signs, and plastic cold weather gear Alexandria is wearing. Most plastic is produced by processing chemicals extracted from fossil fuels.
If kids want to strike against global warming, and strike against fossil fuel extraction, surely the first thing they should do is divest themselves of the products of fossil fuel extraction, products they would deny to future generations.
Alexandria not alone in failing to see the connection between her own life choices and fossil fuel products – most of the pictures I’ve seen of school strikers involve a lot of plastic cold weather gear.
What about the impact on Alexandria’s education? A lot of commenters (including myself) have suggested that school strikers will do their future prospects harm, but on reflection I think it more likely that at least some of today’s liberal universities will give verified student strikers a credit, to compensate for missing their studies while they were out marching against climate change.
I would like to see a children’s strike against climate alarmism.
I invite any young student to start this. First, learn the facts. Learn how you and your fellow students are being used/abused by adults in power, and then proceed to trash the fantasy accordingly.
If you are going to skip school, then, at least, do it for the right reason. That reason is because students are being brainwashed with fantasy narratives and not educated with facts.
Children? Climate Change? Together? Billy McKibnen’s heart beats a bit faster today.
The four of five year olds never stop asking why, or at least mine didn’t, why is this, why is that, why, why ….. all day along.
Then they went to school and the word ‘why’ slowly faded away, only to be applied to monetary matters and staying out late.
vukcevic
I KEEP six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.
I send them over land and sea,
I send them east and west;
But after they have worked for me,
I give them all a rest.
I let them rest from nine till five,
For I am busy then,
As well as breakfast, lunch, and tea,
For they are hungry men.
But different folk have different views;
I know a person small—
She keeps ten million serving-men,
Who get no rest at all!
She sends’em abroad on her own affairs,
From the second she opens her eyes—
One million Hows, two million Wheres,
And seven million Whys!
The Elephant’s Child
Kipling.
Government schools exist to eliminate curiosity and creativity and turn kids into compliant drones. Like these ‘strikers’.
That’s what they were designed for in Prussia, and most of the other Western governments adopted the same system when they saw how effective it was.
No sane parent should send their kids into those soul-destroying machines.
Erm,how many Chinese?
Here is what NASA is presently stating on their website directed to teaching K-4 students about “climate change”:
“Weather can change in just a few hours. Climate takes hundreds or even millions of years to change. Earth’s climate is always changing. There have been times when Earth’s climate has been warmer than it is now. There have been times when it has been cooler. These times can last thousands or millions of years.” — source: https://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/k-4/stories/nasa-knows/what-is-climate-change-k4.html
Alexandria Villasenor is all of 13 years old, for heaven’s sake, so according to NASA she has only experienced weather, NOT climate nor climate change!
Let’s just say her lack of understanding of the very thing she is protesting is appalling.
I think we have to praise NASA for telling the truth to the school kids. No alarmist rhetoric in there at all, just statements of fact.
That’s what they should be doing.
Unless the children have been shown both sides of the real science, it is nothing short of CHILD ABUSE.
Why is the name Alexandria extremely popular these days?
Alexander the Great set out to conquer the world, ergo . . .
Alexin Andros = macho man !
A the G was son of king Philip II, so name Alexander would fit the fathers ambitions, but the most likely is the possibility that name Alexander III was given on the succession of his father when he was made General of Greece (military ruler) at age of 20.
how I know of this? it was my fathers name , popular in the Balkan countries.
Died
10 or 11 June 323 BC (aged 32)
Conquered most of the known world in just 12 years. So a lot can be done in 12 years. Like getting all of those progressives out of the education system.
As to getting the progressives out of the education system in 12 years.
It depends on whether you are as ready to kill as Alexander was.
They knew very little of the world.
People are identifying with the cities.
But not with libraries.
Just when did the world get this STUPID?
It has always been this stupid it is just in days gone past media didn’t play in the gutter with the idiots.
‘We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.’ — Oscar Wilde
unfortunately the media isn’t among those looking at the stars (in the sky) but rather at the “stars” of their own making.
“Children should be seen and not heard”. The old ones are the best and they were created for a good reason.
After the strike they drove home in their SUVs and turned up the heat, and turned on the lights, and the TV. The DEEP DEEP hypocrisy of all this, it will take time to sink in, we must remind them of the hypocrisy.
“My generation is really upset.”
Just wait and see how upset their generation will be in 10 years when they realize how their youthful good-faith was abused by the Green Blob.
It failed to achieve anything in Australia, so they did it again in the UK. It failed there, so they did it in the US. Does anybody else see a trend here?
In related news, the Australian “strike” has been revealed as having been organised by taxpayer-funded “eco-warriors”.
While here in the UK, according to the BBC “Organisers Youth Strike 4 Climate said protests took place in more than 60 towns and cities, with an estimated 15,000 taking part. ”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-47250424
According to the Department of Education there are about 8.5 million schoolkids in the UK.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/719226/Schools_Pupils_and_their_Characteristics_2018_Main_Text.pdf
Much Ado About Nothing.
And in the UK,
The “Child’ protestors demands are of course quite reasonable (ha, ha):
The biggest protests were held in London, Brighton, Oxford and Exeter, the UK Student Climate Network said.
The young leftest group, who helped coordinate the protests, have four key demands:
The government should declare a “climate emergency”
It should also inform the public about the seriousness of the situation
The national curriculum should be reformed to include “the ecological crisis”
The age of voting should be lowered to 16 so younger people can be involved in decision-making around environmental issues.
Good point.
That’s terrible, nearly 0.2% go marching – really so many, they must be right then. /SARC
Wee little attention whores looking for their 15 minutes of fame. “Go away, kid, you bother me.”
Actually, most of them just want to get out of class. Give them any excuse to do anything but go to school and they would.
I expected that climate deniers, and other people who think individual action can solve the climate crisis, would come after me.
You are all wrong. 70% of global emissions come from 100 companies. Divesting myself of a sleeping bag won’t fix that. You set that up. You should be the ones fixing it.
This past week I learned about neoliberalism. On my own! Like, not even from school! And to me it looks like neoliberalism has all of you tricked into thinking that individual actions will solve all of this. It won’t.
I have also learned about climate science from some of the best scientists. This is a crisis. And as this crisis gets worse, we youth will hold all of you adults responsible for not doing anything about it.
Ms Villasenor,
Please try using facts in your statements. Please provide any objective, repeatable evidence that changing the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has any effect on the weather or the climate.
1) The reason the planet isn’t a frozen rock is because of greenhouse gases.
2) CO2’s contribution to this has been known since the 1800s.
3) CO2 is increasing. (Keeling curve)
4) Temperatures are increasing accordingly–and will continue to do so. The predictions of all good models all agree on warming (not cooling) and all agree on a few degrees of warming (not 10s of degrees).
I paraphrase a little in the last point from Carl Sagan’s 1990s talk. There are some videos from the 1950s that maybe you should check out–for nostalgia’s sake if nothing else. Educate yourself–Alexandria probably has her hands full with trying to do all the stuff a teen should be doing while saving the planet–the science has been clear since the 70s, nothing’s changed.
You know you’re in denial when you ask for “objective evidence” and you’re told “look at the known effects of CO2, look at CO2 measurements, look at the global temps–it all aligns”, but then you (or some other denier) will come back with something like “the models aren’t perfectly accurate” or “CO2’s been higher before” or “the sun, the sun” or “this is natural”.
To address these common “rebuttals”: the models are pretty good! Yes, it has–the whole planet was different and the ecosystems we depend on (and we obviously) weren’t here. Sun (and clouds, and water vapor feedback etc etc) accounted for in predictions and ruled out–it’s the CO2. Sure, climate change has happened. Usually it accompanies extinction level events.
Educate yourself. Go to a talk, read some books about the atmosphere, but you will have to actively resist the urge to deny and try to listen.
I hope my children are just as passionate about this as you. Keep fighting!
Except it *doesn’t* align. And in the 70s “the science” was equally clear about the certainty of manmade global cooling.
The emperor has no clothes and you are his fashion commentator.
cbh, you posted:
“3) CO2 is increasing. (Keeling curve)
4) Temperatures are increasing accordingly . . .”
Sorry, but that is correlation. It is not an argument for, or against, causation.
If Ms Villasenor doesn’t have the answers REJ requested, she could get one of those best climate scientists she consulted to chme in and show us how CO2 is affecting Earth’s climate. She should ask Michael Mann to help her out here.
I hope someone is not spoofing this girl’s name here and just trolling. I do hope it is her and that she reads the comments and tries to understand where skeptics are coming from.
You can learn a lot here at WUWT, Ms Villasenor. We aren’t here to attack you personally, we understand you are young and inexperienced (most of us, anyway). Everyone is that way at your age. It takes time to get a good handle on the world, and to understand who is telling the truth and who is not.
Read WUWT and keep an open mind and you will understand.
Ms. Alexandria Villasenor, you posted: “70% of global emissions come from 100 companies.” You did not make it clear if you were referring to CO2 emissions, methane emissions, water vapor emissions, particulate emissions, or some other emissions.
Moreover, can you please tell me—given your simple declarative sentence—what portion of the remaining 30% of global emissions come from the hydrosphere, lithosphere and biosphere of Earth?
Oh you are here. (Assuming this is not an impersonating troll.) So if I understand you, you are playing hooky from school to protest Global Warming? Because the world is too hot? Really? In your picture you don’t look like you are too hot. Quite the opposite, in fact…
“that at least some of today’s liberal universities will give verified student strikers a credit”
The schools might. Few if any companies will.
If the people pushing these ‘strikes’ get their way, there won’t be any companies to care.
Irresponsible parenting.
The Children’s Climate Change Strike and its Warmista Organsers reminds one yet again of the shocking fact that half the population has an IQ less than 100 and is mentally constrained by that.
The State of Iowa and the University if Iowa May, in the future be remembered as the site of the first frigid death of an undergraduate student, from Cedar Rapids. He died a horrible death in -40F weather during a negative Arctic vortex Oscillation. The same Arctic Vortex Oscillation you are chiding Alexandria Villasenor about. He was a good kid. Compassionate in a way the author may never be or know. Rest assured. It does not matter how you deny climate change, if you do not change, your agriculture will be dead. It will die as the jet stream sinks below the Canadian border and the heat of summer evaporated any chance for your livestock to live or crops to thrive.
AVO has happened before, and will happen again. We had nothing to do with it and it’s hubris of a ludicrous sort to claim otherwise.
And bloody shirt waving to try and elicit a guilt trip is despicable. You didn’t even have the stones to refer to him by name.
Paris agreement tells us we need new innovations to achieve the goals. It’s this young generation that will be the innovators, with all these school skipping i’m really getting worried now – looks like our grandchildren will have to “pay the bill” of our children…
200 years of innovation and here we are. If other technology was on the horizon, it would have been built.
No no. Let them skip as much indoctrination school as possible. Most of them don’t even belong there. Let them find a job and work in the real world.
Kids come out of school illiterate, so the schools should be closed for kids to protest the rest of their lives. Then they can get a degree in economics and run for a House position.
“What do kids want? Climate action. When do they want it? During double maths” Rod Liddle, The Times.
You need to pay but the headline is the star.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comment/what-do-kids-want-climate-action-when-do-they-want-it-during-double-maths-w9rskbk3j
Her mother Kristin Hogue is well and truly on the global warming gravy train.
Exploiting her 13 year old daughter to push her own agenda.
https://twitter.com/ClimateKristin
https://english.ucdavis.edu/news-events/news/we-are-english-majors-kristin-hogue
“Kristin Hogue is a Carbon Neutrality Initiative Fellow through the UC Office of the President, and will be directing a student-led course this Spring. “
This reminds me of the Children’s Crusade (13th century). Thousands of children deceived by adults into making a virtue-signalling protest…. most were sold into slavery.
How many of the children who are taking a holiday from school, to protest about climate change, know what Russia’s average temperature is?
I am guessing, not many.
If you told them that Russia’s average temperature was +0.2 degrees Celsius, how many would have enough science and mathematics knowledge, to say whether that was hot or cold (especially American children, who are not familiar with Celsius).
I am guessing, not many.
How many of the children who are taking a holiday from school, to protest about climate change, know that Russians live at an average temperature, which is near the freezing point of water?
I am guessing, not many.
How many of the children who are taking a holiday from school, to protest about climate change, know that the average coldest month in Russia (the coldest winter month), is -21.1 degrees Celsius (yes, that is MINUS 21.1).
I am guessing, not many.
How many of the children who are taking a holiday from school, to protest about climate change, know that Russian children are also taking a holiday off school. To demand that the world increases global warming, so that they can survive in the future.
I am guessing, not many.
To increase your knowledge of other countries temperatures (average hottest month, average month, and average coldest month), read the article at this link:
https://agree-to-disagree.com/how-hot-is-that-country
How many of the children know that atmospheric CO2 can only absorb the Earth’s IR at the 15 µM wavelength? How many of the children know that only 8% of the earth’s IR emissions is available to be absorbed by atmospheric CO2 at the 15 µM wavelength? How many of the children know that nearly all energy exchanged in the atmosphere is by conduction and not by radiation and “moved around” by convection?
Probably none.