The NSW Teachers Federation supports the right of young people to join together to protest about the need for urgent and sustained action on climate change. This is their democratic right.
The commitment shown by students across the globe should give us all hope that their generation will force governments everywhere to tackle the threat to the planet.
Our role as teachers is to teach the science. The question we ask as educators is not do you believe in climate change, but do you understand climate change. Our students do understand the science and are prepared to act on their understanding. It is their future which is why they demand that they be heard.
It has been the belligerent and ignorant behaviour of many politicians, often protecting the vested and corporate interests of the fossil fuel industry, which has sparked the need for students to take this action. In short, government inaction has left this generation of young people with no alternative but to take action.
History will be on the side of the students, just as it was for a previous generation of students who took to the streets to protest against the unjust war in Vietnam.
By their actions, the students are rejecting the cynicism, complacency and ignorance that have been a feature, too often, of public commentary about climate change.
Our children are our future. They are our hope.
We support their action to strike for climate change action tomorrow (15 March), in the hope that governments will listen to them and act to make the necessary policy changes to ensure a climate-resilient and low-carbon economy, for our planet, for our future.
— Maurie Mulheron, President