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AUSTRALIA-DEMONSTRATION-CLIMATE-STUDENTS-POLITICS
Aussie kids skip school for mass climate protest
SYDNEY, Nov 30, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Thousands of Australian students
skipped school Friday to join nationwide protests demanding government action
on climate change.
The demonstrations were held as more than a hundred bushfires blazed in
scorching temperatures in the northeast and a day after Indian mining firm
Adani vowed to go ahead with a massive and controversial coal mine.
Primary and secondary students rallied in state capitals and rural areas
across the country, in defiance of Prime Minister Scott Morrison who earlier
said kids should stay in the classroom.
“Our prime minister thinks we should be in school right now and maybe you
should be,” 13-year-old student Siniva Esera told a crowd of more than a
thousand in Sydney.
“But how can we sit by and not do anything to protect the future of this
planet,” she added, to a rapturous applause.
Morrison told parliament earlier in the week that the government was
committed to tackling climate change, “but I’ll tell you what we are also
committed to: kids should go to school.”
Students creatively rebuked the prime minister, who goes by the nickname
ScoMo, with humorous banners saying, “I hate ScoMo more than I hate school”.
They also carried placards calling for the government to block the Adani
mine project, a day after the Indian mining firm had announced it would go
ahead with a scaled-back version of the coal mine in northern Queensland.
“If we don’t stop temperatures going over two degrees we won’t have the
Great barrier reef, Antarctica will melt and there will be no such thing as
polar bears,” 11-year-old Lucie Atkin-Bolton told the crowd.
“My life will be so much more complicated than my parents’ life, because
of one simple thing: climate change.”
The protests capped off a week of brutal weather in Australia.
More than a hundred fires continued to blaze Friday across Queensland
state amid an unprecedented scorching heatwave.
The crisis forced hundreds to flee their homes Wednesday at its peak.
On the same day, in the neighbouring state of New South Wales, Sydney was
hit by severe thunderstorms and heavy rainfall forcing the cancellation of
flights, closure of rail lines and leaving motorists stranded on flooded
roads.
Scientists this week also launched the largest-ever attempt to regenerate
the endangered Great Barrier Reef, where large swathes of coral on the 2,300-
kilometre (1,400-mile) reef have been killed by rising sea temperatures
linked to climate change.
BSS/AFP/RY/12:02 hrs