Pupil strike on Friday over climate change.

[justasking111]

DS said on Friday the pupils at his school might walk out on Friday over climate change. I did not realise at the time it was a national thing. Not impressed with this, what are the children going to do for three hours. We have had nothing official from the school. Has anyone?

www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/08/global-school-strikes-over-climate-change-head-to-the-uk

hilbobaggins
It'll be people in lesser developed countries who are most affected by climate change. This is something that has actual concequences, it's not just something to get angry about.

I was behind the idea until I saw the SWP banners.

I thing it's a good idea just can't understand why they don't do it on a Saturday or Sunday?

princesskatethefirst because it's part of a movement who all strike on a Friday across the globe!

NoPlaced it's fine to disagree with people, but calling them a bitch is a personal attack and against Talk Guidelines, in addition to making you look like a rather chippy person who can't accept that others don't agree with you without personal insults.

You just don't get it, do you Kissing? The objective of the student protests is to influence the debate in government.

Oh, I ‘get it’. And if you believe some schoolchildren on marches will influence the debate in government about environmental policy I think you’re charmingly deluded.

@hilbobaggins , what a load of crap.

Global warming is likely to be the greatest cause of species extinctions this century. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says a 1.5°C average rise may put 20-30% of species at risk of extinction. If the planet warms by more than 2°C, most ecosystems will struggle.
Coral reefs are projected to decline by a further 70-90% at 1.5°C. At a warming of 2°C virtually all coral reefs will be lost. It’s not only a tragedy for wildlife: around half a billion people rely on fish from coral reefs as their main source of protein.

Climate change is having serious impacts on the world’s water systems through more flooding and droughts. Warmer air can hold a higher water content, which makes rainfall patterns more extreme.

Climate change places compounded stress on our environment, as well as our economic, social and political systems. Whether it comes in the form of unbearable heat waves, harsh winters, or extreme weather events like Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, climate change undermines development gains and leads to shortages in basic necessities.

One-third of the planet’s land is no longer fertile enough to grow food. More than 1.3 billion people live on this deteriorating agricultural land, putting them at risk of climate-driven water shortages and depleted harvests. These circumstances lead to worsening hunger and poverty.

The number of people affected by natural disasters doubled from approximately 102 million in 2015 to 204 million in 2016.Droughts alone have affected more than 1 billion people in the last decade. Since 2001, droughts have wiped out enough produce to feed 81 million people every day for a year — equivalent to the population of Germany. Three out of four people living in poverty rely on agriculture and natural resources to survive. For these people, the effects of climate change — limited water and food sources and increased competition for them — are a real matter of life and death. Climate change has turned their lives into a desperate guessing game.

By 2050, climate change has the potential to increase the number of people at risk of hunger by as much as 20 percent. The majority of those at risk live in Africa.

Tens of millions of people are expected to be forced from their homes in the next decade as a result of climate change. This would be the biggest refugee crisis the world has ever seen.

Between 2030 and 2050, climate change is expected to kill an additional 250,000 people each year, from malnutrition, malaria, diarrhea and heat stress, while continuing to jeopardize clean air, safe drinking water and sufficient food supply.

This is why I'm being so called woke about this. Because climate change will affect all of us but worse of all it will affect the worst off in poorer countries the most.

Today, a fifth of the world’s electricity is produced by renewable energy. In 2016, there were 160GW of clean energy installations globally. This is 10% more than in 2015, but they cost almost a quarter less. New solar power gave the biggest boost, providing half of all new capacity, followed by wind power, which provided a third, and hydropower, which gave 15%. It was the first year in history that added solar capacity outstripped any other electricity-producing technology.

Researchers at Stanford and UC-Davis recently issued alandmark studythat has policy makers buzzing. Crunching the numbers on energy and economics, the researchers conclude that with existing technology the world could be entirely powered by renewable energy within 20 to 40 years.

Almost a third of the UK’s electricity came from renewable sources between July and September, as wind turbines and solar panels helped achieve a quarterly record for green energy.

onshore wind and solar energy become the lowest-cost form of energy generation across the world. The costs of solar and wind are falling each year - and today they are lower than coal. According toengineering consultancy Arup, onshore wind is on track to be lower cost even than natural gas in the UK by 2018, especially if it is to be included in the existing Contract for Difference (Cfd) mechanism. In the US, areport by Lazard, the asset-management firm, has shown that onshore wind and utility-scale solar have significantly lower costs today than any other form of energy if the energy playing field is levelled by taking away subsidies.

Kissing, Greta Thunberg recently had a platform at the WEF in Davos, which is a gathering of the most influential politicians and business people in the world.

I know, I've been there myself.

She and the students she has inspired are definitely influencing the debate. Just as David Attenborough has (who also spoke at Davos).

So actually it is cheaper for third world countries to have renewable energy. It's better for their future and our future.

And all this while government is still subsiding oil and coal. Imagine if all those subsidies now go to renewable energy and energy efficiency.

And the benefits will trickle down. Citizens across Africa who are spending up to 16 per cent of their household income on fuels such as kerosene or disposable batteries now have multiple options to harness solar energy for their daily needs.

"The cheapest electricity in most of Africa now comes from a solar panel on your roof," says Xavier Helgesen, CEO ofOff Grid Electric. "The combination of growing demand for reliable electricity and plummeting costs for solar and batteries has started to spark a distributed-energy revolution in Africa."

I did wonder how many of the kids that protested about climate change got a beefburger from MacDonald's on the way home. 🤷🏻‍♀️

I thing it's a good idea just can't understand why they don't do it on a Saturday or Sunday?

Well....makes it somewhat less of a strike if they're doing it on a day when they don't have any school.

I saw some good interviews with kids in Ullapool (a real centre of cushioned middle class kids ). One of of the placards was something like "March or Swim" and the local boy was pointing out that they live right on the sea front, so it really is going to impact them.

And the whole point of this was to raise the profile of the issue and demonstrate (literally ) that the young people are concerned. Would it have got the same publicity if it had been held on a Saturday or Sunday? Absolutely not.

16% of the world population, around 1.2 billion people, does not have access to electricity. This number would be much higher if we were to consider those who are connected to an extremely poor quality of electricity.

Fossil fuels are not only unsustainable in terms of their global impact and depleting resources,they rely on global supply chains still function. A conflict in mali that relies on diesel to power it's grid, caused a nationwide blackout with some of the poorest people in the world being struck into darkness and without and electric to run hospitals, police stations and schools.

However, Investment in renewable energy was higher in the world’s poorest countries than the richest ones for the first time last year, according to a major new report.

“What is truly remarkable about these results is that they were achieved at a time when fossil fuel prices were at historic lows, and renewables remained at a significant disadvantage in terms of government subsidies,” she said.

“For every dollar spent boosting renewables, nearly four dollars were spent to maintain our dependence on fossil fuels.”
She said poorer countries were increasingly turning to renewable energypartly because it was now so "cost-effective".

The report added: “Bangladesh is the world’s largest market for solar home systems, and other developing countries (e.g., Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania in Africa; China, India and Nepal in Asia; Brazil and Guyana in Latin America) are seeing rapid expansion of small-scale renewable systems, including renewables-based mini-grids, to provide electricity for people living far from the grid.”

Overall, renewables accounted for a third of all power generation in the UK, with wind providing 17 per cent, solar four per cent, and biomass 11 per cent,analysis byCarbon Brieffound earlier this month. Nuclear also accounted for a fifth of UK generation, taking low carbon power's share of the mix to a record high of 53 per cent.

The UK now draws more electricity from renewable energy sources than from fossil fuels. In a national first, the UK’s capacity for renewable energy is greater than that of coal and other fossil fuels.

So yes the uk and other countries do want to move towards a more renewably powered future. All this insane growth has occured while fossil fuels have had more funding.

So, People living in poverty in third world countries on the other hand are desperate to get their hands on fossil fuels, as much as is humanly possible = FALSE

These people need cheap, efficient, powerful energy of the type that only fossil fuels can provide = RENEWABLES ARE ACTUALLY NOW CHEAPER AND MORE RELIABLE, ESPECIALLY WITH BATTERY STORAGE.

A society’s child mortality rates decrease when CO2 output goes up = BECAUSE OIR SYSTEMS TRADITIONALLY RUN ON FOSSIL FUELS. RENEWABLES CAN STILL RUN THESE SYSTEMS AND KIDS AREN'T GOING TO DIE JUST BECAUSE SOLAR INSTEAD OF GAS PROVIDES THE ENERGY.

we wouldn’t last two weeks on “sustainable” wave/solar/wind derived energy.= AGAIN, SUCH A LARGE AMOUNT OF RENEWABLES ARE ALREADY POWERING THE UK.

Norway, Iceland, Uruguay, Paraguay and Costa Rica have already managed to go 100% renewable, using combinations of wind, hydro and geothermal methods of generation. And that’s not all; Denmark have already demonstrated that they can rely on nothing more than wind power to supply a day’s worth of energy

So yep countries can survive on renewables for more then two weeks .

I'll stop now

My one kid did go and the other didn't. The one who went did so because it was better than going to school. No real commitment to the environment. Which I did not approve of but they are not actually my child.

Of course there was a better turnout than if it was on a Saturday morning or half term!

And some of them passionately believe in the cause but not all.

Very proud of all who went on strike - if your child was one of them a big thank you from me.

Great posts Tiscold!

Could you post a link to the Stanford study by any chance?

16 and 17 year olds can vote in Scotland in Scottish Government and Coincil elections as well as Indyrefs, past and future

Although it is early days, there is evidence that by being allowed to vote at a younger age, they continue to vote in subsequent elections in higher proportions than England elsewhere

Bless those kids that went on strike, wonder how many of them could write an essay on the subject (and who did)?

Struggling to find the studies, theyre linked in here somewhere web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/susenergy2030.html

I read it on another site which i will try find for you.

A lot of this info i posted came from multiple sources however a simple google search can show a lot of info. Such as renewable energy now cheapest energy form, how will third world and poor nations benefit from renewables and affect of climate change on the poorest countries.