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.
Hey if it gets you out of school I am sure you are for it. I would love to have gotten out of school for something as trivial as this.
They’re right. They should boycott schools that are pushing emotions over scientific and practical analysis.
But only on Friday’s so they can have long weekends. Like the “Save The Plant” Pot sign
Street theater has become a banal bore. And darling, it just makes you look like a tool. Seriously.
Well said.
We are all familiar with the idea of using proxy data to reconstruct the past solar activity and more recent or the very distant past of the climate’s natural variability.
What the UK and US are not familiar is using the school children as proxies for political propaganda.
Some of us have been there, done that and realised (here at age of 16) that reality is not always as we were or are told. These kids are young enough to live to see if the cause they are ‘fighting’ for was right or not.
The power of propaganda on display. She will live long enough to see world domination by joint global totalitarianism and by the time she wakes up it will be too late to fix it with votes. At that point protest, against the power of government, will be answered with imprisonment and death. Tiananmen Square Sweet Cheeks.
“The power of propaganda on display.”
That’s exactly what it is.
Propaganda and Lies are an existential threat to our personal freedoms. Voters cannot make the proper votes without the truth. Otherwise, they will mistakenly vote for Democrats or Socialists who will steal all our freedoms away, under the guise of doing what is best for us.
Unfortunately, the Democrats and the Socialists have control of the Propaganda Machine, the Leftwing News Media and the Leftwing Entertainment Media and the Leftwing School System.
We have a long struggle ahead, and it won’t be easy, but there is still hope that enough people will see through all the propaganda and will put the right people in office (Trump) to get us away from the horrors of Socialism/Authoritarianism..
Did this happen two weeks ago?
How does a schoolchild withdrawing their labour affect anyone but themselves?
This isn’t a strike. It’s a truant.
It’s a tragically sad response to brainwashing children into a genuinely held fear of something which is not going to happen, and for which there is no genuine evidence.
It is purely cynical on the part of the U.N. and the IPCC as it uses this to try and create a global, anti-capitalist government along left-wing socialist-marxist lines and at the same time to destroy western economies. It is pure greed on the part of the green industrial complex that feeds off of and profits from this fear, and moreover provides millions of $ for propaganda to promote and perpetuate it so as to grow its industry.
These children have been groomed and I dread to think how they will see and feel about “Science” and politicians when they realise they have been lied to and betrayed.
Excellent comment!
Yes, as the old Latin expression goes: Mundus vult decipi.😕
I had to look it up….so what?
Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur. I should have known…a Latin phrase, means “The world wants to be deceived, so let it be deceived.”
Just like the Maxim of law “Let him who is deceived, be deceived”.
The same way all socialists react when they discover their theories don’t work and can never work. Double down and believe twice as hard next time.
Only two things are less intelligent; parent 1 and parent 2.
You are assuming there are two parents!
The really dark side of this is that the people organising this are using the same techniques as Hitler used with his Youth Movement.
Do I need to explain?
Somehow I doubt that a sceptical Teacher would survive in the educational system these days.
The techniques used by Hitler with his Youth Movement were the exact same techniques Baden-Powell used with his Scout Movement.
It’s not the techniques. It’s the morality.
The wrong does not necessarily have the might.
My wife, who grew up in Canada, recalls the ‘state of fear’ drummed up during the Cuban missile crisis,when she and other kids were worried, on their way out to school, that it might be the last time they saw their Mom and Dad. At the same time, I was in England, where most people wondered just WHY the Yanks had got so terrified. And now we know – it was mostly propaganda. Just like the CAGW these days – except then, I think that the Europeans Were smarter!
In 1970, I was 13yo … and to “celebrate” the very first “Earth Day” … my middle school administration organized a MARCH of the entire student body through the downtown of our beautiful upper, upper, middle class N.CA suburban bedroom community … during the school day. We were used as political pawns by a radical leftist administration who framed the truancy as “educational”. Yes, it was educational … I learned how Political theatre is the currency of leftist politics.
This is only a beginning. In April 1945 Germany actually drafted schoolchildren – only to find that they were not indoctrinated enough to die for Das Vaterland.
And these days they are probably not indoctrinated enough to sacrifice their expensive Iphones/laptops for the climate.
“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.”
What more other than the fact that she is staging a “sit-in” against climate do you need to conclude that her education is already a casualty in the “war of the greenies.” Truth is always the first casualty in times of war.
Poor kid. Another AOC being produced by the K thru 12 school systems?
What impact?
Nations must commit to cutting fossil-fuel emissions in half in the next 10 years”
“My generation is really upset.”
…she changes into her striking uniform: waterproof ski pants
Which are made from nylon, polyester or Gore-Tex (PTFE) etc
I’m guessing this 13-year-old won’t be doing chemistry. Why bother, she knows it all, right
“I’m guessing this 13-year-old won’t be doing chemistry. ”
And she lived through the pause, too.
“And she lived through the pause, too.”
Yeah, she won’t know what rising temperatures are like!
Pro-life?
Braving the polar vortex, children hope for a warmer future. Then Spring.
Gore effect?
That’s why Gore-Tex was invented – so lefties would have something warm to wear while the Gore effect dropped a polar vortex onto their planned CAGW protest.
From the linked Article, “Alexandria Villasenor doesn’t remember a world without climate change.”
If it hasn’t been any different all her life, how does she know it has changed?
I’m in my 30’s and haven’t experienced “normal” Utopian weather either.
I don’t think my grandparents and great grandparents were aware they were living in climate Utopia..
Of course the irony is that as in this context climate change is a synonym for global warming she hasn’t experienced much of that in her lifetime either.
She probably has when she left her air conditioned home in summer. The change they want will make energy so expensive that an air conditioned home will be a thing of the past.
Also in winter she will miss all that energy to keep her warm.
When you get to be my age, you’ll realize that it’s way colder than when you were 30 (and global warming is just propaganda).
Poor kid. I’m almost 65. If the seasons didn’t change, if “The Climate” didn’t change, as it always has in roughly 60 year cycles, THEN I might get concerned.
As it is, the changes are all very normal. Poor kid.
PS If she any kind of education all, she’d start to question just what is the cause of the weather changing and why what has happened before is suddenly being “hypered”? To promote “The Cause”?
These poor kids don’t understand they live in an ice age. They probably also didn’t hear that the communist utopia they want has been tried and everytime killed millions.
Striking means withdrawing one’s labour. Who cares if they mess up their
indoctrinationeducation? It hurts nobody else.In the UK one silly child had a sign reading: Climate Change should be taught in History, not Science
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/02/15/kids-climate-march-why-arent-they-in-school/
These deluded kids are nothing more than useful idiots for the adults pulling their strings.
I see a very good reason to raise the voting age to at least 25.
They also go on strike when they don’t like what’s for dinner?
25? That means they’ve only just left university, where they’ve been indoctrinated in Marxism.
At least 30, so most of them will have had a few years in the real world to learn a few things about reality.
Stop voting for what’s destroying your way of life altogether – bigger and bigger grabbermint.
“At least 30”
Yes, I think 30 years old is about right for a voting age. By that time one’s brain is fully formed.
Excellent idea, and we should also not permit anyone younger than 30 to become a member of our armed services. That way all our soldiers will have fully formed brains. Ditto for first responders.
A better test is to wait until they are net taxpayers. That would exclude people like Keith permanently.
I think an intelligent 18-year-old could cast a proper vote if they were told the truth about the situation on which they are voting.
I think 18-year-olds have more difficulty discerning political truth from lies than older people, because of their lack of experience of the world. They tend to trust authority maybe a little too much, and that is especially problematic when the authorties are distorting the truth for political purposes, which is the case with today’s politics.
Actually climate change probably should be taught in History.
“Once it was hotter, then we had a little ice age, the it got warmer for a bit (but still not warm enough for grow grapes in Greenland) and then everyone died horrible heat death after a tree ring fell off a hockey stick.”
Probably also should be taught in law under Fraud.
Actual science should be left to those who understand how basic scientific method works.
Isn’t it child abuse to allow her to stay on the streets like that? The picture of her bundled up in that big sleeping bag made me wonder where the desperate street people of New York City are hiding. That bag would house at least two people.
I too was thinking of that sleeping bag the young lady is rolled up in. I suspect it is made of nylon or maybe a blend of nylon and polyester which are made from — guess what — crude oil. Wondering if the young lady knows what hypocrisy is.
Apparently the parents and teachers of these children have been remiss in not teaching them the concept of ‘Intellectual Dishonesty’.
As we watch minors being incorporated into the Climate Alarmist Movement, let us remind ourselves here of the incorporation of Germany’s youth (Hitler Youth Movement) into the Nazi movement in Germany in the 1930s and 40s:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDMu4QylVRQ.
So the alarmists get the cues not just be Orwell’s “Nineteen-Eighty Four,” but from Nazi Germany as well. I find it disgusting to see history being repeated in this way with minors.
In the mid 60s we had a German graduate student in our group of MSc students. He walked badly, with a limp caused by a Russian bullet to his lower leg. He got it when he was 12yo defending Berlin. He still thought that the world would be a better place if Hitler had won. What kids learn young can easily last a lifetime.
“Children’s Climate Change Strike Spreads to the USA”. Not unlike the way cancer spreads. It feeds off of ignorance, emotionalism, and hysteria, and its enemies are knowledge, logic, and clear-headedness. Mush-brained kiddos are the perfect vehicle such nonsense.
Just like the Children’s Crusade, the annoited have a unique talent for serving youth to the meat grinder.
Ignorant and naive children exploited by teachers and parents to push views these adults are not prepared to push in their own free time and on their own dime. They need to be given heavy fines to stop the nonsense.
Cure: One way or another, federal funds stream to support schools, which in turn are required to meet standards, in particular, by holding classes to which attendance is required for a certain number of days per year.
1. Require students to attend makeup days during “their summer”
2. Otherwise, diminish the educational funding support accordingly.
Shouldn’t take long to see the light.
It is CAGW ‘(THE IDEA)”s kinder shock troops.
I predict that CNN, ABC, and so on fake news crews who will consist of young pretty woman will film and interview the children protestors.
The young children protestors will look cute and will say ‘someone must save the planet’ and ‘please spend all our country’s money on ‘green stuff’ that does not work so we can be unemployed and have the highest electrical rates in the world’.
Pepsi..?
It would be great to interview her and ask some basic questions. How much CO2 by volume in the atmosphere? How much is human caused? How much has it increased in the last 100 years? What is the most common “greenhouse gas”? What is solar radiation? What parts of solar radiation are involved in heating the atmosphere? What role does conduction, convection etc play in heat transfer? How does the ocean (water) heat? What is the heat capacity of water and air? What is photosynthesis? What is sequestration? How does CO2 differ from carbon? You get the point. Bet she doesn’t know any of this in grade 7. She just knows she doesn’t want to die = child abuse.
I wouldn’t even go as far as CO2. I would say… “You are on strike to protest global warming?” “Yes…” “Because the world is… too hot?” “Yes…”
The next part of my interview didn’t come out because it was in angle brackets. It was going to be: (stare at giant toasty sleep bag until the irony sinks in)
Of course the irony is that as in this context climate change is a synonym for global warming she hasn’t experienced much of that in her lifetime either.
Quite true. The NOAA Climate Reference System CONUS temperature chart shows wide fluctuations but no overall change since the system started, about 13 years ago.
They are rebels without a clue.
“…with the support of some of the world’s biggest environmental groups….” who are weaponizing our children. Do we call them Climate Youth?
“We’re not going to let them . . . hand us down a broken planet.”
No, you’re going to _guarantee_ that they do, by removing all the benefits of modern society.
Only people over 60 have personally experienced 30 years of a slightly cooler climate and 30 years of a slightly warmer climate.
In both cases there was a media panic ascribing observations to human activity.
Schoolkids know nothing and are easily manipulated by politically motivated educators.
Actually we have experience a lot more. We have probably lived in a number of different climatic zones, survived droughts and floods, felt scorching heat and bitter cold, fierce gales and perhaps the doldrums.
Those of us who love history have also read journals of people written many years ago by people living in these same areas with very similar experiences. It is a joke that “extreme”(sic) weather is a modern phenomenon and directly attributable to the increased Carbon Dioxide concentration
“No, you’re going to _guarantee_ that they do, by removing all the benefits of modern society.”
And by not learning proper science.
Where, oh where, are their teachers in all of this?
There are five obvious questions the teachers should already have asked—or will in the near future ask—their students, who they are responsible for educating:
1) What do YOU mean be the term “climate change”?
2) If you cannot answer the above question, who has defined “climate change” explicitly for you . . . and which of the following does that definition include:
— the world getting hotter in summers, or colder in winters,
— the world suffering from flooding, or from droughts,
— the world suffering from too much CO2, or too little CO2 for optimum crop growth to feed humanity,
— the world suffering from too much cloud cover, or too little cloud cover,
— the world suffering from too many insects (pests), or too few insects (species extinction),
— the world suffering from too many El Ninos, or too many La Ninas?
— the world suffering from too much wind (claimed increase in storms of all types) or too little wind (for windmill power farms to be reliable)?
3) What is the ideal climate that we should pick, for the whole world, so that we can fight to prevent it from having any future change whatsoever?
4) What is the scientific evidence that “carbon emissions” by mankind’s activities have been proved to affect climate change, keeping in mind that increases in atmospheric CO2 levels have never been proven scientifically to cause the amount of global warming observed over the last 200 years?
5) What caused the scientifically-documented, multiple periods of tens-of-thousands of years of continuous global warming before humans ever walked on earth?
If you are going to play in the game, you have to walk-the-walk and talk-the-talk.
As for where the students’ parents are in all of this . . . ignorance is bliss, as the saying goes.
You are on the right track. I would add a couple of comments:
Teachers need to define “climate”, “climate change” and “weather” and explain climatic zones.
Teachers must recognize that a 5ºC increase in the average for a certain area does not necessarily mean it will be unlivable. Colder areas will benefit from the increase. Even in many warmer areas, as long as there is water, we can adapt.
Teachers should notice that many live in areas that do not have the most pleasant climates while avoiding areas with pleasant climates that are plagued by crime, civil strife or war.
Where, oh where, are their teachers in all of this?
they’re the ones filling this child’s head with this nonsense.
I have said it before, and I’ll say it again. The eventual backlash from these kids when they are adults and realise they have been lied to will be monumental.
The important thing to remember is that it’s not the kids who are doing the ‘striking’ and marching that are the important ones, it’s the ones who aren’t involved, the ones who think the fanatics are arseholes that matter. There are an awful lot more of them than there are strikers.
And in my experience, the more you forcefully cram an ideology down a child’s throat, the bigger the rebellion against it. These ‘protesters’ are probably outnumbered 20:1 by their peers and whilst the rest are out doing what most kids do, party, this mob are sacrificing themselves to the great god Gaia. If a kid could find anything more uncool to do, I’m struggling to imagine what it might be.
Are kids interested….really?
This essay from the GWPF says it all really, but from my perspective, in the last few pages where it describes kids being fed up of having their childhood fun ruined by green zealots telling them every day how naughty they and their parents have been by driving a car, flying off on holiday or switching on their heating.
https://tinyurl.com/y4ed9v6k
The resentment is gradually building.
I get the feeling that it’s an authority high and a celebrity status, even if only temporarily, that they are getting a kick out of. If nobody paid attention, they wouldn’t do it more than once. But the media interviews them and they get some attention. This goes to their heads and they want more.
They could wake up to themselves and become normal citizens. Or they could be given even more money and authority and end up another Bill McKibben.
I do not know but this “action” might just work.
A well indoctrinated young woman,sits outside the UN Headquarters,encased in fabric derived from fossil fuels in the cold.
There is a clear and present danger here.
To her indoctrination that is.
Let me break this down,a teenager sitting outside the offices of some of the most corrupt and criminal persons on the planet.
I suspect she may not enjoy some of the interactions .
And while concerned about “C.A.Global Warming” she will sit,bundled against the cold…
Plenty of time for the obvious to gnaw away at her certitude.
Do we get 10 year follow ups on these climate crusaders?
Sort of an Oprah’s where are they now?
It’s not enough that we have to be berated and lectured to by a 29 year old economic illiterate dingbat, now we have to succumb to the wisdom of a 13 year old.
In order to finish the cultural revolution, we need to mercilessness of 13-year-old children. The Great Leap forward to fossil free economy is awaiting for them. First they need to start jailing adults that are against.
I’m sorry for stating the obvious, but both Mao Zedong and Hitler-Jugend come to my mind.
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.
Recommended reading: “Lord of the Flies” by William Golding
Did you ever see the film, Barcoo?
I read the book and saw the (original) film. One of the interesting things about the film is that the child actors started to behave off set in just the same way. Then again that was part of the Peter Brook (director) method: he placed the children in almost the real situation, and let the cameras roll, watching them react.
“Climate protest pupils are arrested for halting traffic”
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/school-children-go-on-strike-over-climate-change-00s9vc85v
Oh dear, how sad, never mind.
I don’t think there is a penalty in the US for child indoctrination into cultism.
Germany tried to create laws against child indoctrination after the Hitler jungen movement.
The “adults” behind this ought to face jail time. And I mean for child abuse to promote illegal activity
Why do snowflakes fear global warming? 🙂
My earliest memories of childhood indoctrination in schools date back to the late 1960s.
Back then, the WWF was getting us to sell black&white prints of panda bears for charity and telling us that we were going to run out of absolutely everything, particularly rain-forest, unless we repented.
Even then I was slightly skeptical, possibly because the adults probably didn’t really seem to believe it either and children do notice these things. The only thing that seems to have changed over the years is that some of the alarmists have learned to code, but still haven’t themselves much formal science which would allow them to shoot gaping holes in most of the scare stories.
I’ve got tickets for me and the missus for Manchester United v Southampton on Saturday March 02 at 3pm and I will be driving my Kuga the 220 miles down from Scotland and back.
Don’t tell the snowflakes.
The snowflakes would have flown.
These kids have been brainwashed by Leftist teachers following Leftist programs of study, and now the students are being used as tools to further this agenda. Parents need to demand an accounting from the schools regarding these actions. One of the problems is due to semi-qualified teachers whose general knowledge extends no further than the curriculum itself. Someone needs to ask both teachers and students what power sources are supplying the heat and light to their schools and homes, and how they managed to get to the places of protest.
To think that James Hansen started all of this mess. He should be tried for crimes against humanity.
James Hansen is not the one behind the curtain. Behind the curtain must be an Mafia like organisation with unlimited resources. Who could that be? Who wants to enslave humanity?
“Hi, I am 13 and DEMAND that everyone older than me puts me in charge. The future belongs to me and no one else is allowed any say in how the planet will be run.”
What odds young Alex, assuming she doesn’t freeze to death, is willing to let teenagers push her around when she turns 26.
Spoilt ego driven little (cough). You are 13. The planet doesn’t become yours the day you start shaving your legs. There are billions of other people aging at exactly the same rate as you. Many of them will have lives that overlap yours by a significant margin. What remotely makes you think that YOU and YOUR life are more important than theirs?
You are a selfish little snot, Alex. Come back to me after you are responsible enough to pay your own utility bills.
And clean up your room first.
In long run it’ll work against the left.
When kids grow-up they’ll resent being manipulated.
Many will become conservative whereas they likely would not if the left hadn’t been so manipulative.
No like hippies they will remember good things about a really stupid time in their history.
And everything else will be lost in the smoke of legal pot.
These are NOT “School children strikes”, they are teacher orchestrated and funded by taxpayers.
Who has said there is going to be catastrophic global warming?
Alarmists have said there is going to be catastrophic global warming (CAGW).
Skeptics say, there is no evidence that CO2 is adding any net heat to the Earth’s atmosphere, and it was warmer in the recent past even though CO2 concentrations were much lower. So there is no evidence that CO2 is the Earth’s weather control knob.
Is that the kind of answer you wanted, or did you just want to nitpik “catastrophic”?.
Truant officers would detain this child and arrest the parents if this weren’t New York City.
Oh, Man, these kids cannot be as dumb as I was at their age. Convinced that the last trees suitable for paper production were about to run out I did some panic buying. Spent a chunk of my savings on a big stack of A5, saying: “I’m not going to have MY studies disrupted by a lack of something to write on!”
I didn’t know the difference between A4 and A5, and had the stuff on my hands for years.
You were not dumb. You were just mislead.
Is it in the teachers union contract?
The columnist in the (London) Sunday Times – Rod Liddle – was particularly scathing about his 13-year-old daughter’s commitment to the cause.
She was delighted to miss a double maths lesson to go on the march, before leaving the next day for a skiing holiday in Norway with her mother.
Give the kids what they want:
Turn the thermostats down to 50°F in classrooms.
No school busses unless you live over 2 miles from school. You must walk to school withing that radius. Schools will not have parking lots for cars driven by high schoolers. They walk or ride the bus.
Dim the lights to half or use all LED bulbs.
NO computers, cell phones, etc.
All homework must been done on paper (recycled, of course) with a #2 pencil or ink pen.
Lunches will all be COLD and served in reusable bags or trays the kids provide. NO plastic allowed. Wood or paper trays only with the kids names on them.
NO backpacks. Carry your books, pencils and so forth like kids did in the past.
All clothing must be cotton or a natural fabric. Uniforms are best.
No vending machines—they use electricity.
In my day we would have just smacked this child’s bottom and sent her up to her room without supper.
“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.”
___________________________________________________
Leaves questions:
– when students “strike” every Friday they miss 1 of 5 days in school. That’s 20% study time.
– how can “students” travel to Friday strike cities – does mommy pay for?
– does mommy know student misses 20% study time?
– ain’t mommy + daddy legally required to send students to scool.
___________________________________________________
Who cares. We stick to penguin tossing:
https://www.google.com/search?q=penguin+tossing+game&oq=penguin+tossing&aqs=chrome.
It’s child abuse to frighten children with doomsday scenarios, to use them as propaganda tools, striking against what? The machines that keep them warm at night, that harvest their food, and manufacture their clothes and shelter? The trucks that deliver their sustenance to the cities?
Climate panic has triggered the moral equivalent of tossing virgins onto bonfires to appease the gods.
She “doesn’t remember a world without climate change.” I’ve been on this planet much longer than her and, ironically, neither do I. But really, climate is measured in 30 year intervals. How much climate has she experienced?
? are the parents going to drive them to the march because they will not walk the dog
Alexandria Villasenor doesn’t remember a world without climate change.
Of course she doesn’t, Climate is always changing and always will. That said, what she considers climate change (IE man’s emission of CO2 causing temps to rise) hasn’t actually existed during her short life time, as she’s lived almost her entire life during the “pause” when CO2 rose but the trend in temps was flat (and if it wasn’t for a recent el nino, it would have been her entire life lived during the “pause”)