The Student Room Group

Climate strike supported by millions of young people globally

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I've said it before and I'll say it again, more knives are taking lives in London than climate change. There are no protests to solve the high crime rate in London and instead people will campaign for this just because the rest of the world is doing it. It's as if these people don't care about the communities who are suffering from this crime at the moment. We aren't suffering from climate change or temperatures, we are suffering from gangsters with knives. Where are the real protests at?
Reply 21
Original post by Fullofsurprises
Sadly, many British people won't be aware this is happening, due to a news blackout in the right wing media today.

But if you are protesting climate change, isn't it hypocritical to want your message carried by tv, radio or online, using large amounts of electricity, and the world's resources to manufacture the systems?
Reply 22
Original post by DR.DOOM
I've said it before and I'll say it again, more knives are taking lives in London than climate change. There are no protests to solve the high crime rate in London and instead people will campaign for this just because the rest of the world is doing it. It's as if these people don't care about the communities who are suffering from this crime at the moment. We aren't suffering from climate change or temperatures, we are suffering from gangsters with knives. Where are the real protests at?

You may have noticed all this stuff is put together by the most ill-equipped people to deal with anything earthly.
Reply 23
Original post by Surnia
But if you are protesting climate change, isn't it hypocritical to want your message carried by tv, radio or online, using large amounts of electricity, and the world's resources to manufacture the systems?

They could come up with a day every week when they'd leave their mobiles alone, that would be a truly symbolic and determined gesture.
Original post by Surnia
But if you are protesting climate change, isn't it hypocritical to want your message carried by tv, radio or online, using large amounts of electricity, and the world's resources to manufacture the systems?

Every aspect of how we live needs scrutinising in the light of abnormally high CO2 emissions and the threat they pose. The tech sector is no different and they clearly need to improve and emit as little as possible. Electricity production is moving globally away from fossil fuels, but yes, of course more needs to be done. In the meantime, it would be stupid not to use all possible media to get the message across, given that up to now most of the media has merely served as a mouthpiece for fossil fuel industry-funded PR.
Original post by DR.DOOM
I've said it before and I'll say it again, more knives are taking lives in London than climate change. There are no protests to solve the high crime rate in London and instead people will campaign for this just because the rest of the world is doing it. It's as if these people don't care about the communities who are suffering from this crime at the moment. We aren't suffering from climate change or temperatures, we are suffering from gangsters with knives. Where are the real protests at?

Nobody is arguing that it is killing people in the UK right now, this is about a threat to our entire survival as a species. Of course knife crime (and many crimes) are horrible and resources need applying to those. Nobody is saying otherwise. This is a question of perspective, weighing up something that threatens everyone with the effort we all need to put into stopping the threat or alleviating it. We should unite behind the science.
Original post by Surnia
But if you are protesting climate change, isn't it hypocritical to want your message carried by tv, radio or online, using large amounts of electricity, and the world's resources to manufacture the systems?

Not really. Protesters don't exactly have control over any of that. The idea isn't to stop using any resources. The idea is to create methods of using resources in a sustainable environmentally friendly manner. That's the government and big business' domain. Nobody for example is going to give up flying. If you try to persuade people to then its a lost cause. What we should be doing is trying to find a way of making planes which don't contribute CO2 emissions to the atmosphere.
I agree with the message but not the method. I saw people saying their main aim was to get in the way of traffic and that’s just not right to me (because then you’re keeping them pumping fumes for longer, ironically). Now we need this outside manufacturers and Downing Street :smile:
Original post by Fullofsurprises
Sadly, many British people won't be aware this is happening, due to a news blackout in the right wing media today. It's almost as if they choose to disregard the millions of voices being raised for the ecology of the planet and our survival, in favour of the interests of their owners in investing in destructive capitalism.

Should you wish to spout such conspiracies in future, may I suggest you visit this website which is full of your fellow conspiracists: https://www.breitbart.com

I'm sure everyone on TSR knows my thoughts on the climate ”strike”, so I don't see the need to re-expose them here. And now, a report from our Finland correspondent *walks off screen and walks back on again*

My research has shown that Extinction Rebellion have tried to establish themselves in Finland's universities. This went as well as you would expect, in a country when the headline on Hesari (the main broadsheet paper in Finland) is a report on student binge-drinking in Tampere, Pirkanmaa. Interestingly enough, they style themselves ”Elokapina*” when the proper translation would be ”samallinenin kapina”. Followers of English politics are advised that Extinction Rebellion and the EDL are linked in Wikipedia (at least in the Finnish version) and their algorithm.

* which as far as I understand is badly written Finnish for ”Life Rebellion”.
Original post by Fullofsurprises
I would suggest keeping up with the topic a little more from sources like New Scientist. The models that give us until 2050 are now quite widely regarded as insufficient.


Depends what you mean by "us". If you mean the UK, then yes, as our emissions are already declining, we need to reach net zero before 2050 to give those countries who haven't peaked yet the time they need. But if you mean the world, then this is a popular talking point among certain types of activists and journalists, but highly contested at best among scientists, and some of them do find it a bit annoying and unhelpful.

There are also tipping points that happen at CO2 levels that are similar to those that are around already - we can see some of those tipping points, like the melting of Greenland


The tipping point of the Greenland ice melt is a worry, but it's very unlikely it'll be crossed if we reach net zero by 2050, since such a pathway would almost certainly keep us under a 2 degree rise, and current research deems most tipping points, the Greenland Ice Sheet included, as "Unlikely" at a 2C rise (see p25).

Also worth mentioning that even when a tipping point has been passed, it can take a loooong time for them to actually pan out. For example, even under continually rising emissions, the shortest predictions for the melt of the whole GIS are about 1000 years.

and the destruction of the Siberian permafrost in the ice records.


Worry less about this than the GIS tipping point - this tipping point isn't projected to be crossed until we hit over 5C warming.


They would induce both significant city-drowning and mass population-moving sea level rises and surging CO2 levels from Methane release.


CO2 levels won't surge from methane release. If the methane breaks down into CO2, it will raise CO2 levels marginally (which isn't to be dismissed, it makes holding temperatures down just that bit more difficult, but it's not instant catastrophe). If it didn't break down and stayed as methane, that would be a lot more scary, but these kind of huge unbroken methane releases are considered pretty fringe conjectural theories in most mainstream science.
While I certainly believe that global warming is a threat, I do wonder how many of the teenagers/students who protested today would have done so if it had been a weekend.
I remember how many chavs at my school protested against the 2003 Iraq War just because it was an excuse to skive off of school. I doubt most of them even knew where Iraq was
Original post by Surnia
But if you are protesting climate change, isn't it hypocritical to want your message carried by tv, radio or online, using large amounts of electricity, and the world's resources to manufacture the systems?


This only really applies if you are advocating for a primitivist solution to climate change. Most climate actavists support some level of technological solution.
Original post by z-hog
They could come up with a day every week when they'd leave their mobiles alone, that would be a truly symbolic and determined gesture.

How about we all work one less day a week? I'm willing to amke the sacrifice. Are you?
Original post by James23121
The idea is to create methods of using resources in a sustainable environmentally friendly manner.

What if that is not possible? What if the only viable attempt to reverse climate change is a massive drop in living standards?
Reply 34
Original post by ChaoticButterfly
How about we all work one less day a week? I'm willing to amke the sacrifice. Are you?

Are you talking about same money or a pay cut?

What if the only viable attempt to reverse climate change is a massive drop in living standards?


What if we revert to pre-industrial revolution status and the climate keeps changing?
(edited 4 years ago)
Original post by ChaoticButterfly
What if that is not possible? What if the only viable attempt to reverse climate change is a massive drop in living standards?

Then we're doomed. It's human nature. People aren't going to give up their holidays or eating beef or their cars. And governments are too short sighted to stop them either. So yeah not gonna happen. I wish I could say the opposite but climate change is happening much too slowly for governments or the general public to care that much. By the time it gets really bad it will be too late.
Original post by z-hog
Are you talking about same money or a pay cut?



What if we revert to pre-industrial revolution status and the climate keeps changing?

What you're really asking is what if we accidentally create a better world and climate change is a hoax?
Reply 37
Original post by Tempest II
While I certainly believe that global warming is a threat, I do wonder how many of the teenagers/students who protested today would have done so if it had been a weekend.

That's a point but a weekend event at Hyde Park would potentially gather many more who are unable to attend as it is, plus others than students. The publicity would be at least the same, public sympathy could only be higher. It has to be on a weekday because it is a 'strike', it has to be revolutionary and extremist in order to fulfil the sense of changing the world.

I do wonder if stimulating the youth into believing they know better than anybody else what is good for it can be called educational, it's not as if any stimulation has ever been required. Manipulative, more like.
Reply 38
Original post by Rakas21

These people are completely nuts and have not actually read the studies they claim to espouse.


Well one half of them are a bunch of granola chomping vegans who are likely nutrient deficient and the other half are kids playing hooky from school so its not overly surprising
Reply 39
Original post by z-hog

What if we revert to pre-industrial revolution status and the climate keeps changing?

The question isnt about whether or not its changing but by how much and how quickly.

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