All Campaigns subcategories:
Environment keywords:
Climate change
Highlight keywords |
Print this article
Search site for keywords: Climate change - Students - Young people - Socialist Students
Socialist change, not climate change!
- Build a movement to challenge the profit system
- Build mass walkouts on 15 March
Student climate strikers blocking the road at Parliament Square, photo James Ivens (Click to enlarge)
Gareth Bromhall, Swansea Socialist Students
"We have not come here to beg the world leaders to care for our future. They have ignored us in the past and they will ignore us again.
"We have come here to let them know that change is coming whether they like it or not. The people will rise to the challenge."
This was the rallying cry of 15-year-old Swedish climate activist leader Greta Thunberg, addressing world leaders at the United Nations climate change conference last year.
Since then hundreds of thousands of school, college and university students across the world have joined a wave of strike action and direct action.
Young people are facing the reality that just 100 companies are to blame for 71% of global carbon emissions, and that only 26 individuals own and control wealth equivalent to half of the world's population - some 3.8 billion poor people.
Young people realise that this capitalist hoarding and reckless disregard for the planet cannot last.
And with climate experts claiming we have 12 years left to save the planet, young people are taking to the streets, striking for change.
This movement rocked the UK on 15 February when tens of thousands of students and young people descended on parliament, and thousands more walked out of schools, colleges and campuses across the country on the first #YouthStrike4Climate.
Socialist Students and Young Socialist groups mobilised to take part in what could develop into an important new youth movement, the likes of which we have not seen for nearly a decade.
These strikes, coming just weeks after Socialist Students passed a motion at our national conference to support climate protests and divestment efforts, have captured the imagination of young people.
Awareness
Placards reading "If the earth was a bank it would have been bailed out by now," and "System change not climate change" have been shared widely on social media, showing that this generation of activists - having known only austerity - is becoming aware of what needs to be done to save the planet.
Given the lack of leadership from the trade unions and Labour Party, it is understandable that some students distrust political action, or look mostly to individual lifestyle changes.
But Socialist Students explains that challenging the capitalists responsible for greenhouse gas emissions is inherently political. And only mass collective action for a socialist alternative can achieve it.
Direct action to shut down roads is a valid publicity tactic. But using the power of the organised working class in the trade unions to shut down the capitalist economy is much more effective.
Socialists also need to explain impossibility of solving climate change within the limitations of the capitalist system, and argue that we need to nationalise the energy industry, infrastructure and the commanding heights of the economy (in order to democratically plan society) if we are to have the chance to stop this environmental catastrophe.
Donate to the Socialist Party
Finance appeal
The coronavirus crisis has laid bare the class character of society in numerous ways. It is making clear to many that it is the working class that keeps society running, not the CEOs of major corporations.
The results of austerity have been graphically demonstrated as public services strain to cope with the crisis.
The government has now ripped up its 'austerity' mantra and turned to policies that not long ago were denounced as socialist. But after the corona crisis, it will try to make the working class pay for it, by trying to claw back what has been given.
- The Socialist Party's material is more vital than ever, so we can continue to report from workers who are fighting for better health and safety measures, against layoffs, for adequate staffing levels, etc.
- When the health crisis subsides, we must be ready for the stormy events ahead and the need to arm workers' movements with a socialist programme - one which puts the health and needs of humanity before the profits of a few.
Inevitably, during the crisis we have not been able to sell the Socialist and raise funds in the ways we normally would.
We therefore urgently appeal to all our viewers to donate to our Fighting Fund.
LATEST POSTS
12 May Stop Israeli state brutality
 |
9 May Post-election meetings
15 May Birmingham Socialist Party: How can we fight for socialist change and a new workers' party?
17 May Oxfordshire & Aylesbury Socialist Party: The role of the state
18 May Bristol North Socialist Party: Liverpool - history of socialist struggle
CONTACT US
Phone our national office on 020 8988 8777
Email: [email protected]
Locate your nearest Socialist Party branch Text your name and postcode to 07761 818 206
Regional Socialist Party organisers:
Eastern: 079 8202 1969
East Mids: 077 3797 8057
London: 075 4018 9052
North East: 078 4114 4890
North West 079 5437 6096
South West: 077 5979 6478
Southern: 078 3368 1910
Wales: 079 3539 1947
West Mids: 024 7655 5620
Yorkshire: 078 0983 9793
ABOUT US
ARCHIVE
2020
2019
2018
2017
2016
2015
2014
2013
2012
2011
2010
2009
2008
2007
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
2000
1999