Brighton students to strike over climate change

More than 100 demonstrators are due to take part in the Youth Strike 4 Climate march in Brighton this Friday (February 15) as part of a coordinated day of national action.

Students from the university and local schools could be set to down tools and go on strike as part of the protest.

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First-year student Mary-Jane Farrell, who is helping to organise the Brighton protest, said: “Climate change is a crisis that belongs to everyone, not just environmentalists.

“People around the world are already feeling the affects, and to we need people to not just sit back, but stand up and fight for their own future, as well as the future of others.”

The Youth Strike 4 Climate movement is inspired by the actions of 16-year-old schoolgirl Greta Thunberg, who held a solo demonstration outside of the Swedish parliament last year to help draw attention to the climate crisis.

Now tens of thousands of students and school children from more than 30 towns and cities across the country are set to join the strike, calling on the government to recognise their role in contributing towards climate change and declare a climate emergency.

They are also demanding that the national curriculum be reformed in order to address the ecological crisis, and that the national voting age be brought down from 18 to 16.

Locally the focus of the protest will be on climate justice, which frames global warming as a political and ethical issue, as well as an environmental one.

Another organiser, second-year student Roseanne Steffen, said: “Our aims are to promote the intersectional nature of climate change.

“We are specifically focusing on how the movement is not solely defined by a single issue, and we want to provide people with the opportunities and resources that will hopefully encourage them to get involved in the future.”

According to Miss Steffen, speakers from the student-led Decolonise Sussex campaign will be speaking at the rally alongside Green Party and Brighton Pavilion MP Caroline Lucas.

The strike will meet at the Brighton Clock Tower at 11am, before proceeding with a march through the city.

For more information, visit the Youth Strike 4 Climate Brighton Facebook page.