Sydney Ewing-Australian Prime Minister Bashes Walkouts for Clinate Change

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has criticized children who participated in the School Strike 4 Climate Action walkouts against the lack of political action to prevent climate change. Morrison stated that “we want more learning in schools and less activism in schools” during the question time at Parliament. His argument is that children should be in school instead of walking out to participate in the strikes that can be “dealt with outside of school.” Morrison did state some of the ways that the Australian government is tackling climate change before he states his opinion on the walkouts. The goal of the strikes is to cancel the proposed coal mine in Queensland and any future coal or gas projects and a shift to 100% renewable energy by 2030.

I usually don't use quotes for these blog posts but I couldn't resist telling you guys verbatim what the Prime Minister said. At first I was shocked by his initial statement, but after reading a little more of his argument I sort of understood where he was coming from. One student responded to his position on Twitter stating that they sacrificed a bit of education because the government hadn’t been dealing with the problem. Personally, I do think Morrison's response was a bit aggressive, and responding to the walkouts in any way isn't the best choice considering it is something so trivial and it could cause some extra animosities and criticisms to arise. When I say “trivial,” I am referring to the amount of time that the walkouts are actually taking. If Australian schools are anything like American public schools then they should have plenty of time to spare for a walkout. But then again I've met many American students who were opposed to walk outside because they believed they were a waste of time… so I suppose the PM's views aren't completely irregular. I'm not sure what rights Australians have,  but things like this are included in the Bill of Rights for American citizens. The Bill of Rights was intended to protect rights such as these and give Americans the freedom to pursue them. So maybe that's why American politicians don't really concern themselves with walkouts and other protests. Why bother aggressively opposing something that is protected in the Constitution?

Here's the article:
https://www-m.cnn.com/2018/11/26/australia/australia-pm-climate-protest-scli-intl/index.html?r=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnn.com%2Fworld