Students get prepared for the next global climate strike

Students across the world are busy using the last few days before the next climate strike to hammer home the urgency of ecological catastrophe.

Climate activists are preparing to take to the streets in a global school student’s day of action on Friday 29 November.

Ciar is from the UK Schools Climate Network, an o­rganisation that helps to coordinate the strikes in Britain.

He said they hope to build on the success of the global climate strike in September, when workers joined students on the street for the first time.

“The 20 September was so important to get the trade unions and the adults on our side—especially with the next strike being during the general election,” he told Socialist Worker.

“If we get a Tory government, or a government unwilling to take action on the climate we’re going to be fucked.”

Protest group Extinction Rebellion has suggested its members lobby MPs to support action on climate change, and produce publicity comparing candidates’ records on the climate.

“We stand as a siren to warn whoever leads government that the house over which they rule is burning.

“We seek to remind our leaders that everybody answers to somebody, and eventually we all answer to the Earth,” it said.

The climate crisis was writ large across Australia as hundreds of fires reached ­record-breaking heights.

Scorching

Unusually strong winds and scorching temperatures make it hard for emergency services to contain the blazes.

In New South Wales, the fires have burnt through more land than any other season in the last 25 years, said the state’s Rural Fire Service. Residents were battling widespread storms that battered parts of Queensland on Monday.

Catastrophic winds felled trees, and car windows were smashed by hailstorms.

Now drought looms, and people in some areas have been asked to limit their water consumption.

Fires have damaged the Cressbrook Dam pump station—the region’s largest source of water.

Toowoomba mayor Paul Antonio said, “I have never seen a scenario like this—it’s the perfect storm.”

He said the amount of land burnt out “was expanding by the minute”. Residents have been issued with instructions to leave immediately as ­firefighters struggled to contain the blazes.

“This fire is out of control, we are doing all we can to contain it, but we will not risk limb and life,” said Antonio.

The crisis drove emergency services to breaking point.

Wayne Waltisbuhl from Queensland Fire said, “Across Australia it’s getting really tough to move firefighters around because all the states are now in their fire seasons.

“We’re really at a bit of a pinch point at the moment.”