Castlemaine students are among the many Australians who continue to demand meaningful action to address climate change.
And on Friday afternoon the local teens took their concerns to the streets yet again.
This time at least 50 students including many from Castlemaine Secondary College took strike action, marching from their schools to Castlemaine’s Theatre Royal to view the documentary film 2040. The positive hypothetical climate action film highlights what could be achieved if governments took significant positive action today to move to a renewable energy future.
“The main aim is to show that we care about climate action,” said Niamh O’Connor Smith, one of the Castlemaine students.
“We’re here to strike for climate as well as to watch a movie that is so integral about our future.
“There are 50 plus of us here today. Some of us come from Castlemaine Secondary, some of us are from Bendigo Senior and some of us are from Girton.”
Another of the local students participating in Friday’s action, Emilia Vellacott, said they were also preparing to join the upcoming global #ClimateStrike set for Melbourne on September 20 – three days before the United Nations next Climate Summit.
“I think we’re just going to keep striking and keep doing our best in our communities and keep rallying around the country and around the world to get the government to get a comprehensible program – not policy – for climate,” Emilia said.
“We have a global strike on September 20. That will be in Melbourne and then we’re also going to do community based projects here.”
Niamh said these would include lobbying politicians and governments for meaningful climate actions.
In 2040, award-winning director Damon Gameau (That Sugar Film) embarks on journey to explore what the future could look like by the year 2040 if society embraced the best solutions already available to benefit the planet and shifted them rapidly into the mainstream.
The movie screens again at the Theatre Royal this Wednesday June 26 at 5pm with more sessions to be announced in July.
