Last week, the Empire-Advance shared the story of Virden Junior High students participating in Global Climate Strike week.
You may recall the students made protest signs against climate change, marched through the halls with them, and held a mock extinction in the gym.
When the story was posted to the paper’s website and Facebook, the negative backtalk began online. No surprise there. However, the criticism of the students and flat out rejection of climate science WAS unexpected.
Several of the commenters argued that a) human-caused climate change is fake news or a matter of opinion, and b) it should not be taught in schools.
Some of them even shamed the teachers and students for their participation, despite the fact that climate change is part of the science curriculum in Fort La Bosse School Division.
One of our regular online readers, Christopher Cramer, bravely stepped in and argued for science. He asked why it’s so easy for us to trust other scientific marvels like medicine and airplanes but not climate science.
Whatever the reason, children and teachers should never be insulted for trying to make the world a better place. Hope should never be mocked.
After all, VJH students along with activists worldwide are on a win-win-win campaign that could benefit us all, regardless of what causes climate change:
- If climate change really is caused by people, and today’s activists and scientists can save us from it… yay for all of us.
- If climate change is a naturally occurring phenomenon, and today’s activists and scientists manage to reduce the negative effects thereby saving our species… yay for all of us. Maybe we don’t all have to die like the dinosaurs.
- But if climate change turns out to be a hoax/conspiracy/fake news after we go to all the trouble of making the water, air and land cleaner… yay for all of us, anyway. We get a better world by default for our descendants.
