Source: Greennews.ie
September 17th, 2019
University College Cork has urged its staff and students to join the global school strike against climate inaction this Friday.
The college has
encouraged strong support for young climate activists in an email sent to UCC members
by Professor John O’Halloran, the college’s Deputy President and Registrar.
“UCC supports those
voices from a generation that will be most impacted by climate change,” Mr
O’Halloran said. “We need national and international action now.”
UCC and staff are
slated to hold a climate vigil on the Quad on one of the world’s most
sustainable campuses at 11:30 AM on Friday in support of “a generation working
to demand action on an issue too grave to ignore”.
Speaking to The Green
News, Síofra Richardson of UCC’s Environmental Society welcomed the
university’s invitation of solidarity with young climate activists.
“We are proud to see
our university not only recognises the gravity of the climate crisis but
demonstrating solidarity with grassroots activists,” she said.
“The recognition of
the Global School Strike for Climate by a leading educational institute in
Ireland is monumental for the movement. We are beginning to be taken
seriously.”
Ms Richardson, who
is also a member of Extinction Rebellion (XR), said that UCC’s support of the
youth climate uprising is in line with XR’s “core principles” of “telling the
truth”.
“This action surely
indicates a turning point in public discourse around protest for the
environmental cause. We are no longer alone in this challenge,” she said.
“We look forward to joining fellow students and staff on Friday in standing up for what is right and demanding climate action, now.”
This Friday, thousands
of young people in Ireland and around the world will walk out of their
classrooms and take to streets to reiterate their demands for immediate climate
action from world leaders.
In Ireland, rallies are
slated to take place in various locations across the country including Dublin,
Cork, Limerick, Galway, Tralee and Dundalk, with adult volunteers expressing
their preparedness to preside over the youth rallies.
Almost 20 Irish
academics have
signed an open letter “wholeheartedly” supporting the global climate strike
movement whose concerns rest on “solid, incontrovertible evidence” of a climate
breakdown.
The international letter is
currently signed by over 800 academics mainly from across Europe as they
outline their support for the global school strike movement.
The list of Irish signees includes some of Ireland’s leading minds on climate change policy, including UCD’s Cara Augustenborg and Diarmuid Torney of DCU, as well as legal experts such as UCD’s Andrew Jackson and NUI Galway’s Maeve O’Rourke.
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