Photos: Thousands Of Irish Students Take To The Streets For Climate March

Given the fact that the current generation of politicians and industry executives are only slowly pivoting toward accepting the incredibly serious risks posed by climate change, they are in the process of preparing a frankly astronomically large shit-sandwich to be handed down to the next generation, a shit-sandwich from which they’ve even taken the bread for themselves. With increasingly dire warnings for the earth’s future being issued by university research groups and task forces within the UN, should current trends of greenhouse gas emissions not be seriously curbed, we are approaching the liminal moment where the damage we are inflicting on the planet may become irreversible.

Given the reluctance of many of those in power to take steps necessary to counteract the damages being wrought on the planet, there has been a rapid growth in political engagement among school students throughout the world. There had been a global strike planned today for school students to protest the lack of action in tackling this pressing issue. Hundreds of thousands of students took to the streets throughout the world. However, the sheer presence of Irish students on the streets of towns and cities throughout the country was particularly striking.

In Dublin some 10,000 students gathered in the city centre to march and voice their discontent with the laissez-faire approach of those in power, and there were thousands of others who marched elsewhere.

Turnouts this strong are particularly heartening as they cannot help but be ignored. And, at the very least from a cynical perspective, the sign that a generation of people – who will soon be eligible to vote- showing that one of their foremost concerns is climate policy will almost certainly galvanise politicians toward considering more drastic action, if for no other reason than for fear of political obsolescence.

Congratulations to all those who took part today.

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