Why are children left to school us in the facts of climate change?

There is something eerily powerful about 16-year-old Swedish schoolgirl Greta Thunberg’s TED Talk about her “School Strike for Climate”. Stern plaits frame her unsmiling face, which twists into a frown when she is making a particularly strong point. She is deadly serious and that is unusual in a TED Talk. Having been diagnosed with autism and selective mutism (she only speaks when it’s really necessary), she says, “Now is one of those moments.”

Her autism means she doesn’t easily change her demeanour to fit in with other peoples’ and it has given her the gift of truth. She has spoken the truth about climate change, and, all over the world, children and young people have listened. Tomorrow, thousands of children and young people all over Ireland will join a school strike outside Leinster House, in Dublin, and at Cork City Hall, in Cork, between 1pm and 2pm, with 19 other smaller demonstrations planned around the country and more still on school grounds. They are echoing Thonberg’s demand for action against climate change now, so they can have a future.