{"id":1584,"date":"2020-08-20T09:12:22","date_gmt":"2020-08-20T08:12:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/writersrebel.com\/?p=1584"},"modified":"2020-08-20T09:18:08","modified_gmt":"2020-08-20T08:18:08","slug":"read-i-dropped-out-of-school-to-protest-the-climate-and-ecological-emergency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/writersrebel.com\/read-i-dropped-out-of-school-to-protest-the-climate-and-ecological-emergency\/","title":{"rendered":"Read: I dropped out of school to protest the Climate Emergency<\/span>Blue Sandford<\/span>"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

I did my GCSEs last year, a few weeks after the April Rebellion. I just scraped through – when you\u2019ve spent two weeks on the barricades watching people being carried away by the police and hearing scary facts about the future of the planet, exams don\u2019t seem that important. Why do I care how good my speling is when the UN say that by the time I\u2019m forty-seven less than half the world\u2019s population will have enough water?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Seeing the impact that Fridays for Future was having, I decided to go on a full-time school strike until the UK government committed to halting the climate and ecological emergency – and followed through.<\/span><\/p>\n

I feel incredibly guilty for my part in the crisis. Every day I\u2019m supporting destructive industries and adding to the problem, eating eggs and using plastic and generally consuming things I don\u2019t need. The first step is to change your own behaviour, to stop consuming mindlessly and to think about your priorities and how you\u2019re living. But I didn\u2019t know how to go past that and get other people to change their behaviour too.<\/span><\/p>\n

A year ago I was fed up with feeling like I wasn\u2019t doing anything, but as a young person I didn\u2019t think I had power. There\u2019s a lot of ageism in our society \u2013 I can\u2019t vote, and people generally don\u2019t listen to my opinions because I\u2019m a teenager. They say that I\u2019m a kid and they\u2019re older than me so they automatically know more and deserve my respect. Respect your elders is rubbish, like saying you shouldn\u2019t hit a girl but guys are fine. You should respect everyone and not hit anyone.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m told to go back to school and become a scientist or politician if I really want to change things, but there\u2019s not enough time – and besides, the general public isn\u2019t listening to scientists either, or electing politicians who want to deal with the climate crisis. We\u2019d already be on our way to a solution if they had the power or the will to change things.<\/span><\/p>\n

A lot of people are in XR for their children or their grandchildren, because they want to make their lives better. It\u2019s not my kids\u2019 future that I\u2019m fighting for, it\u2019s mine. If the world carries on as it is, I\u2019m not even going to get to have kids. I\u2019m in enough of a fucked-up situation already. I can\u2019t imagine what their world will look like. I\u2019d choose not to be in that world, even if the alternative is not being born, and I can only assume that they would too.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Although young people don\u2019t have a lot of decision-making power, we have emotive power. Hearing your children stand up and tell you that they aren\u2019t going to have kids, that you\u2019re destroying their futures and condemning them to starvation, wars and natural disasters just because you want to go on a plane or drive around in an SUV would affect anyone. You can\u2019t tell a crying child to grow up, when environmental collapse means they may not get a chance to.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

School education is a privilege that I\u2019m really lucky to have access to, but it\u2019s more important to me to have a stable future than another year of school. Plus school is only one way to educate yourself, and is, in my experience, far from perfect. Individual teachers are working hard but they can only go so far when the set-up is so backwards. I\u2019m not going to jump through arbitrary hoops and respect a system which is destroying my future.<\/span><\/p>\n

My year-long truancy has been ignored by the government, despite being illegal \u2013 in England you have to be in full time education, whether school or an apprenticeship, until you\u2019re eighteen. My guess is the government doesn\u2019t respect its own system either.<\/span><\/p>\n

Over the past year I\u2019ve used the time I would have spent in school writing Challenge Everything<\/em>, a book about how to increase awareness and save the planet by boycotting, direct action and behaviour change. We need to come at this problem from all angles, and books are powerful, and reach people that protest and direct action don\u2019t. We have to open dialogue with such people on their level, or we won\u2019t be able to get through to them at all.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve learnt and achieved far more in the last year than I would have done at school. I\u2019m sure it’s right for some people to be going to school\u2014but for me I couldn\u2019t just sit there and watch the world burn. Now the book is done and has come out, I\u2019m planning to join the HS2 rebellion at Denham. They are cutting down a wood where I used to play as a child. Me and my siblings used to search for golf balls which had fallen in the river. Denham is the closest we\u2019ve got to rainforest, and activism begins at a home.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Blue Sandford<\/strong> is the author of\u00a0Challenge Everything<\/i><\/a>, the handbook for Extinction Rebellion Youth. Profits from the sale of the book will go to the XR Youth London group. Blue was born in 2002. Growing up at two extremes in the Hebrides, Scotland, without cars, electricity or hot water; and in the middle of London, she witnessed some of the best and the worst of our society. She started doing activism in order to create a better future for herself and everyone else. She joined Extinction Rebellion in 2018, and was hailed as one of \u2018the UK\u2019s most impressive young activists\u2019 by The Times<\/em> in December 2019.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

To join Blue in rebelling against HS2, click here<\/a> to find out how to visit one of the HS2 protection camps, make a donation, or raise awareness through online actions. A 1-minute video about the HS2 Rebellion at Denham can be viewed here<\/a>.
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

If urban protest is more your thing, join the September Rebellion<\/a> in London, Cardiff or Manchester.\u00a0 If you’re in London, join the Writers Rebel event<\/a> on 2nd September!<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  I did my GCSEs last year, a few weeks after the April Rebellion. I just scraped through – when you\u2019ve spent two weeks on the barricades watching people being carried away by the police and hearing scary facts about the future of the planet, exams don\u2019t seem that important. Why do I care how […]<\/p>\n

Read More… from Read: I dropped out of school to protest the Climate Emergency<\/span>Blue Sandford<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1587,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,1],"tags":[196,168,198,197],"yoast_head":"\nRead: I dropped out of school to protest the Climate Emergency - Writers Rebel<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/writersrebel.com\/read-i-dropped-out-of-school-to-protest-the-climate-and-ecological-emergency\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Read: I dropped out of school to protest the Climate Emergency - Writers Rebel\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"  I did my GCSEs last year, a few weeks after the April Rebellion. 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