New Plymouth Girls’ High School Year 11 students, from left, Annie Larsen and Ellie Dinnison, both 15, want more people to be aware about climate justice.
A pair of New Plymouth teenagers want to take their message from the classroom to the masses as a means to create more awareness about climate justice.
New Plymouth Girls’ High School students Ellie Dinnison and Annie Larsen have signed up for the 2020 Amnesty International Freedom Challenge as part of their social studies class.
The challenge’s theme this year is ‘Shouting Out for Climate Justice’.
The teens, both 15, are keen to raise awareness about the link between climate change and human rights.
They believed people’s human rights are being negatively impacted by the effects of climate change, including their standard of living, right to shelter and access to food and health services.
“It’s looking at climate change as an ethical and political issue, rather than just environmental,” Ellie said.
The duo hoped to spread their message to an audience outside their school boundary, as they believed it was important for people to know how pressing the fall-out from climate change will be, if nothing significant was done to address it.
Ellie knew they could not force people to change their minds or think in a particular way on the topic.
“I think just being aware is enough and having conversations with people is enough.”
For Annie, social media posts showing the damage caused by climate change brought the issue much closer to home, especially for younger people.
One example she pointed out was the footage of the devastation left behind by this year’s Australian bush fires.
Ellie said while she did sometimes question what she could do as a 15-year-old living in Taranaki, social action which had engaged young people across the world – including the Black Lives Matter movement -gave her hope that change was possible.
While the pair would have to wait three more years to vote, one message they had for people who can on October 17 was to put aside popularity.
They wanted voters to take a genuine look at different party policies about climate change and the environment in order to make an informed choice at the polls.
Article Credit: stuff.co.nz