Steamboat Springs, CO – Students in the Eco Club at Steamboat Springs High School plan to skip class Friday for a climate change strike.
The walkout will happen two days after 16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg testified in Congress. We watched some of it, and honestly, it looks like a media plot to call for more government control that will strangle the economy in the name of the left’s green religion.
Let’s get back to the local matter. According to one of the student organizers, they have several demands. They want the local government to spend more money on renewable energy and provide incentives to contractors who make buildings more “sustainable.” The student activists also want to compost all food waste, because advances in technology that utilize methane in landfills to create energy are apparently bad. Maybe next year that will have a plan to stop those pesky cows from producing methane?
We are not sure these students grasp the full implications of their expectations. The cost for taxpayers would be astronomical. On top of that, Xcel is already raising rates to pay for expensive wind farms. Xcel is also lobbying for more government subsidies to make the change.
How climate change should or should not be addressed is not our focus here, though. We find it hard to grasp how ditching school is acceptable under any circumstance without parental permission (even if many of them are indoctrination centers for the left). Children need to be in school learning.
Allowing groups of students like this to just leave school also poses a safety risk. If one of these students is injured after leaving the campus, it is hard to say who will shoulder the blame. It could be the parents, or it could be the school district if students ditch without permission.
We are happy to see students engaging in the process of government. We do wonder, however, would walkouts be encouraged like this if students were promoting the Second Amendment or protesting abortion?
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It’s a tough call. Previously long established building and planning approaches are indeed wasteful. Modern buildings should be doing new things, like water recapture, waste reduction, energy recapture and natural energy capture and retention, just bringing the consumption foot print down substantially. It’s possible and is already widespread in practice in the private industry. I do agree with one point in this article, if the government is in charge of anything, the costs will be astronomical. Children are provided impossible choices of ideology in this regard. Do they really have to be liberal to believe in a change of infrastructure approach? I’d ask conservatives to pick up the pace with pollution awareness, so that the young people would not be so instantly drawn to the liberal causes. I’m not making any points on the contentious global warming or whatever. I’m simply making a point that new technology is out there, it’s more efficient, safer to use and live with, and is actually cost effective compared to many traditional building methods. Retrofit every school with solar, green houses and gardens, composting centers, etc. And just go ahead and throw away the pepsi and vending machines. It would be helpful if schools served organic pesticide free foods and took all the wifi down and chose fiber optic hard wired instead. Public schooling is a mess, and we’re still waiting for educational vouchers to include Christian schooling.