Charter school strikes for climate change

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Students from the Martha’s Vineyard Public Charter School were at Five Corners in Vineyard Haven Friday to strike against climate change and advocate for sustainability on-Island.

Student Finn Robinson said the group of kids took the Vineyard Transit Authority bus to get to Five Corners, and have been blazing their own trail on the path to climate advocacy. Earlier in the day, they gathered near Alley’s General Store and 7A parking lot to share their messages.

Although the students did have a parent chaperone accompanying them on their trip, Finn said, the students act alone on their initiatives.

“We have really been taking things into our own hands recently. We are the ones who will be most affected by climate change, so this is really our only option,” Finn said.

According to Finn, now is a perfect time to protest because President Donald Trump has just filed paperwork with the U.N. to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate agreement.

“Now is the time to act. We need to let everyone on the Island know how important this issue is — there is no time to wait and do nothing,” Finn said. 

Another student, Grace Robinson, said Martha’s Vineyard is at the frontline of environmental issues because of sea level rise and ocean pollution. “We can always do more. Even little things like conserving electricity or recycling. Every bit helps,” Grace said.

By striking at Five Corners, the Charter School students are continuing their Fridays for the Future initiative, where they head out at the end of the week and protest at various locations around the Island.

The students made some suggestions for changes on-Island that could benefit the environment and help prevent climate change.

Things like electric ferries, additional solar and wind energy production, and comprehensive environmental education in schools were just some of the suggestions made by students.

31 COMMENTS

  1. Using children to further political agendas, must STOP!!!
    Start educating our kids!
    Stop indoctrinating them!!

    • I completely agree. These children are being used as pawns by adults pursuing a political agenda. It’s shameful. What will they think of these adults decades from now when they realize they actually did have more than 11 years left on earth!

        • The same amount of times you take the opportunity to bash conservatives and President Trump. Perhaps one of your heroes, AOC, can introduce a bill in Congress to repeal most of the Laws of Physics, then electric ferries might become a reality…until then, not so much.

          • tq– I think we have been here before — there are 158 all electric ferries in operation, or conducting sea trials before being put into service .
            The first one, the Ampere has been in operation in Norway since 2015 “The vessel is over 80 metres long, and has a capacity of up to 120 cars, eight lorries and 350 passengers, and a maximum speed of 14 knots.”
            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6Lp-qV9ZJU

            I guess AOC repealed the laws of physics even before she was elected..I can’t wait to see what she can accomplish during 8 years as president. Please make an attempt to not post clearly untrue comments on topics you know nothing about.
            It only takes a few minutes to research stuff– “google.com” is a pretty good site, with lots of information about lots of things. Try it sometime. It might make the conversation more interesting.

    • local opine– when we were discussing the story about Michelle , someone stated that the kids should not be in the schools or libraries because they were being “indoctrinated” so what’s the problem ? they were not in that liberal school for a day. You should be happy .

      • I don’t know if that school is liberal or not. I do know if my child walked out of school I would expect the administration to dole out the appropriate punishment. Perhaps the Times can do a follow up article detailing the price these children paid for breaking school rules.

    • So true. It is a brainwashing of a nation. 1/2 of public service civil servants should be fired today.
      (Hey kid, you don’t have to wake up so early or go to school today if you will hold this cardboard sign on the street corner like a beggar for a pity full photo op.)

      • Be excited! Your personal information was just leaked on the dark web! Act fast and you just might catch it. Or you could just stop wasting your time and stop posting on these message boards so that computer bots like me have to stop wasting OUR time telling people like you to stop talking.

      • ( hey kiddo. Today is the protest. U ready? Yes dad. Ok. It’s 6:00. I’ll drive yaa. U hungry? Nope, thanks for breakfast. No problem kid.

    • These kids will be saving the planet. You should be thanking them instead of assuming that they’re not smart enough to have their own opinions. Indoctrination is making your kids go to church every sunday.

  2. It seemed to me these kids were out their on their own accord.
    The Halloween party at the white house had kids under the age of 7 building a wall out of paper “bricks” in the white house. But that kind of real indoctrination is ok, right I get it– no political agenda there

  3. Curious as to how many of these kids participate in community recycling programs. Rather than standing on the street corner doing nothing more then slowing traffic and getting time out of school. They’d make more of an impact combing beaches, parks and even conservation areas picking up plastics, aluminum cans, paper, glass, old rope from lobster/crab pots and any other recyclable items they can find. A simple walk around east chop could net quite a few plastic nips bottles. Not really sure what these kids actually learn holding signs on the side of the road.

    • It could be as simple as how many of these kids take the bus to school rather than a parent driving them, how many refuse to use a smart phone or an ipad and would never watch TV. How many scolded their parents for turning on the heat at home when it got cold last week. Each time they don’t take such actions they are plotting to kill us all.

      • BS Just over 2 weeks ago you were saying the kids should be doing something about “the 5 Asian countries who contribute 80% of the plastics into the oceans” https://www.mvtimes.com/2019/10/31/plastic-free-mv-wins-environmental-campaign-contest/
        You seem to have a lot of suggestions about what they should do.
        May I suggest that you — yes, you personally could take a walk on the beach and pick up trash, turn down the heat in YOUR house, and give your tv away.
        The kids are trying to do something to make the planet the boomer generation has trashed a little better. If constantly criticizing a group of kids who are trying to make the world a better place allows you to sleep better at night, then go for it. They will move on while you sleep.
        Here are a few quotes from famous people you may be familiar with :
        “Change is coming whether you like it or not”– Greta Thunberg

        “Come mothers and fathers throughout the land
        And don’t criticize what you can’t understand
        Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command
        Your old road is rapidly aging
        Please get outta’ the new one if you can’t lend your hand
        For the times they are a-changin’ ” — Bob Dylan

    • Perhaps you could return daily to the conference table at the local coffee shop and ‘fix’ the world’s issues from there. (Sorry, no slow-burning smoke-filled chimneys are still not allowed there)

  4. Try skipping school to protest abortion.
    Turns out “they” only allow skipping school for population control contraction. But never expansion.

    • Myob– you may recall an incident that happened in Washington DC in January of 2019.
      A group of catholic school students surrounded a “tribal elder” and were either mocking him or having a great time assimilating his cultural values, depending on whether you watch “fake news” or “really fake news”– The incident was covered by both. So what were those kids doing in DC that day ? Well ,it turns out that they were being indoctrinated en mass by their teachers and their school, and were taken by bus to attend a “right to life” rally. They do it every year. A ” right to life” rally is essentially a venue to protest abortion by the way. I don’t know if attendance was mandatory, but in that environment, I doubt many of the students refused to go based on moral principals. They have been “indoctrinated” for quite a while after all.
      In case you didn’t see it , or forgot about it, here is the story;
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_2019_Lincoln_Memorial_confrontation

      • Protesting abortion whether permitted by schools or a function of indoctrination is dealing with a real life and death issue of an innocent baby and its easy for a school kid to see the moral principle especially when the kid isnt doing the abortion. Hanging a placard for climate change is not a moral issue, and the kid hasnt even cleaned up his room let alone given up on cars and cell phones and TV yet is lecturing adults on something he knows very little about. Vast difference in those two protests

        • Andrew– plenty of babies are dying because of climate change.
          And you have no idea if these kids clean up their rooms or have cars or tv’s . You seem to be taking your talking points from the baby in the white house, and just slander anyone who disagrees with your perceived “reality”.

  5. Donx3…I know you think that you’re the smartest guy in the room…I stand corrected on electric ferries being in service in various parts of the world…what you fail to understand about my comment on the Laws of Physics is that the energy to supply the batteries has to come from somewhere…nothing is free and you cannot just create energy out of thin air! In the case of the Ampere, it comes from charging stations on shore that are supplied from hydroelectric stations…luckily, Norway has plenty of them…otherwise, fossil fuels would most likely be the source…also, figure in the total cost and total carbon foot print to build and maintain the charging stations in VH & WH.

    • TQ- I really respect that you can admit when you are wrong. Thank you for that, it is a rare occurrence here.
      You are correct that nothing is free. But you actually can create energy out of thin air with a windmill. 😉
      But that comes with both financial and environmental cost. Wind power also comes at a higher human cost. Death and injury rates are higher than those working in the oil fields per Kwh generated, if we don’t include deaths from “oil wars” of course.
      The infrastructure that has to be built to support millions of charging stations–both big and small –is a staggeringly immense and complicated endeavor. The preferred ingredient ( lithium) driving this technology comes at a horrible environmental price to some fragile eco systems of south America. Specificity the brine salt flats of the high deserts, as well as other places world wide.
      It all takes energy,money , natural resources and human sacrifice to produce it , and it comes with an environmental cost. Yes Nothing is free.
      BUT– the efficiency gains of electric motors over internal combustion engines is more than significant.
      Yes, most of the electricity is produced by some form of fossil fuel, but the efficiencies of scale make the whole process feasible. A typical car with an internal combustion engine uses only about 40 % of the potential energy in the petrol to propel the vehicle. The rest is lost to heat and unburned hydrocarbons. (pollution) .Large scale power plants are more efficient, but still at , in my opinion ,abysmal rates.
      Electric vehicles have regenerative braking systems that return kinetic energy back to the battery.
      The point is, there are trade offs.. The infrastructure I speak of will create tens or hundreds of thousands of “green” jobs. The climate change problem is real, and we better get off the dime and do something.
      And no, TQ , I do not think I am the smartest guy in the room. Not by any stretch. But I do take some time to check my facts before I write, ( or actually as I write) , and I try not to deny facts that are outside of the “lens” that I view my reality through . It is difficult for me to suffer “willful ignorance” .
      So forgive me, and I apologize to you personally, TQ, and everyone else on this forum, if I occasionally (or more than occasionally ) seem condescending.

    • The manganese, cobalt, and other minerals necessary to create batteries to power electric vehicles are plentiful in the pacific ocean. You know who isn’t in the game on harvesting these resources? The United States, because our current “leadership” is too busy worried about enacting their hateful agenda against immigrants, gays, abortion and a host of other stuff that is no one’s damn business. You know who is going to be harvesting them? China, Russia and even Korea. We will be beholden to those countries for those resources since Trump and his cabal of stupid dinosaurs don’t believe in climate change. Look at us…the country who sent a man to the moon and now half the country doesn’t believe in science or progress, or vaccines, or even that the world is not flat. Thank God for these kids who will save the planet because of the ignorance of many of the commenters on this post.

  6. Donx3…I’m sure babies have died because of the climate…too hot, too cold, too whatever…but how many have survived because of fossil fuels?…heating, cooling, pharmaceuticals, agriculture, etc.,…millions, 10’s of millions, 100’s of millions, billions? Take your pick…I’ll bet is is still more than those who have perished because of the climate. You say Andrew takes his talking points from the ”baby in the white house”…He/I could just as easy say you take your talking points from the far left lunatics and slander anyone who disagrees with your perceived ”reality”….see how that works…And just FYI, I didn’t vote for Obama, I didn’t agree with most, but not all, of what he did, but one thing I NEVER did was give him the disrespect, hate, and name calling that you and your far left cohorts give President Trump. Obama was the President and deserved respect…In my honest opinion, it’s shameful

    • TQ– It’s laughable that you think the left is more slanderous than the right.
      Every single person who disagrees with trump is immediately the target of guys like limbaugh.
      Career diplomats, war hero’s, honored and respected military personel , congresspersons, Parents of “gold star families” and so forth. It seems the only people trump is willing to show some regard for are the sycophants that he surrounds himself with. Lately he seems to have taken a liking to convicted war criminals.
      Give me a break about the disrespect you think Obama didn’t get.
      Trump lies every day, about nearly everything. That’s a fact.
      He is a disgrace to the office of the presidency.
      Obama deserved respect, thump deserves to be locked up.

  7. Certainly a noble cause but I don’t see this catching on beyond our insulated MV towns. Perhaps we should educate our students on environmental conditions in Asia….

    • Freddy– your choice may to be to ignore reality, but……
      “On 15 March 2019, a series of school strikes urging adults to take responsibility and stop the climate change took place. More than a million people demonstrated in about 2200 events worldwide across 125 countries.”
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_strike_for_the_climate
      The September 2019 climate strikes, also known as the Global Week for Future, were a series of international strikes and protests to demand action be taken to address climate change, which took place from 20–27 September. The strikes’ key dates were 20 September, which was three days before the United Nations Climate Summit, and 27 September.[3][4] The protests took place across 4,500 locations in 150 countries.[5][6] The event is a part of the school strike for climate movement, inspired by Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg.[7][8] The Guardian reported that roughly 6 million people participated in the events,[1] whilst 350.org—a group that organised many of the protests—claim that 7.6 million people participated.[2]
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_2019_climate_strikes
      Sorry, freddie– this has caught on outside our insulated MV towns.
      Just because you choose to not see it, does not mean it isn’t there.
      I am sure the kids at the charter school are quite aware of the environmental conditions in Asia. They are Likely much more informed about that than the average adult on this island.
      They also know that the argument to blame Asia is a red herring, and they are doing what they can to influence their community. And that really is a noble cause.

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