Why I’m Striking For The Ocean: A Guest Blog by Caitlin, Age 12

Ben Gingell / Shutterstock, London, UK, United Kingdom 15th February 2019:- Striking school aged children in central London over climate change

My name is Caitlin and I am joining the school climate strike today, along with hundreds of thousands of young people around the world.

Our ocean’s in real trouble from climate change and we must help it. My friends have been messaging each other on Instagram getting organised and today I am going on my first ever strike.

I’m 12-years-old and I did my first beach clean with Surfers Against Sewage six years ago. This year, I joined my eco club at school and we have worked really hard to make our school a Plastic Free School. I am really happy to tell you that our school got official status last month.

But plastic and climate change are totally linked as we use oil to make plastic, and oil is a fossil fuel that needs to stay in the ground. We’ve learnt about this in science. Our seas are choking on plastic and are getting hotter. We are destroying the coral reefs and causing other dangerous problems.

Surfers Against Sewage CEO Hugo Tagholm meets with student climate change protesters in Truro

I know not everyone can join the strike (as many of you are not kids!) but please show your support by signing and sharing Surfers Against Sewage’s petition asking the government to act now on climate change with as many people as possible. You can sign it here: www.sas.org.uk/petition/addyourname

I also know some of you will not agree with me doing this but I am really worried about our seas and I must do something.

Thank you for reading my message and thank you to the whole Surfers Against Sewage community for supporting us today.

Caitlin (age 12).