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Climate change protestors meet Moray's MP


By Garry McCartney

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MORAY'S MP met with young climate change protestors demanding action on climate change.

Last month, Drumduan School pupils Tor Smith (15), Eve Robyn Priestly (14) and Louie Goodall (14) organised a well-attended demonstration outside Douglas Ross's constituency office on the high street as part of national Youth Strike 4 Climate events throughout Britain calling on the UK Government to declare a climate emergency and take active steps to tackle the problem.

Mr Ross was working elsewhere at the time but met with the students in his office more recently to discuss their concerns.

He said: “I was keen to meet with these young people and we had a really good discussion about their concerns for the environment. The pupils from Drumduan School were very well informed and raised a range of issues about the environmental problems we face. I outlined progress the Government has made including working towards banning single use plastics such as straws and cotton buds, as well as microbeads."

He added: "There is still a lot of work to be done on these issues, but I was very pleased the pupils took the trouble to come and speak with me. It’s important young people are engaged and feel their voices are being heard."

Youth Strike 4 Climate's shortlist of official demands for the Government are: declaring a climate emergency; informing the public about the seriousness of the situation; the national curriculum should be reformed to include the ecological crisis; and the age of voting should be lowered to 16 so younger people can be involved in decision-making around environmental issues.

Louie Goodall confirmed the points were raised during the meeting with Mr Ross.

He said: "Mr Ross agreed that he also thought the age of voting should be lowered to 16, however, when we came to talk about the current crisis, he thought it should not be a good idea for it to be called a crisis as the general public would expect to walk outside and see a crisis.

"He was fixated on discussing what the government had already done - we asked lots of questions about things the government could do going forward but he always brought it back to micro beads and cups."

The group was not satisfied with the outcome of the face-to-face meeting with Moray's Westminster representative.

Louie added: "Mr Ross was not able to propose any route forward that would support our campaign. However, we hope to get some ideas for future protests here in Moray."



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