Youth climate strikers outside Lancashire County Council with the deputy leader, Cllr Keith Iddon, 23 September 2019. Photo: Lancashire youth climate strikers
Youth climate campaigners living in the area of the UK’s only fracking site secured a meeting with a senior county councillor this afternoon.
Last week, the campaigners promised to return to Lancashire County Council in Preston every day after school. They had staged a sit-in in the entrance on Friday when no one from the authority would speak to them during the global climate strike.
They said they wanted the authority to acknowledge the youth voice on climate change.
This afternoon the council’s Conservative deputy leader, Cllr Keith Iddon, agreed to talk to them outside county hall.
He apologised for not meeting them on Friday and said he had not been aware of their visit to County Hall.
In a video of today’s meeting seen by DrillOrDrop, the youngsters said there were many things the council could do on a regional stage, including the elimination of single-use plastics and “fast fashion”. They urged the council to work with young people on climate change and to be transparent in its communications. They also called for a public youth debate.
Cllr Iddon, who was standing in for council leader Geoff Driver, said:
“We are small cog in a big wheel on the world stage but I appreciate what you are saying. I take on board everything you say.
Sit down protest at Lancashire County Council during global youth climate strike, 20 September 2019. Photo: Lancashire Youth Climate Strikers
The meeting also discussed the use of security guards and police during Friday’s sit-in protest.
Police officers reportedly filmed the protest and talked about arrests for aggravated trespass. Their actions were described as “disproportionate” and “unwarranted”. Cllr Iddon said the authority had not called the police.
Council staff were diverted to a different entrance, away from the protest. But one person leaving county hall was recorded verbally abusing the campaigners.
A student at University of Central Lancashire said today that youngsters who had attended the protest on Friday had been dissuaded from coming to today’s meeting. He said:
“We should no discourage activism in any way”.
One 13-year-old campaigner said:
“I felt really let down when we learned that no adults would even come out to speak to us. Our concerns are real yet we’re not deemed worthy enough to have our voices heard. All across the world, children along with adults, marched peacefully together to see action on the climate emergency. Yet in Preston, the council called the police. This makes me so sad.”
County councillor Steve Holgate said after Friday’s stand-off:
“As a Lancashire County councillor for Chorley, I want to make it clear that those who refused to speak with climate change protesters yesterday at County Hall did not do so in my name.
“Any climate change protester, child or adult who wishes to speak with me to express their concerns about the challenges facing humanity and all other species on this earth are most welcome to do so either at County Hall or elsewhere.”
Categories: Opposition
DRILL OR DROP? 
This is horrendous!
Millennials believing they know about the way the world works before finishing education. The lead from Greta, quit education to educate the world on the climate. No further education required!! I really do weep for the next generation!
Poor Bu&&ers they really have been brainwashed! The Media is completely behind this and it saddens me that this country is reacting to the Corbyn manifesto!
Astonishing hypocrisy from the anti antis today. Why do you think the children are saying that their future existence is being stolen from them and the planets ecosystem is dying all around us?
Looked in a mirror lately?
As for weeping for the next generation and all future generations, then look to your own support of the very activities that have caused the present state of climate collaps and the sixth major extinction event in history. Or are those the usual outrageous crocodile tears of fake concern and barely concealed giggling?
If you don’t know about that, then go back to school and learn what a desperate state the planet has been brought down to by anthropogenic activities.
But perhaps you stil believe in the “natural fake news” Milankovitch cycle? Unfortunately the wheels have all ready fallen off that particular vehicle of fossil fuel propaganda and avoidance of responsibility.
The only brainwashing displayed here on Drill or Drop daily is the totally blinkered narrow minded myopia of the “I can’t hear you” insistence on not being aware of all the human activities that have poisoned the planet. When the evidence is all around you, but you refuse to acknowledge.
You should have walked and talked with the adults and children on Friday, they would have soon put you back on the route to sanity and a responsible attitude towards the planet that supports all our lives and that we are daily destroying its ability to support any life at all.
Wake up and grow up and then maybe you will become as adult as the children are and only then might you really become adult enough to actually do something for the next generation and all future generations.
Lovely photo of the youth activists all glued to their China/ Indian produced mobile phones (40% oil & Gas), plastic shoes and throw away fashion…
Watching video over the internet at home is roughly the same as having two or three old-fashioned incandescent light bulbs on, say Prof Chris Preist and Dr Dan Schien, of the University of Bristol’s computer science department.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-45798523
The iphone being the mobile of choice for most eco activists…
I feel damn for this girl manipulated and poached out to the world and used by the media! I’d like to see her parents and PR machines bank accounts, it is all very naive !
https://amp-theguardian-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/amp.theguardian.com/environment/2019/sep/23/greta-thunberg-speech-un-2019-address
There you go Elie, now you are saying what you really think, all that “weeping for the next generation” was barely concealed fake crocodile tears and no appreciation of the truth.
No care whatsoever.
Just bitter bile and fake fossil fuel propaganda.
No change there.
Eli-Goth
Good to see the Guardian running a travel advert to … Tibet, in the Greta article?
One for private eye.
Meanwhile the day has been of interest, as I read through the Labour Party green initiatives.
Now that the climate destroying behemoth that was Thomas Cook has failed, maybe people will travel a bit less ( unless travelling abroad for a holiday is a human right ). Good the gov refused to subsidise further that gas guzzling, climate destroying, Greta disliked company.
Or, if you are John McDonnell, lobby to bail them out to keep killing the planet, and destroying Ms Ts future ( as holidaying abroad by jet is not a good idea in her opinion ).
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-49791249
All interesting stuff.
So phil c you are innocent in your life carbon footprint? Doubt it, really i do!
True unicorn dust.
Ha! More hypocrisy! Wrong Elie. All that displays is a typical attempt to avoid such a complicit personal responsibility as your own status in that respect Elie.
But glad that your reply illustrates an admission to crying crocodile tears and not actually giving a “damn” about anyone other than to crow about anyone else who does actually give a “damn” and fights for it.
No old thing, as usual that is completely wrong, however perhaps it would be better to reveal your own two right footed carbon footprint?
Or are you in danger of tripping yourself up on that and falling flat on your own fallacies?
Some of us changed many years ago to a low ecological exploitation existence because we saw all this growing silent spring, autumn, summer, and winter insanity coming many years ago, back to the 1980’s.
Can the usual Elie come lately inertial recidivist approach say the same? No, I doubt it very much.
We used to see clouds of insects and flocks of birds, and our garden was covered in insects in the morning dew, but these days there are no insects, few if any bees in the garden, and only one or two choking birds singing in the morning, if at all, not like the early morning chorus that used to wake us all up when the air was full of happy bees and insects.
Do try to wake up, and grow up and work with the rest of us to reverse the present profiteering fossil fuel industrial insanity, or there will be no ecological proliferation to support the insane self destructive suicidal exploitation of natural resources on this planet which is destroying life on Earth.
Will you actually do anything about that as many of us have already done so and are doing so?
No, I doubt it very much. I really do!
True hypocritical dead unicorn fossil dust.
Steady Eli, we would not be able to enjoy all that “valuable” poetry (?) without the carbon footprint! The “gift” that keeps on, and on, and on, giving.
Meanwhile, I shall keep away from my local Primark to avoid being crushed by all the local youngsters mopping up all of that fast fashion. Strange that the charity shops are not quite so busy with youngsters.
Interesting how the Internet shows a different picture from what can be observed with eyesight. Reality and fantasy. Quite a few areas where youngsters will have to learn that lesson.
Ahh, the French novelists fantasist writes another rejected fantasy fiction novel?
https://proxy.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse2.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.-ZN4kDsp8mebUbrYBef1KQHaJi%26pid%3DApi&f=1
Don’t think the critical reviews will appreciative the bizarre fictional premise either.
[Image removed due to copyright concerns]
Well this seems to have annoyed the usual suspects and it’s even woken up Hinksey!
Well done kids!
Ahh, delayed reaction has returned!
Some of us have not been asleep, or annoyed. Interesting how some wander along and make up a narrative to give a reason to have wandered along. The new version of Chad-not I wos ‘ere, but I am ‘ere now.
Wot more Collywibble?
Ah, the anti iphones have been taping away…
I wonder if Lancashire County Council pension fund still have around £186,958,925.94 invested in foreign fracking operations.
Or do they still have a total of £339,925,319.89 invested in fossil fuels?
Taping? How quaint Hinksey! I haven’t “taped” anything for about a decade.
I have no idea how much of LCC’s fund in invested directly in foreign fracking operations and I’ll hazard a guess that you don’t either Simon.
The figure of £187 million that has been quoted was for “oil and gas firms which have fracking interests” which is not quite the same thing.
I’m sure this something the fund will be looking at reducing though and I do hope they haven’t got any invested in AJ Lucas because those shares have really tanked – they were 39.5c when the LCC investment story that you are so fixated on came up. They are worth 12.5c today. We can probably all guess why can’t we children?
And let’s hope they steered clear of Igas too – now worth half what they were in September 2018.
The poor prospective pensioners will be working until they drop at this rate unless we all end up paying more council tax to bail them out!
LCC do say the fund holds approximately £346m in green energy investments though, which is nice.
Hi Kisheny
This looks like the answer to your question, taken from a recent FoI (28/2/19) to Lancashire County Council.
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/investment_in_the_fossil_fuels_a#comment-87025
Question:
Dear Lancashire County Council,
Please tell me exactly how much money Lancashire County Council has invested directly and indirectly in the fossil fuels and the Oil and Gas Industry as at today’s date?
Answer from LCC:
Lancashire County Council has no direct or indirect investments in fossil fuels or the Oil and Gas industries.
Please excuse my cynicism, borne of advancing years, fracking research and the closely associated weasel words and half truths.
LCC are unlikely to have any operational funds invested in anything as risky and not so easily accessible as the O&G industry. Very few councils are likely to have any appreciable reserves after so many years of cuts and austerity anyway. LCC’s pension fund will be entirely separate from the council and administered by an entirely different body. I can’t help but believe that LCC pension funds invested through this body would be conveniently, and maybe justifiably not regarded as ‘indirect investments’ by LCC. Perhaps the question to LCC needs clarifying: How much money from LCC’s employees pension fund is invested in the fossil fuel and the Oil and Gas Industry as at today’s date?
Or, we all end up paying for scrappage schemes for 3 litre BMWs, and then a subsidy for the replacement electric Trabants to be produced at the State factory and offered to the masses, as long as they have all been behaving. The new Green/Red deal.
So, what you really mean, delayed, is that someone who sold his stake in Igas in September 2018, could now double his stake in them? Nah, the majority don’t use AIM as a platform to trade and make such gains-they are all long term investors/poor pensioners. Think you will find it is only the children who haven’t been educated who believe that one.
Mind you, I suspect the same could be said about investors into Tesla!
You makes your choice and pays your money. Not quite the same though as paying for someone else’s poor choice.
Wow Martian – investment advice too now? Is there really no beginning to your talents?
Sure – an investor in AJL who sold his stake in June 2008 at $5.58 could use that money to buy nearly 50 times as many shares at $0.12c each. Wowzers! I don’t hear many on Hot Copper crowing about that fact though. Most of them seem to have seen some heavy losses and are hanging in there in the (forlorn?) hope of making a big return if Cuadrilla somehow make the big time at PNR. That’s not happening though is it?
I think you should give up with your Mystic Martian act and leave the provision of financial advice to those who are better qualified.
(Warning: Collywibble Investments is not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority)
Except my comment was regarding Igas, delayed reaction. It is there in black and white.
So, first identify the subject and then make a comment. That is what discussion in the real world is about.
Changing the subject and making a comment is something different. I think it is called evasion/making smoke.
Warning: Delayed reactions can cause a car crash. Oops, there goes another one.
But, if you want to treat AJL and Igas as peas in a pod, it does say something about your expertise! I think you will find they are quite different companies and individuals may make quite different decisions about them, just like Blackpool FC and Manchester City. Support for both, but treat them as identical and those who follow such things will only have the following to say:
Bless.
(I think you need a few more games back to get up to speed!)
But, there is the fallback that Hobsons Choice means they are the same. Maybe go with that?
Oh Martian, you are being ever so tedious again. I really can’t be bothered with you tonight. We were actually talking about the wide spectrum of investment by LCC when you chipped in with your wibble. Do keep up.
Strange. The time recorded posts above clearly show something different delayed, with yourself posting about Igas and Cuadrilla!!
Even children, with bits of schooling missing, can read.
Yes, it is tedious that you can’t just post twaddle and expect everyone to lap it up. You have your blog for that.
But, if it is a case that your short term memory is that poor than I am afraid that sort of advice is beyond me.
(Oh, and to be extra helpful/tedious, it would indeed be quite strange for County Councils to make pension investments into AIM companies-although stranger things have happened.)
Strange Martian? Kisheny posted at 12:57 pm. I replied talking about oil and gas investments in general, and Igas and AJL (not Cuadrilla as you can’t invest directly in them as any fule kno) in particular at 1:12 pm. You butted in with your wibble at 4:17 pm. You then tried to claim I had changed the subject from just Igas at 5:59 pm. Yes strange indeed aren’t you?
Even children, with bits of schooling missing, can read. So you can’t just post twaddle and expect everyone to lap it up without calling you out on it.
You might find Paul’s clarification relating to the FoI both interesting and helpful old boy. It might even stop Mr Hinks droning on about this too.
Oh, and to be extra helpful Councils routinely invest in investment funds which in turn invest in a variety of stocks including AIM listed and unlisted companies. Didn’t you know?