As students, and this nation’s future voters, we believe it's our responsibility to draw attention to the significant amount of carbon emissions that our country produces.

We must urge politicians to create, uphold and administer legislation which limits carbon emissions, cares for the environment and maintains the beauty of our island home.

The monetary and economic value of the fossil fuel industry is substantial, yet the economic gain is worthless when compared to the social, political, environmental and economic upheaval climate change will create for our future.

Today, on March 15 at 1pm,  a collective of Scotch Oakburn College students will be participating in the School Strike for Climate rally in Launceston that will be held at Prince’s Square.

The strike has been organised by high school students from a variety of schools around Launceston and will feature these students, as well as members of the public protesting for political change.

In addition to this, Scotch Oakburn College’s student executive group have been brainstorming ways of uniting all college students in order to make a public statement, inspiring politicians to recognise the significance of climate change and its effect on all Australians.

Members of student executive have created a video, consisting of a wide range of students from varying year levels reporting on what they do to help fight climate change.

Answers like “composting”, “recycling” and “using reusable plastics” were frequent and indicate that our students are doing their part to help protect our planet.

As students, we are prepared to play our part in maintaining our land, no matter the cost, no matter the effort and no matter the inconvenience.

This video will be broadcast to the Middle School and Senior School students at 12:30pm today on March 15.

The student executive has created the hashtag, #whatdoYOUdo, to spread on social media in order to gain the attention of our governing representatives.

The hashtag is interwoven throughout our video as students from years 6-12 tell of their efforts to reduce their own carbon footprints, all while alluding to the insufficient amount of parliamentary action which is taking place.

In this coming election, it is important to consider which political leaders will best represent the interests of Australia’s future.

Throughout the last few days, students have been creating posters which bear our views on climate change.

Such posters will be proudly displayed at the local school strike, as well as be held by the students as a group photo of our middle school and senior school students is taken in support of the cause.

This photo will be uploaded to the college’s social media platforms, alongside our video and hashtag, #whatdoYOUdo.

The students of Scotch Oakburn College are banding together and joining almost 1000 schools around the world in striking against climate change.

We are taking action on an individual level to combat climate change, but we need our representatives to take action with us and create meaningful policies that enable a swift but orderly transition to renewable energy.

We are the future and it is our future that will be most affected. We will act and hopefully, inspire our politicians to do the same.