Viral open letter calls out student climate change protesters for being 'selfish'

A viral letter which describes pupils who protest against climate change as “selfish” is doing the social media rounds again.

As thousands of school children took to the streets last week to demand action on climate change, a letter has resurfaced, questioning the character traits of young protesters and calling for them to "grow up."

The letter, which first went viral on social media last year, has made another appearance online in the wake of last weeks ‘Global Strike 4 Climate’ protests, the Daily Mail reports.

Addressed to "all the school kids going on 'strike' for Climate Change," the cutting letter began: "You are the first generation who have required air-conditioning in every classroom. You want TV in every room and your classes are all computerised.

“You spend all day and night on electronic devices. More than ever, you don't walk or ride bikes to school but arrive in caravans of private cars that choke local roads and worsen rush hour traffic.”

The letter goes on to call out “the people driving your protests” for “artificially inflating the population growth through immigration, which increases the need for energy, manufacturing, and transport.”

"The more people we have, the more forest and bushland we clear and more of the environment is destroyed."

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The writer has some suggestions of solutions, advising the students to "tell your teachers to switch off the air-con," "walk or ride to school," "switch off your devices and read a book," "make a sandwich instead of buying manufactured fast food."

"No, none of this will happen because you are selfish, badly educated, virtue-signalling little 'princesses', inspired by the adults around you who crave a feeling of having a 'noble cause' while they indulge themselves in Western luxury and unprecedented quality of life," he adds.

"Wake up, grow up and learn to research facts and think for yourself and not blindly accept the words and thoughts of others."

Unsurprisingly, some people didn’t take too kindly to the letter.

“To be honest - this can be said of all generations,” one user wrote. “There is nothing to be gained by blaming others. We need to each take responsibility for what WE can do !”

“Yep. Let’s get stuck into the kids. Our generation is such a selfless lot. Let’s blame the younger generation for everything,” another wrote on a shared version of the letter on Facebook.

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But others agreed with the sentiments of the original post.

“Sadly this is absolutely spot on,” one Facebook user commented on another shared copy of the letter.