IN A WORLD that has seen the American President unilaterally pull the US out of the Paris Climate Change Accord and, instead, seek to promulgate global warming as an invention of Chinese urban mythologists, it is hardly surprising that our children, the self-styled “young”, have seen fit to determine to make their voices heard.

Ever since at least the early 1960s and the publication of Rachel Carson’s groundbreaking “Silent Spring”, there has been a strand of thought leading through recognition of the “butterfly effect” to the regular calls to save the Amazon rain forests of today.

While I can sympathise with Katy Rice’s understandable concerns about the safety of protesting youngsters, the fact that she has has expressed them at all is surely a measure of the success with which their campaign is being conducted.

It seems to me there has never been a generation more aware of their familial and societal responsibilities, and their decision has clearly not been taken lightly.

I hope with Ms Rice that they will learn the lessons of 1968, keep their protests peaceful and not allow their idealism to be hijacked by those who do not have their best interests at heart.

With guidance available to them from dedicated environmentalists like Caroline Lucas and George Monbiot, I am hopeful that their ethical beliefs have not been misplaced and that Ms Rice’s fears can be allayed.

Steve Williams Foxhill Peacehaven