Politicians must heed what young people, concerned about the future of our planet, are saying, writes Christine Jardine in her Scotsman column:

Too little time recently has been dedicated to looking at how we are damaging the planet, undermining the future of generations to come and destroying the natural world. More importantly we are letting the valuable and scarce time we have left to change things slip through our fingers.

That was also not my only encounter this week with a younger generation frustrated at the adult world’s lack of action to protect their environment. On Friday morning I visited a group of pupils at Cramond Primary School in my constituency to see their campaign to clean up the air they breathe every day.

Their presentation was impressive but so too was their commitment that their world is under threat and that we are all responsible. Everything they said echoed what I had heard earlier from Greta, and not just about climate change.

She  described the benefits of being part of the More United group of MPs working together where they agree.

She went on to talk about the distractions of Brexit, and, now, the prospect of another Scottish independence referendum and how those are overshadowing what’s important.

For three years now, the country has been torn apart by an argument about leaving the European Union. In Scotland, we had years of division and bitterness before that about whether to walk away from the United Kingdom.

In that time, the issues that those children I met this week in Cramond, that Greta Thunburg and millions of teenagers across the globe are protesting about, or that families come to my office about every week, were sidelined. To be blunt, if we get absorbed in arguments about our identity we risk losing sight of what really matters.

If we destroy our planet it will not matter if we call ourselves Scottish, British, European or anything else for that matter. Listening this week to a younger generation express their fears about their future and how this generation of decision-makers might be damaging it I was more convinced than ever.

It’s time we stopped thinking about our differences and worked on progressive solutions to the problems which we all face. Most things are more important than divisions.

. You can read the whole article here.

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