Young People's Movement Against Climate Change
I believed that the anti-war movement didn't really begin until young people were being drafted to go to Vietnam. It became very personal and the movement burgeoned. The same thing seems to be happening now. Climate change is become very personal for young people and they are now finally becoming active.
It's possible to mark the beginning of the anti-war movement to the Mario Savio and the Berkeley Free Speech Movement. Today we have a new "Mario Savio", Greta Thunberg. She is becoming the inspiration for the young people's movement against climate change.
Greta Thunberg cut a frail and lonely figure when she started a school strike for the climate outside the Swedish parliament building last August. Her parents tried to dissuade her. Classmates declined to join. Passersby expressed pity and bemusement at the sight of the then unknown 15-year-old sitting on the cobblestones with a hand-painted banner.
Eight months on, the picture could not be more different. The pigtailed teenager is feted across the world as a model of determination, inspiration and positive action. National presidents and corporate executives line up to be criticised by her, face to face. Her skolstrejk för klimatet (school strike for climate) banner has been translated into dozens of languages. And, most striking of all, the loner is now anything but alone.
On 15 March, when she returns to the cobblestones (as she has done almost every Friday in rain, sun, ice and snow), it will be as a figurehead for a vast and growing movement. The global climate strike this Friday is gearing up to be one of the biggest environmental protests the world has ever seen. As it approaches, Thunberg is clearly excited.[....]
The girl who once slipped into despair is now a beacon of hope. One after another, veteran campaigners and grizzled scientists have described her as the best news for the climate movement in decades. She has been lauded at the UN, met the French president, Emmanuel Macron, shared a podium with the European commission president Jean-Claude Juncker and has been endorsed by the German chancellor, Angela Merkel.
More young people are stepping up.
Despite being barely two years old, the Sunrise Movement has outpaced established environmental groups in the push to radically reshape the political landscape around climate change. Closely allied with new congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the youth-led Sunrise Movement has helped set out a sweepingly ambitious plan to address climate change in the form of the Green New Deal.
The movement comprises a small core team of young organizers, supported by a larger group of several hundred volunteers. The group’s elevation of the Green New Deal has clearly riled Trump, who has falsely but repeatedly claimed that the plan would result in the banning of cars, air travel and even cows.
Tomorrow, March 15th, young people all over the world will be demonstrating against climate change.
Alexandria Villasenor is among the American student activists joining the global fray and helping to organize the first nationwide strike on 15 March
Her concern has driven her to help organize the first nationwide strikes by US school students over climate change, on 15 March. More than 100,000 young people are expected to skip school on the day and attend rallies demanding radical cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.[.....]
The American students preparing to join a global wave of school strikes on 15 March have been spurred by the actions of Greta Thunberg, a 15-year-old Swede who started taking every Friday off school to call for more rapid action by her country’s leaders.
In a gently excoriating speech, Thunberg told governments at UN climate talks in December that “You say you love your children above all else, and yet you are stealing their future in front of their very eyes.”
“It was confusing at first because I expected politicians to be on to this, given what the scientists were saying,” said Chelsea Li, a 17-year-old at Nathan Hale high school in Seattle and local strike organizer. “But I didn’t see any action. We are going to have to do the things the adults are too afraid to do because it’s our futures we are fighting for.”I recognize this activity because I was part of the anti-Vietnam war demonstrations. It's just getting started.
Comments
Post a Comment