Young people and indigenous groups around the world lead strike action on climate change
People all over the world are striking today to demand action for climate change. Tweets using the hashtag #climatestrike show huge crowds gathering in major cities around the world:
2993 cities
162 countries
7 continentsToday is the biggest day of climate action in world history. #ClimateStrikehttps://t.co/h1JNvn8tQU pic.twitter.com/4IHdgGr9S8
— Eric Holthaus (@EricHolthaus) September 20, 2019
https://twitter.com/pragmactivist/status/1175022020570046465?s=20
Young people at the forefront
Taking inspiration from activist Greta Thunberg’s call for action, many protesters are young people striking to demand action for their future. With an array of creative placards and banners, young people everywhere have been at the forefront of protests today. Many have missed school and university classes to show their support for climate action:
Boundless love and respect for the schoolkids out on strike today pic.twitter.com/1gaEB9Y1jb
— Led By Donkeys (@ByDonkeys) September 20, 2019
#ClimateStrike in Assam, India. #GlobalClimateStrike @GretaThunberg pic.twitter.com/PiTd3AkPAA
— Mowsam Hazarika (@mowsamhazarika1) September 20, 2019
https://twitter.com/ZaynRahm/status/1175005263239241729?s=20
The beauty and brilliance of people power!
More than 1000 people from youth communities marched 1.5km to support the #climatestrike in Indonesia. pic.twitter.com/TeRUrDGXAI
— 350 dot org (@350) September 20, 2019
Indigenous groups
Moreover, people have called attention to the ongoing role of indigenous tribes and people in promoting sustainable living and preserving the planet:
First Nations peoples were leading the #ClimateStrike because they are and have always been at the forefront of the fight to protect land, water, air and Country. #AlwaysWasAlwaysWillBe pic.twitter.com/ipWcwgvVsh
— School Strike 4 Climate Australia (@StrikeClimate) September 20, 2019
Indigenous elders from the Gulf country in the Northern Territory have come to support the #ClimateStrike – travelling 3 days to do so. “All you young students leading the strike, thank you.” “Who is suffering the most? Remote communities” #MECO6900 pic.twitter.com/6WCXjo6M4W
— Sonja Juraluck (@sonjajuraluck) September 20, 2019
Eve of #ClimateStrike think about the prisoners – all Black, Indigenous, racialized, migrants, poor, women, trans people – who cannot join us in strike but are on frontlines of #ClimateChange & eco-apartheid in toxic & polluting cages. Strike to dismantle all cages and walls!
— Harsha Walia (@HarshaWalia) September 19, 2019
Many are emphasising the importance of protecting indigenous rights and centring the voices of indigenous groups in the movement to address climate change:
Huge crowd in the red centre of Aus, Alice Springs, for today's global #ClimateStrike!
Climate change will disproportionately impact remote Indigenous communities – these folks need to be at the front when we are talking climate solutions ☀️ https://t.co/DYjxa6Z6A5
— 350Australia (@350Australia) September 19, 2019
https://twitter.com/Tommy_Hana1/status/1124383825000378368?s=20
“We must defend indigenous communities who are fighting in the frontline, we need a transformation of our economic and political systems” @wretchedotearth #ClimateStrike London 🌍 pic.twitter.com/EOXn40pctq
— ARTIST TAXI DRIVER (@chunkymark) September 20, 2019
https://twitter.com/schirriant/status/1174901032373014528?s=20
With the UN climate summit scheduled to take place on Monday 23 September, the scale of these protests sends a powerful message. We have reached a point where inaction is no longer an option. Capitalism continues to be the biggest cause of climate change, but world leaders motivated by profit have been slow to action. Let’s hope, in the face of pressure from younger generations, they finally sit up and take notice.
Featured image via YouTube/ Nine News Australia
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These young people are the articulate transformation we need for a rethink of our relationship to the planet. What an amazing protest.
There is still a coup going on however, and its going to get interesting observing them cling to their rusty dysfuntional levers.
I don’t know about you – but, I’m levering for leaving 🙂
All these kids bunking off school for the day and on a jolly in a UK Indian summer sunshine ‘green protest thingy day’ will return to their schools that don’t have any strict recycling policy whatsoever. Yes, they chuck the odd piece of waste paper into a school ‘paper bin’ – that’s all. Schools throughout the UK should be ashamed for their lack of a distinctive and strict recycling regime where the minutest of waste is identified and separated to its selected waste disposal point for further collection by a local authority to deal with. As a former teacher I was forever frustrated to see school dinner waste thrown into one dinner-hall receptacle that took plastic, paper, foil and any old ‘chuck-it-in-this-bin-waste’. I have complained to Mayor Khan about ‘school waste’. He returned an answer via a flunky in so many words “Nothing to do with me pal”.