On September 20th, 2019, millions of people (including you perhaps!) took to the streets to demand action on climate change around the world. Holding their protest signs high and proud, students assembled in front of federal buildings from New York to San Francisco, on shores and in villages from the Marshall Islands to India to Argentina. Following young leaders like Autumn Peltier and Greta Thunberg, millions of young people and adults called for climate justice and a livable future at over 3,600 worldwide events.
Locally, thousands of students from elementary school to university alike gathered in Sproul Plaza at the University of California Berkeley campus to call for an end to business as usual. Today’s youth are familiar with the concept of climate change and have a great understanding of how it will impact their future. Hannah Freedman, one of the Climate Strike organizers of Berkeley High states, “…to me it seems so normal that I’d be fighting for my future on a healthy happy planet. The fact that it’s so criticized makes me angry and just want to do more.” (Natalie Orenstein, Berkeleyside, 9/20/2019).
In her now-famous speech at the first UN Climate Summit, Greta Thunberg exclaims, “You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I’m one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!”
What else can we do?
Visit the Global Climate Strike Website to get involved in the next steps in the fight for climate justice.
Support youth leadership by supporting grassroots youth organizations. Join Berkeley’s Climate Action Coalition’s active working groups.
Check out our factsheets for resources on how to reduce your footprint and take action on climate change.
Come out to the SunShares workshop on October 15 to take advantage of discounts and to begin planning your move to solar powered homes and electric driving. More event information here: SunShares Workshop
The future is up to us!
Good afternoon. Great article. I was interested to read it. Global climate change – long-term trends identified among weather data. Each year differs from the previous one in terms of average air temperatures, rainfall, wind speed and other parameters. Tracing the history of atmospheric phenomena in different regions of the Earth, scientists have discovered that climate change is occurring around the world. Another, more popular, name for this process is global warming. When we talk about the weather, we mean the indicators of air temperature, atmospheric pressure and precipitation in a particular area at a particular point in time: yesterday, today, in a week. Did you know that, a quote from Wikipedia: “Climates can be classified according to the average and the typical ranges of different variables, most commonly temperature and precipitation. The most commonly used classification scheme was the Köppen climate classification. “, source -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate. Good luck!