On Friday, September 20th, thousands and thousands of people took part in the Climate Strike. If you somehow have not heard about it, it was a day of protests in order to get people to pay attention to our changing climate. Our Earth is in grave danger, yet the people in power seem to be doing nothing about it, or even in fact, are making it worse.
Climate change is killing off hundreds of species of animals, changing the environments in which we all live in; making it so the Earth will be unlivable for humans if we don’t change something by 2030. If 2030 rolls around and we haven’t made considerable changes to how we treat the climate, there will be irreparable damage to our Earth and life as we know it. Scary, right? Well, this is why Greta Thunberg, a sixteen year old climate change activist, started this climate strike a year ago. Without the support of her parents, she striked in front of the Swedish Parliament to get people to pay attention to our changing climate. In just a year, Greta has revolutionized how young people think about climate change.
NYC schools in particular allowed their students to miss school for the climate strike. This was a huge deal, because for the first time it gave young people a chance to be directly involved with protests they cared about! About a quarter million people showed up in NYC for the climate strike. And that’s just NYC! This just goes to show how important this cause is.
Young people have been on the forefront of climate change protests, a big reason being that adults don’t feel responsible for climate change, or even believe in it. Greta Thunberg says it all: “Adults keep saying: ‘We owe it to the young people to give them hope.’ But I don’t want your hope. I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. And then I want you to act. I want you to act as you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if our house is on fire. Because it is.”
The best we can do as citizens and humans that care about the environment is to stay informed, and continue to strike and to protest for what we believe in. If you missed the climate strike this past week, that’s okay! You can still be a friend to the environment, here are 40 ways in which you can help the environment. Even if you can’t do each and every one of them, it all contributes to a healthier Earth. Stay informed and stay passionate, and follow in Greta Thunberg’s footsteps to defend what you believe in!