Strike or you're out
Strike or you’re out
‘No challenge poses a greater threat to future generations than climate change.’ – President Barack Obama.
Young people all over the world have recently been fuelled (not by fossils) with an urge to demand action for our climate. Straight talking Swedish teenager, Greta Thunberg first catalysed the movement of Friday School Strikes in August 2018 (then only age 15), when she spent her school days protesting outside of the Swedish parliament. Her lone weapon a sign reading ‘Skolstrejk för klimatet’, she soon sparked a flame that could not be extinguished. Following her appearance at the 2018 United Nations Climate Change Conference, this ignited student strikes to take place weekly in various places in the world. The ‘Global Week for Future’ in September 2019 consisted of a sequence of strikes occurring from the 20th-27th across 4,500 locations in 150 countries- it is estimated by The Guardian that approximately 6 million people were involved in such deeds.
On 20th September 2019 I attended one such event- the Climate March from Kelvingrove Park to George Square. Banners, posters and leaflets at the ready, it began. The air thick with chants and youthful hope it was difficult not to feel inspired that at last some people did care! Beating drums and tooting horns setting the fast pace and introducing the unstoppable power of the people, passers-by found their eyes helplessly drawn to us. Cheered on by civilians hanging out of their flat windows, we progressed onwards without fault or flaw. No one could look away. Except from the major corporate companies and governments running our capitalist world.
Although, I was meant to feel enthused and joyful I found myself struggling to digest the bitter sweet taste of melancholy- there wasn’t enough of us. There should be more. I began to find myself contemplating if this was even making a difference. No significant action from parliament is actually occurring. The vital changes required to the systems in our society are not taking place. It’s one thing to be a martyr and openly campaign for a cause (whilst obviously letting Instagram know you are doing so) but another to actually achieve the changes required. A wave of sadness washed over the march towards the end, for the revelation that far more is needed to actually force people to listen became apparent. Slightly depleted but still hopeful, my friends and I dispersed from the group. It was impossible to ignore the itching infuriation enraging through me at the seeming futility of our efforts.
Even though, I think the protests are an amazing necessity and that Thunberg is one of the best role models of the 21st Century; it simply is not enough. The message is not getting through. Coal, oil and gas are still being torched, burned and leeched into our ecosystems. Rainforests are still being ploughed down for cattle ranching, faster than it takes you to finish guzzling that steak. Dead fish buoyantly float above a silicone ocean; their bloated bellies filled with a meal of unknown plastics. It is not the individual eating a cheeseburger and drinking from a plastic bottle that needs to be punished: but rather the smartly suited CEO’s and silver tongued politicians. What is actually needed? What is the single solution to all our climate problems? I don’t know. But it’s needed soon. In the meantime, we need to actually implement the changes that we preach about at these marches, myself included.