Youth-led global climate change protests

More than 300,000 people attended the Montreal Student Strike for Climate Action march. Trudeau was heckled extensively for buying the Trans Mountain pipeline and his brown/blackface costumes in the past. 

An estimated 315,000 people took part in the Montreal march.

Waves of Canadians led by global climate change fighter Greta Thunberg marched the country’s streets Friday to demand leaders take action to put a halt to rising temperatures. ...

In Montreal, Indigenous teenagers and Ms. Thunberg arrived about 20 minutes before the last stragglers left the starting point of the city’s walk. Marchers spilled into side streets along the planned route, taking over much of the downtown. The 4.4-kilometre continuous stream of humanity defied precise counting, but the city’s emergency services estimated 315,000 people were there.

 

Teenage activist Greta Thunberg, who is spearheading a climate change strike in Montreal, said on Friday that people want to 'silence' her because she and other young activists are 'becoming too loud.'

The Liberal Leader joined the Montreal march for a short time as he campaigned for re-election Oct. 21. The reception was hostile as protesters marched near him yelling “No pipeline” and heckled him for his history of wearing brownface and blackface before he entered politics.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-canadians-take-to-streets...

Jagmeet Singh's attendance at the Victoria Student Strike for Climate Action contrasted with Andrew Scheer, who was also in BC, in Vancouver and Bernier' comment about Greta Thunberg yesterday. 

Singh attended a climate strike rally in Victoria on Friday after an earlier campaign stop where he said a New Democratic government would commit $40 million to help protect Canada's coastline. He did not make a speech at the rally, but he waded through the crowd, stopping to hold impromptu conversations with people.

https://www.bramptonguardian.com/news-story/9618587-singh-attends-victor...

On the other hand, Scheer did not attend any climate action rally today but instead announced he would provide more money for highways and bridges to relieve congestion. Just what the climate needs!

Andrew Scheer is promising to prioritize infrastructure spending on projects intended to cut commuting times as part of a wider pledge to reshape how the federal government doles out billions annually for roads, bridges, highways, and transit systems.

Scheer made the pledge in Coquitlam on Friday and said the George Massey tunnel replacement in the greater Vancouver area would be placed high on a Conservative government’s priority list.

https://vancouversun.com/pmn/news-pmn/canada-news-pmn/scheer-pledges-to-...

Here is some very interesting research on the power of mass protests and the 3.5% rule. Once around 3.5% of the whole population has begun to participate actively, success appears to be inevitable.​ 

This gives some hope for the Student Strikes for Climate Action. 

In 1986, millions of Filipinos took to the streets of Manila in peaceful protest and prayer in the People Power movement. The Marcos regime folded on the fourth day.

In 2003, the people of Georgia ousted Eduard Shevardnadze through the bloodless Rose Revolution, in which protestors stormed the parliament building holding the flowers in their hands.

Earlier this year, the presidents of Sudan and Algeria both announced they would step aside after decades in office, thanks to peaceful campaigns of resistance.  

In each case, civil resistance by ordinary members of the public trumped the political elite to achieve radical change.

There are, of course, many ethical reasons to use nonviolent strategies. But compelling research by Erica Chenoweth, a political scientist at Harvard University, confirms that civil disobedience is not only the moral choice; it is also the most powerful way of shaping world politics – by a long way.

Looking at hundreds of campaigns over the last century, Chenoweth found that nonviolent campaigns are twice as likely to achieve their goals as violent campaigns. And although the exact dynamics will depend on many factors, she has shown it takes around 3.5% of the population actively participating in the protests to ensure serious political change.

Chenoweth’s influence can be seen in the recent Extinction Rebellion protests, whose founders say they have been directly inspired by her findings. So just how did she come to these conclusions? ...

Needless to say, Chenoweth’s research builds on the philosophies of many influential figures throughout history. The African-American abolitionist Sojourner Truth, the suffrage campaigner Susan B Anthony, the Indian independence activist Mahatma Gandhi and the US civil rights campaigner Martin Luther King have all convincingly argued for the power of peaceful protest.

Yet Chenoweth admits that when she first began her research in the mid-2000s, she was initially rather cynical of the idea that nonviolent actions could be more powerful than armed conflict in most situations. ...

But Chenoweth was surprised to find that no-one had comprehensively compared the success rates of nonviolent versus violent protests; perhaps the case studies were simply chosen through some kind of confirmation bias. “I was really motivated by some scepticism that nonviolent resistance could be an effective method for achieving major transformations in society,” she says. ...

Working with Maria Stephan, a researcher at the ICNC, Chenoweth performed an extensive review of the literature on civil resistance and social movements from 1900 to 2006 – a data set then corroborated with other experts in the field. They primarily considered attempts to bring about regime change. A movement was considered a success if it fully achieved its goals both within a year of its peak engagement and as a direct result of its activities. A regime change resulting from foreign military intervention would not be considered a success, for instance. A campaign was considered violent, meanwhile, if it involved bombings, kidnappings, the destruction of infrastructure – or any other physical harm to people or property. “We were trying to apply a pretty hard test to nonviolent resistance as a strategy,” Chenoweth says. ...

Overall, nonviolent campaigns were twice as likely to succeed as violent campaigns: they led to political change 53% of the time compared to 26% for the violent protests. ...

Once around 3.5% of the whole population has begun to participate actively, success appears to be inevitable.​

“There weren’t any campaigns that had failed after they had achieved 3.5% participation during a peak event,” says Chenoweth – a phenomenon she has called the “3.5% rule”​

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190513-it-only-takes-35-of-people-to-c...

Greta Thunberg has received heavy criticism, been called mentally ill because she is on the autism spectrum, including from Canada's Maxime Bernier, and even had death threats from extreme right-wingers in her fight against climate change. She is not the only young person being attacked because of their support of climate action.

This url describes the death threats against Greta Thunberg: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QChDcw09QCk

On the morning of August 25, 11-year-old Lilly Platt tweeted a video clip of a Brazilian Amazon tribe speaking out against deforestation. Awareness of the Amazon wildfires was already at a fever pitch, and the tweet exploded. Then, within an hour, a swarm of troll accounts started flooding her mentions with porn.

Shortly after the attack, her mom, Eleanor Platt, made an online plea for help: “Dear Friends of Lilly, this is Lillys mum she is being targeted by revolting trolls who are spamming her feed with pornography. There is only so much i can do to block this. Please if you see these posts report them.” Over the course of the day, some of Lilly’s nearly 10,000 followers did just that. ...

Personal attacks have always been a part of the climate denial playbook, even as fossil fuel companies secretly funded campaigns and researchers to question the scientific consensus on climate change. The most famous incident, 2009’s Climategate, involved scientists getting their emails hacked and then facing death threats. ...

The clearest example of this is what's happening today with climate activism’s biggest star, Greta Thunberg. The 16-year-old Swedish crusader single-handedly launched the climate strike movement last year and has become the biggest target for attacks on climate activism online. Climate science deniers, right-wing media pundits, and politicians are the most high-profile figures fixating on everything from her braided hair to her Asperger’s to the motivation behind her strikes. ...

On August 14, as Greta set sail across the Atlantic for a packed trip involving multiple strikes, testimonies to Congress, and the United Nations climate summit in New York, former UK Independence Party funder Arron Banks tweeted that “Freak yachting accidents do happen in August.” Shortly after Greta’s arrival in the US, Maxime Bernier, a Canadian politician associated with extreme far-right groups, wrote: “She should be denounced and attacked.” A viral tweet from conservative firebrand Dinesh D’Souza after the global climate strike hit at another recurring theme: comparing Greta to children in Nazi propaganda. On Monday, a Fox News guest called her “mentally ill,” a jab at her Asperger’s diagnosis, prompting the outlet to issue an apology. Shortly after the UN summit, President Donald Trump tweeted sarcastically, “She seems like a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future. So nice to see!” ...

Meanwhile, upward of 5,000 tweets by suspected bots have mentioned Greta, according to an analysis by Bot Sentinel provided to BuzzFeed News.

But it’s not just Greta. Other young girls in the movement are facing a flood of online abuse. It’s less clear where those attacks are coming from, but they involve a mix of regular accounts, trolls, and bots. While the youngest activists are often shielded from this, due to constant monitoring of their social media by their parents, there’s no filter for many of the teens. Jamie Margolin, a 17-year-old climate activist in Seattle, described how it felt experiencing a recent Twitter swarm: “You start getting so much anxiety.”

“The ugly truth is that these girls are subject to the deepest darkest evil side of social media on a daily basis,” Bethany Edwards, mom of 8-year-old climate activist Havana Chapman-Edwards, told BuzzFeed News in an email. Havana, who is black, has gotten racist messages, death threats, and was contacted by one man who the family later discovered was a registered sex offender.

Climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe of Texas Tech University said she adds someone to her Twitter block list “on average at least once a day, if not more.” For Hayhoe, as the voices of the climate teens grow louder, there is increasingly a target pointed squarely on their backs. “They will attack anyone who is perceived as being effective,” she said. “The more effective we are, the greater the attacks.”

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/zahrahirji/greta-thunberg-climate-t...

jerrym wrote:

Greta Thunberg has received heavy criticism, been called mentally ill because she is on the autism spectrum, including from Canada's Maxime Bernier, and even had death threats from extreme right-wingers in her fight against climate change. She is not the only young person being attacked because of their support of climate action.

This url describes the death threats against Greta Thunberg: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QChDcw09QCk

The url below describes the attacks, including death threats, on Greta Thunberg and some of the other young Student Strikers for Climate Action that are part of an organized campaign that includes the use of thousands of bots by the extreme right-wing. 

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/zahrahirji/greta-thunberg-climate-t...

Paladin1 wrote:

Is Greta Thunberg just another example of our Reality TV syndrome?

Every time I see something about Greta Thunberg I read that "she's young!". "She's 16!". Okay...That's the big hook?  We know there are people who have devoted their adult lives to fighting climate change and pushing others to recognize it for the danger it is, but they're boring. They're not "a 16 year old girl!". They're ignored.

Don't get me wrong. I think she's pretty awesome and I think she's doing an amazing job, but I can't help but think about the mechanics behind it.  Excluding me I'd guess members here know more about climate change than she does. So why her?

Is she a "prophet" like David Suzuki suggests? Or is she being catapulted to stardom by a society that's always looking for the next new young face to obsess over for a couple weeks or months before moving on to the next in thing? I'm sure Greta Thunberg is being bombarded with sponsors. Under armor and Nike fighting to see which brand they can try and show her wearing on TV. What brand of shoes does Greta Thunberg wear? I need to own the same ones.  And it's entertainment to see who this 16 year old girl calls out, did you see what she said about Trump? lol

I hope her stardom is more than a fad and people become more involved in fighting climate change than going to a protest and posting their selfies about it on facebook.

 

You are trivializing both what Greta Thunberg has helped activate in terms of fighting global warming and the massive assault, including death threats on her and other young well-known protesters by the extreme right. You accuse her of trying to make money through corporate sponsorship off the Student Strike for Climate Action campaign without a shred of evidence, which is the same strategy employed by the fossil fuel industry (https://www.climaterealityproject.org/blog/climate-denial-machine-how-fo...), its climate denying researchers like Willie Soon who the oil companies paid over $1,200,00 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Soon),  its PR flunkies hired from the cigarette industry (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/tobacco-and-oil-industries-us...), and the alt-right (https://jewishcurrents.org/what-happens-when-alt-right-believes-climate-...). 

Across New Zealand, a reported 170,000 people took part in the climate strike. That's about 3.4 per cent of the population -- one of the largest protests in the country's history. The url below describes the protests. 

http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/greening-news/2019/09/new-zealand-climat...

I just got back from a trip to New Zealand, Australia, Tahiti, Bali and Brunei. Unfortunately, the common thread of my visits to these countries was the alarming rate at which global warming is already having devastating consequences in all of these places. While I was aware of some of these problems, I was shocked at the extent of the damage already done by them and I also heard of problems that I had not previously known about. Here is a summary of what I found in New Zealand, some of it from the media but much of it from working class people, in an attempt to help explain why the Student Strike for Climate Action was so widespread there: 

New Zealand

- a cab driver in Wellington told me how when he started his shift at 3 AM there was always thick frost on his windshield during the winter just five years ago, but now that only occurs "once or twice" a winter

- on a bus trip down the west coast of New Zealand, the driver told me that cyclones never use to hit New Zealand but now they are getting two to four a year, something that scientists predicted was likely to happen as early as 2003 (https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=3098132)

-the same bus driver noted that the west coast highway of the South Island, whose communities are overwhelmingly economically dependent on tourism, were shut down twice within a month because of torrential 1200 mm of rainfall in one day and 1000 mm a month in one day during their summer. This had devastating effects on the economies of these communities and himself due to the washing out of a major bridge in one case and flash flooding in the other that not only closed the highway but also wiped out an entire coastal forest 

- climate change induced cyclones also had devastating effects in New Zealand last year 

Kaiaua resident Alex Corbett never believed in climate change - but a large storm that hit the Firth of Thames in January, flooding his home and dozens of others, was an eye-opener for him.

Flooding in Kaiaua in January this year Photo: RNZ / Supplied

"I've been a total non-believer up until the fact." He said he saw Al Gore's documentary last year which began to open his eyes but after seeing the tide take over his town, he was now a firm believer.

The storm that flooded Mr Corbett's home was the first major one of 2018 - since then several cyclones have battered the country during a record-breaking summer.

Niwa figures show the average temperature nation-wide during the summer months was 18.8°C, which is 0.3° above the previous record set in 1934-35.

The seas around New Zealand saw temperatures that were 6° above average, while a high of 38.7° in Alexandra on 30 January was the country's hottest January temperature in 39 years.

It wasn't just warm weather affecting the country though - cyclones and flooding prompted 10 civil defence state of emergencies to be declared in the past three months. That's compared to 13 throughout all of last year.(https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/353959/cyclones-and-record-breaking-...)

-a second bus driver noted that as we approached the famous Franz Josef Glacier, that we would not be able to see the glacier from the Glacier View Motel, which had chosen that name to attract tourists, because so much of the glacier had already melted, and therefore the glacier was no longer visible from the motel

-another bus driver told me about a massive die-off of penquins in 2018 that has been tied to global warming 

Scores of dead little blue penguins that have washed up on northern New Zealand beaches this year probably died of starvation in extreme sea conditions, researchers say.

And they warn that climate change and its big storms could mean many more mass deaths of cherished bird and other vulnerable marine species.

Extreme weather, including several ex-tropical cyclones and record-hot sea surface temperatures, led to high numbers of reports of dead penguins washing up on beaches across the upper North Island. ...

Forest and Bird seabird expert Dr Karen Baird and Massey University’s Dr Daniel Thomas, along with students, found all of the birds had depleted fat reserves and had started using pectoral muscle for energy, resulting in wasting. Ten of the birds had empty stomachs, one had eaten a small amount of grass, and all showed other signs of starvation.

“These birds starved after experiencing a series of severe weather events, which may have prevented them from feeding, and these results may also explain the deaths of many hundreds of other little penguins around northern New Zealand,” Baird said.

Baird noted the record marine heatwave in the Tasman Sea, which also affected the East Auckland Current as it flowed into the Hauraki Gulf, raising sea surface temperatures around the north of New Zealand. “High temperatures could affect productivity and hence food supply but high temperatures have likely exacerbated a series of summer storms causing turbidity and hence poor visibility at critical times for little penguins.” (https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/australasia/article/2143090/mass-penguin-...)

- a third bus driver on a my trip from Queenstown to Milford Sound in the southernmost and coldest part of New Zealand described how extensive the snow on the mountains had retreated and said that the older retired drivers remembered when the mountains were all covered with snow much furhter down all year round

-a weatherman travelling on one of the buses told me about the damaging effects climate change is already having on New Zealand agriculture

In New Zealand, malnutrition is already putting twice as many children in hospital as 10 years ago, as rising food prices consume a greater percentage of household incomes – from 48 per cent in 2007 to 60 per cent in 2017. Pediatrician, Dr Nikki Turner, says 40,000 children are hospitalised every year due to poverty and inadequate nutrition – and that vitamin deficiencies are more common in New Zealand compared to similar countries.[99] Another study has found that almost a quarter of elderly New Zealanders are also malnourished.[100]

As temperatures rise, more frequent and severe water extremes, including droughts and floods, will impact on agricultural production. Rising temperatures will also lead to increased water demand for farming and agriculture. Due to chronic water shortages and desertification in food growing regions, internationally, crop yields are predicted to drop by 20% by 2050 combined with a decline in nutritional content.[101] Prices are likely to skyrocket, while job losses and reduced incomes will further reduce people’s capacity to purchase food. New Zealand researcher, associate professor Carol Wham, says malnutrition is "associated with higher infection rates, loss of muscle mass, strength and function, longer hospital stays, as well as increasing morbidity and mortality." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_in_New_Zealand)

-the weatherman noted, on the other hand while the west coast of the South Island is suffering from torrential downpours, eastern regions of New Zealand are already facing less rainfall - something that scientists predict could lead to drought and less agricultural production (https://www.mfe.govt.nz/sites/default/files/impacts-agriculture-sep01.pdf)

I will report on my visits to other countries in future days. However, what I saw throughout the region is widespread and rapidly growing impacts of global warming that suggest strongly most Canadian politicians, including the current government, are not dealing with quickly and effectively enough. 

There were also Student Strikes for Climate Action in small towns, such as Virden, Manitoba, which has a population of 3,114 (2011 census).

Students at Virden Junior High participated in the Global Climate Strike last Thursday by marching through the halls with handmade signs and staging a mock extinction in the gymnasium. 

They had planned to go outdoors to stage their protest against climate change, but a heavy rainfall kept them indoors last Thursday afternoon.

So the students of Virden Junior High took their handmade signs and marched through the halls of their school, demanding change.

Then, in solidarity with millions of others around the world recognizing Global Climate Strike week, they laid down and “died” in the gym, a sea of blue t-shirts representing the ocean and the circle on the floor representing the Earth.

 

Teachers Regan Brereton-Waller (Gr. 5) and Keely Woods (Gr. 6) organized the event and got buy-in from about three quarters of the student body. The kids also learned about climate change and about all the countries marking Climate Strike week along with them.

https://www.empireadvance.ca/news/local-news/virden-students-protest-cli...

Greta Thunberg arrived in Calgary today to protest against Alberta's fossil fuel industry. On Friday, she will be leading a Friday for Future Strike in Edmonton. Many indigenous people from Alberta First Nations are planning to take part in the protests. 

Environmental activist Greta Thunberg has followed through on her pledge to visit the heartland of Canada's oil and gas industry, showing up in downtown Calgary on Wednesday and planning to join a climate strike at the Alberta Legislature in Edmonton on Friday.

The Swedish teen — who founded the Fridays For Future climate strikes that have galvanized youths around the world — was spotted on Stephen Avenue in downtown Calgary on Wednesday morning. She told a Radio-Canada reporter who saw her that she had no public events planned in Calgary and would travel to Edmonton within hours. ...

Her visit drew a mixed reaction even before she got to the western province. Alberta's environment minister has said Thunberg "doesn't understand" the province, and signalled the government wouldn't be laying out the welcome mat for the teen's upcoming visit.

Speaking to reporters outside the Alberta legislature in Edmonton on Tuesday, Environment Minister Jason Nixon said Thunberg hasn't reached out to the United Conservative Party government, and it has no plans to contact her. "I do hope that if she does come to our beautiful province, she takes the time to talk to our state-of-the-art industry partners, who are working tirelessly to continue to produce the most ethical and environmentally friendly oil and gas products in the world," Nixon said. "When you look at some of Ms. Thunberg's comments, she doesn't understand our province," Nixon said later, adding Thunberg needs to realize that Alberta must be an active partner in any global climate-change strategy. ...

Chief Lee Crowchild, of the Tsuut'ina Nation southwest of Calgary, said he sees Thunberg's visit as a learning opportunity for her and for the world. "I am pleased that a high-profile climate change activist is coming to Alberta. I hope her visit is not just a fly-over, but a genuine effort to learn how Canadians contribute to climate solutions," he said. 

"In this case, I think it's critical that Ms. Thunberg understand that it is possible to do economic development sustainably. It is possible to balance the goals of development and protection of the environment. What better place for her to see that balance at work, than at Tsuut'ina?"

Climate Action Edmonton says people of all ages from across Treaty 6, 7, and 8 territory will take part in the strike in Edmonton on Friday.

While Edmonton's mayor, Don Iveson, extended an invitation to meet with Thunberg, Medicine Hat Mayor Ted Clugston expressed skepticism about her overall cause.

"No one's ever asked me to declare a climate emergency," Clugston told the Medicine Hat News. "I'm tired of people calling carbon dioxide 'pollution.' It's a basic building block of life." "I'll listen to qualified scientists."

Priya Migneault, with the activist group Fridays For Futures YYC, said Thunberg's trip to Alberta has her and her friends excited.

"But I do hope that she is aware that this is oil and gas country, which I'm assuming she had been aware of that for a while," she said. "A lot of us environmental activists here are not against oil-and-gas workers because we are aware that they are doing a supply-and-demand industry. And we hope that Greta sees that as well, and that's what a lot of Albertans make their money on, and that's how a lot of Albertans are fed."

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/greta-thunberg-alberta-visit-clim...

Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) is a far-right anti-immigrant party part of which "shades into ethnic and even racist nationalism" and sometimes trades in conspiracy theories. 

When it was formed in 2013, the AfD's main thrust was its opposition to bailouts of indebted European Union member states like Greece. But over time, it has become, first and foremost, an anti-immigration party. ...

The party wants to change Germany’s constitution to get rid of the right to an individual hearing in asylum cases and would seek to immediately deport all those whose applications to remain in Germany are rejected, regardless of whether the countries to which deportees are sent back are safe or not. It also advocates foreigners who commit crimes in Germany being sentenced to prisons outside the country and treating minors as young as 12 as adults for certain offenses. ...

The AfD wants to seal the EU's borders, institute rigorous identity checks along Germany's national borders and set up holding camps abroad to prevent migrants from leaving for Germany in the first place. Although nominally favoring a targeted immigration policy along the Canadian model, lead candidate Alice Weidel has said the party wants to achieve "negative immigration" to Germany. It also argues that Germany is being "Islamified" and portrays itself as a bulwark for traditional Christian values.

https://www.dw.com/en/afd-what-you-need-to-know-about-germanys-far-right...

Greta Thunberg calls for climate action in Alberta but doesn’t talk oilsands while Jason Kenney spoke claimed that the fossil fuel industry is the basis of modern economy when it is built on the remains of dinosaurs and run by dinosaurs who think they can extract the last drop of tar sands oil in their pursuit of profits and avoid a shift to renewable energy.

Rebel News asked Thunberg associates (who is on the autistic spectrum) whether it is appropriate to exploit a child who has a mental illness, once again demonstrating there is no level to which it is not ready to sink. 

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg speaks in front of about 8,000 protesters outside the Alberta Legislature in Edmonton on Oct. 18, 2019. SHAUGHN BUTTS / POSTMEDIA

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg stayed away from any direct criticism of Alberta’s oilsands as she took her message to the provincial capital on Friday.

The 16-year-old told thousands of people in front of the legislature in Edmonton that the future of the planet is at stake.

“We cannot allow this crisis to continue to be a partisan, political question. The climate and ecological crisis is far beyond party politics and the main enemy right now should not be any political opponents, because our main enemy is physics,” she said. “We teenagers are not scientists, nor are we politicians, but it seems many of us, apart from most others, understand the science because we have done our homework.”

A group of oil and gas industry supporters, some who travelled to Edmonton in a truck convoy from Red Deer, held a counter-rally at the legislature, but were vastly outnumbered by climate activists. ...

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney had said his government didn’t plan on meeting with Thunberg, and on Friday he visited a power plant west of the city that is switching from coal to cleaner natural gas.

“This is the kind of real, practical, technological solution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” Kenney said. “The truth is that the so-called climate strike movement is opposed to natural gas. They’re opposed to zero-emitting nuclear power. They’re opposed to technological solutions. They’re opposed to the entire modern, industrial economy. Their manifesto effectively calls for shutting down our entire modern economy, so that is not a real world solution.” ...

Before the rally, Thunberg was confronted in the hallway of her hotel by right-wing media outlet Rebel News. In a 10-minute video posted to YouTube late Thursday, the Rebel employee asked Thunberg’s associates whether it’s appropriate to exploit a child with a mental illness.

“I don’t have a mental illness,” Thunberg laughed in the video.

The questioner asked whether she’ll disclose who funded her trip to Canada in the middle of a federal election campaign.

“I have not spoken about politics,” Thunberg said.

“Climate change is politics, is it not?” the Rebel employee asked.

“No. It’s science,” Thunberg responded.

https://calgaryherald.com/business/energy/greta-thunberg-calls-for-clima...

Greta Thunberg is coming to Vancouver on Friday for a Student Strike for Climate Action. This will be the fourth climate protest in the last month in Vancouver. 

Teen climate activist Greta Thunberg is planning to attend a post election climate strike in Vancouver Friday.

Thunberg, who attended a rally last Friday in Edmonton with thousands of young people and their supporters, will be at the Vancouver Art Gallery Friday to demand governments take urgent action to deal with the climate crisis, according to a news release from Sustainabiliteens, a Vancouver youth group that has been staging Fridays for Future rallies.

The group says the strike will begin at 11 a.m.

The strike could draw larger than usual crowds. In Montreal, an estimated half a million people came out to hear Thunberg speak during the Global Climate Strike on Sept. 27.

Also, many Metro Vancouver students have the day off. It’s a pro-development day in many districts including Vancouver, Burnaby, Coquitlam, Port Moody, Richmond, and Surrey. ...

On Sept. 27, it is estimated that more than 150,000 people rallied downtown Vancouver as part of the Global Climate Strike.

Millions more rallied in cities around the world. ...

Rebecca Hamilton, an organizer with Sustainabiliteens, said this Friday they will be calling on the new Liberal minority government to work together for a “Green New Deal that legislates science-aligned emission reduction targets, prioritizes Indigenous rights, and creates good jobs for all.” ...

They want cross-party collaboration to deal with the climate crisis. Another organizer Sam Lin said they are calling on the new MPS to “act like adults” and put aside partisan differences to create laws for a safer environment.

https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/teen-climate-activist-greta-thu...

At least 40 communities in Canada are having climate change student strikes every Friday. To find out which ones you can look at the url below. 

 

Fridays For Future Canada

In August 2018, Greta Thunberg began the "Fridays For Future" movement. The first climate strike in solidarity with Greta in the Americas happened in Canada on Friday, November 2, 2018. By Friday, December 7, 2018, there were 9 youth groups in Canada striking and a map to connect them all. There were 98 strikes for Canada's national strike on Friday, May 3, 2019 and 104 events across Canada on the May 24th global strike. From September 20th to the 27th over 1,000,000 Canadians participated in climate strikes in 245 communities across Canada. At least 40 communities have strikes every Friday in Canada. The next global strike is Friday, November 29, 2019. Please be sure to register on the map.

https://fridaysforfuture.ca

The next Fridays for Future Global Strike will be on Friday November 29th, 2019. The map at the url below shows where these strikes will be occurring in Canada and elsewhere. By clicking on a particular strike marker more information is given about the time, exact place, etc. of the strike. 

To find those in Canada click on "All countries" at the top of the map and then click on "Canada". To find those on November 29 2019, click on "Future" at the top of the map and then click on "2019-11-29".

https://fridaysforfuture.ca/event-map/

In Sydney Australia, the focus was on something even more urgent - the intense wildfires threatening the outskirts of the city since the beginning of September, at the tail end of the Australian winter, which has never occurred before, as the wildfire season usually only occurs in the summer. Instead, the wildfire season is now expected to last six to nine months in Australia. 

A teenager whose family home burned down in the New South Wales bushfires has delivered a message to Scott Morrison at a climate emergency protest outside the Liberal party headquarters, saying: “your thoughts and prayers are not enough”. ...

Shiann Broderick, from Nymboida, said government inaction on the climate crisis had “supercharged bushfires”.

“People are hurting,” she said in a statement before the protest on Friday at the party’s Sydney headquarters on Friday. “Communities like ours are being devastated. Summer hasn’t even begun.” ...

The protests were part of an international day of climate strikes, the movement founded by Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg. ...

The protest was organised by University Students for Climate Justice, one of the groups involved in a two-day protest of an international mining conference in Melbourne, which saw one protester trampled by a police horse, several hit with capsicum spray, a dozen people arrested, and provoked public criticism about the severity of the police response. ...

Students in Adelaide gathered outside the South Australian Exploration and Mining Conference.

In Darwin protesters gathered outside the office of chief minister Michael Gunner and in Hobart a crowd rallied on the lawns outside state parliament. ...

This time, the strikes were focused on the impact of devastating bushfires in New South Wales, Queensland, and Victoria in which six people have died and more than 600 homes have been destroyed.

They are calling for no new coal, oil or gas projects to be built in Australia, a transition to 100% renewable energy by 2030, and funding for a just transition for fossil fuel workers and communities.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/29/climate-change-strike-thou...

A large crowd protested at the student strike for climate action in Toronto

Mobs of shouting people convened in downtown Toronto this afternoon — not to shop, as one might expect on Black Friday, but to demand that immediate action be taken to mitigate the effects of climate change.

Because you can't enjoy a half-price big screen 4K TV when your entire home is underwater, now can you? ...

Like the massive international climate strike that brought thousands out to protest in Toronto a few months ago, today's march saw activists walk from Queen's Park to Toronto City Hall with all sorts of creative signs. ...

"On November 29th, we will be joining people around the globe to demand climate justice for all before the COP 25 meeting in Madrid, Spain on the implementation of the Paris Agreement," reads a description for the event on Facebook.

"Here in Canada, in the wake of the federal elections, it is also crucial for us to hold our newly elected officials accountable to their electoral promises, and to push all levels of government to be more ambitious in their climate action."

https://www.blogto.com/city/2019/11/toronto-climate-strike-black-friday-...