Youth-led global climate change protests

Aristotleded24 wrote:

jerrym wrote:

Instead of bitching about what these young people have done about climate change, why don't you organize a climate change protest of all of your gung-ho friends who feel their rights have been violated by Covid-19 restrictions. Or is all you are going to do is complain about your rights being violated by Covid restrictions as the world continues to bake in the global warming oven?

I'm afraid this trend is going to continue unfortunately. The ruling class simply does not care how many webinars these activists have, because these webinars do not challenge anyone's power. The other problem with being "covid safe" is that they have just taught the fossil fuel industry exactly how to neutralize their movement. The second you agree to play by someone else's rules, they have control over you. We are very familiar with the idea that the ruling class likes to use crises for power. Why do you think a health crisis will be different? What is it about medical and health authorities that their motivations are pure and that a health crisis would never be manipulated by the ruling class to its own ends? All the fossil fuel industry has to do now is to try and use a health emergency in order to control people's movements.

Contrast this approach with the BLM protests earlier this year. Remember, the rule was no large gatherings. Well, BLM broke that rule in a big way. They understand how power works, unlike many environmentalists. BLM broke those rules and marched. They demonstrated. They made their voices heard. Most importantly, they got results. Minneapolis took steps towards dismantling its police department, and cops were kicked out of schools. The idea to "defund the police" made it into mainstream discourse. Has the environmental movement accomplished anything of such significance? Instead of playing within the rules, environmentalists need to be out in the streets as if our lives depend on this, because they do.

You still didn't answer the question. If indeed the street protests are the solution to the global warming crisis, why aren't you leading the way instead of sitting back and sneering at those who do something. You also seem to be conspiracy theory-oriented in the sense that Covid-19 is simply a means for the elite to control everyone, when in fact many would demand a government resign if no restrictions were introduced to attempt to reduce Covid infections and deaths. While there may be an advantage to a government in these restrictions reducing protests, the fact is these governments are still in power and Blacks continue to get shot regularly in the US despite all the street protests and discrimination against Blacks has not materially changed around the world. Protests have often occurred throughout history where the politicians and elites have mumbled the semi-correct thing and basically continued in power doing much the same. 

Changing who is in power is important and in-the-street protests do not do that by themselves, unless your planning to violently overthrow the government in the process, which usually leads to many deaths and a new elite that often has its own civil rights violations, in part because they themselves have often engaged in some civil rights violations in the process of overthrowing the government.

Promoting the issue can take many forms, including protests and what these young people have done, which involves keeping the issue in the public eye through their internet mock conference while trying to take on the responsibility of ensuring they do not spread Covid among their families and friends, especially for those who live in poor communities and countries with their elders under conditions that are the most susceptible to the spread of the disease. 

Again, if you think in-the-street protests are the end-all and be-all of change, why aren't you doing this leading the way on an ongoing basis in organizing protests to fight climate change instead of criticizing others who have done something?

Aristotleded24 wrote:

jerrym wrote:

You still didn't answer the question. If in the street protests are the solution to the global warming crisis, why aren't you leading the way instead of sitting back and sneering at those who do something.

You would be very hard pressed to find anyone who wants to have a gathering these days. Furthermore, in the post to which you are replying, I specifically said that an in-person protest in the streets had been called off because of the covid restrictions.

So you're just going to complain about the young people who the experts admit have done more than themselves and who are trying to bring attention to the issue in the Covid environment while you do nothing. After all, you're the one saying the risk of getting covid outside "is slim to none", so there shouldn't be any problem of you leading a protest, unless your only goal is to complain about what others do. Since you go to multiple threads to take them off-track with your continual posts on this issue, this will be my last post in this regard because this will simply end up otherwise in an endless back and forth going nowhere.

Aristotleded24 wrote

Quote:

It turns out that the climate strikes were actually a corporate PR scam that had been in the making for a long time:

Quote: 

No, this was not co-optation. This was and is PR. A brief timeline:You can also see that nearly every environmental organization in the industrialized world has been co-opted. Knowing this helps to put things into perspective. It helps explain why Thunberg and other environmental organizations called off street demonstrations in the name of "safety" even though being an environmentalist in many parts of the world (or an Indigenous land defender in Canada or the United States) is very unsafe. It also explains the eagerness of the environmental movement to use the covid crisis to impose ecofascism and punitive carbon taxes on the world's population while the billionaire class continues to live in the same luxury that is more threatening to environmental stability than ordinary people taking tropical vacations every year.

A24 ,the blog you're quoting is from Cory Morningstar, an alt-left conspiracy theorist who believes that there is a 'deep state' within world governments that controls almost all aspects of our lives. The following article discusses  the fact that her work is full of wild-eyed statements without evidence and outright falsehoods. The article you quoted comes from is the Wrong Side of Green blog which is a conspiracy theory driven thread  by Morningstar that often supports dictators and quotes anti-vacciners, as well as many other conspiracy theories, even holocaust deniers. I know the wealthy and government elites have considerable power, but I not swallowing the line that every institution, including the youth-led climate movement are part of a global conspiracy run by the elite.

Like the alt-right, the alt-left lives on conspiracy theories and denial of easily-verified facts.

One example of a conspiracy theory that some members of alt-left promote is that the White Helmets, also known as Syria Civil Defense, are actually organ traffickers who stage attacks and rescues and are allied with terrorists. This conspiracy theory goes hand-in-hand with the conspiracy theory that the genocidal dictator Bashar al-Assad of Syria is neither genocidal nor an illegitimate dictator and is unfairly portrayed as evil by the Western mainstream media.

In reality, the White Helmets are a group of courageous volunteers who have saved thousands upon thousands of lives....

One of the first people to start arguing that the White Helmets were actually malevolent frauds was Cory Morningstar. She has several online platformsand currently operates a blog called “Wrong Kind of Green” with Forrest Palmer, who endorses and edits much of her writing.

Again, the White Helmets are the ones who are helping suffering Syriansand nothing that Morningstar or others like her (e.g. Michael Swifte, a blogger who calls the White Helmets a “propaganda construct”) says about them will make this fact untrue.

Morningstar calls herself an investigative journalist and has called her research “extensive and exhaustive,” but one look at the people who vouch for her and at the kinds of people and sources she presents as legitimate shows that this cannot be true.

One such person is John Steppling, a writer whose activities include defending dictators. He and Morningstar promote each other’s work online. ...

Meanwhile, Haeder defends Andrew Wakefield and seems to support his call for the suspension of the MMR vaccine. As is widely known, the MMR vaccine is safe and Wakefield has been soundly discredited.

Morningstar is friends with Eva Bartlett and Vanessa Beeley, two propagandists who work to slander the White Helmets, and deny Assad’s crimes against humanity (e.g. his horrifying chemical attacks). They have also been expertly debunked multiple times. Beeley, Bartlett, and Morningstar all share and promote each other’s work online.

On Bartlett’s Patreon page, a video of her can be found in which she argues that evil dictators Assad, Gaddafi, and Kim Jong-Un have all been unfairly vilified by the West. ...

Morningstar also promotes the work of Australian war crime denier and 9/11 truther Caitlin Johnstone as if she were a legitimate source. Morningstar also promotes the website Black Agenda Report, in spite of the fact that one of its writers, Ajamu Baraka, is yet another dictator-defender (as is grifter Jill Stein). And she promotes Tim Hayward (who is another war crime denier).

In addition, Morningstar treats the “news” websites 21st Century Wire, OffGuardian, Global Research, and American Herald Tribune as legitimate sources. The 21st Century Wire website is currently hosting articles which assert that vaccines are dangerous, that the ongoing cultural genocide against Uyghur Muslims in China might not be happening, that global warming is a scam, that Trump’s hateful transgender military ban “makes sense” and that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s anti-refugee policy is fine.

Beeley is also an editor of this hideous website. She and Holocaust-denier/Sandy Hook truther Paul Craig Roberts (who currently has a lot of articles on Counterpunch) share the belief that the horribly tragic 2015 Charlie Hebdo shooting was a false flag. She is an anti-semite. She also vilifies philanthropist George Soros as a “Zionist Billionaire” who supports the “deep state.” Beeley also supports fascist Julian Assange. ...

OffGuardian has published anti-vaccine articles, and American Herald Tribune has published 9/11 truther and other bogus conspiracy theory articles. Global Research is also disgusting and rife with nonsense and anti-semitism.

Patrick Henningsen, the executive editor and founder of 21st Century Wire, equated the Oscar-winning Netflix documentary film “The White Helmets”to Nazi propaganda, and Morningstar currently hosts the article in which he asserts this on Wrong Kind of Green. ...

Morningstar thinks that leading environmentalist Bill McKibben and his organization 350 are not worth supporting. Recently she has spent a great deal of time in harassing and attacking the wise and courageous 16-year-old environmental activist Greta Thunberg and attempting to discredit her as a manufactured corporate pawn. Morningstar proved how odious and twisted her obsession with this child is by going so far as to publish her slanderous writing about her in a book that she is now selling on Amazon.

No news outlet or journalist is perfect or gets every single fact right one hundred percent of the time. But some journalists and news outlets have standards and work hard to use credible evidence to back up what they say, and some do not.

https://medium.com/@roheath/debunking-cory-morningstar-and-other-alt-lef...

Aristotleded24 wrote:

jerrym wrote:

A24 ,the blog you're quoting is from Cory Morningstar, an alt-left conspiracy theorist who believes that there is a 'deep state' within world governments that controls almost all aspects of our lives. The following article dicusses  the fact that her work is full of wild-eyed statements without evidence and outright falsehoods. The article you quoted comes from is the Wrong Side of Green blog which is a conspiracy theory driven thread  by Morningstar that often supports dictators and quotes anti-vacciners, as well as many other conspiracy theories, even holocaust deniers.

I've never seen any holocaust denial on that website at all. Having said that, the fact that the author chose to engage in ad hominems and guilt-by-association smears rather than to deal with the substance of Morningstar's post proves that the author is correct.

That is really rich. You quote her smearing climate activist after climate activist with being part of a conspiracy theory and then claim that she is being smeared and then claim any attack on her proves she is right. It doesn't prove anything.  Start your own thread to promote your theories rather than bombing everybody else. I don't want this to be another thread of never-ending claim and counter claim. 

The map at the url below shows where Global Climate Strikes are occurring around the world on Friday September 24th. By using the +/- button you can find out what strikes or actions are occuring in your region. 

https://fridaysforfuture.org/action-map/map/

Fridays for Future is going on today with 1,400 protests in 80 countries around the world with one of the largest youth-led climate change protests occurring in Berlin. This is occurring in the midst of a German national election in which the polls show the Greens growing greatly in popularity as climate changes impacts everyone's lives more and more. However, even the German Greens have been criticized by climate experts for not having strong enough measures in their platform. This forced each of the leading candidates to comment on the protest. Videos of the protest, young activists, the struggling energy transition and the chancellor candidates are included in the url below.

Chancellor Merkel's ruling CDU party has "the leader once touted as the "climate chancellor" has failed to push forward any significant environmental legislation in the past decade." Sounds like Trudeau's Liberals during the past six years. 

Greta Thunberg tweeted "We’re back! Today we were over 100 000 on the strike in Berlin and 620 000 in Germany alone along with many others all over the world, asking world leaders to #UprootTheSystem . There were strikes in over 80 countries! #FridaysForFuture #ClimateStrike"

Fridays for Future Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg speaks during the Global Climate Strike of the movement Fridays for Future in Berlin, Germany, September 24, 2021. REUTERS/Christian Mang

Fridays for Future protests were held across Germany as climate activists sought to make their voices heard ahead of the country's federal election on Sunday. Founder Greta Thunberg,who joined the event in Berlin, told demonstrators that "no political party is doing even close to enough" to fight the climate crisis. "Yes, we must vote, you must vote, but remember that voting only will not be enough. We must keep going into the streets," Thunberg said at the rally in front of the Reichstag parliament building.

Greta Thunberg: 'Germany is the fourth biggest emitter of CO2 in history'

Aside from Berlin, protests also took place in Hamburg, Freiburg, Cologne and Bonn. The demonstrations in Germany were just one part of a worldwide climate strike that includes 1,400 events in 80 countries.

What else have activists said?

Luisa Neubauer, who heads the Fridays for Future German chapter, told French news agency AFP that they wanted to "create pressure from the streets" ahead of the September 26 vote. "The political parties haven't taken the climate catastrophe seriously enough," Neubauer said, adding that young people wanted "no more excuses" from older politicians about the state of the world they will leave behind.

Jana Boltersdorf, another young climate activist, told DW she was marching "to give a voice to those who are not old enough to vote, but will suffer the most as a result of the climate crisis."

German election: Young and without a voice?

Carla Reemstma, one of the organizers of the Fridays for Future rallies in Germany, told DW that politicians "are not treating the climate crisis like a crisis. We demand immediate actions to lower emissions, to stop fueling the climate crisis [and] to stop financing fossil fuels like coal and gas," she said.

FFF activist: German politicians 'not treating the climate crisis as a crisis' What is the state of climate policy in Germany?

As Chancellor Angela Merkel's 16-year stint draws to a close, the leader once touted as the "climate chancellor" has failed to push forward any significant environmental legislation in the past decade.

In a landmark ruling in April, Germany's top court found the government's plans to curb CO2 emissions "insufficient" to meet the targets of the Paris Agreement and placed an "unfair burden" on future generations. Speaking at the site of catastrophic flooding in western Germany in July, Merkel called on her successor to do more to tackle climate change, but did not address her own climate legacy.

Germany's struggling energy transition

With the Green Party polling in third place ahead of the election, it is possible that they could end up as a junior coalition partner in the next government, particularly considering that polls also show the climate as one of the most important topics to German voters. However, the Greens' platform has been criticized as not being aggressive enough to combat the climate crisis by environmental experts.

How have the chancellor candidates responded?

Olaf Scholz, Germany's finance minister and the chancellor candidate for the Social Democratic Party (SPD), thanked the movement in a tweet. He said Fridays for Future had helped put climate change on the political agenda. "I say emphatically that the fact that today is climate strike day is right," said Scholz, who is currently ranking first in the polls.

The candidate for Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) Armin Laschet, ranking second in the polls, took to instagram to call for climate action.  "It is completely clear to the CDU, and not since today, that Germany has to become faster and better on climate change," Laschet said.

The Greens Party's Annalena Baerbock, made an unexpected appearance at a climate protest in Cologne. "Just like in Cologne, tens of thousands of children, young people and people of all ages are taking to the streets today across Germany in the climate strike and making it clear: They want a new start because they know that the future of all of us is at stake," Baerbock said on Twitter.

https://www.dw.com/en/germany-fridays-for-future-protesters-rally-with-g...

Just one of the 75 Fridays For Future in Canada on September 24th. 

Climate change rally Friday Belleville, ON, Canada / Quinte News

John Spitters

Sep 23, 2021 | 9:53 AM

 

Friday is Global Day of Action, a day when demonstrations will be held pushing governments to start taking serious action on climate change.

And Friday’s for Future Quinte, a youth-led group, will do its part by holding a rally in Belleville’s Market Square.

Isabelle Budding, a Centennial Secondary School student, is a member of Friday for Future Quinte and outlines the group’s main concerns.

“Basically the global north needs to divest from fossil fuels, the colonizers of the north have a climate debt to pay for their disproportionate emissions and work toward a global recovery from COVID-19”

The socially distanced demonstration will begin at 1:30 Friday afternoon in Market Square.

Large youth-led crowds demanded climate action in Vancouver and Victoria.

View image in full screen

Youth hold a sign calling for a green COVID-19 recovery at a protest in Vancouver on Friday.

Hundreds of people gathered in Vancouver and Victoria on Friday for a youth-led rally calling for urgent action on climate change.

The events were part of scores of similar rallies worldwide, a part of the Fridays for Future climate strike movement started by climate activist Greta Thunberg.

Students and adults gathered at Jack Poole Plaza in Vancouver and the provincial legislature in Victoria.

“We just elected a new federal government and this is a key point in time to pressure the new government into taking climate action,” co-organizer and Port Moody Grade 11 student Amber Leung told Global News. We see it affecting our future very directly. Because now our generation only thinks about the future … there’s so much uncertainty as to what it’s going to turn out like since we haven’t seen any real action in the past few years.”

Emissions have risen in Canada every year since the Liberals were elected in 2015 according to government statistics.

Leung said demonstrators want the government to stop all fossil fuel expansion, including the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, and implement funding for a “just transition” to green energy and COVID-19 recovery.

They’re also calling on the government to act on all 94 of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s calls to action on Indigenous rights.

https://globalnews.ca/news/8219139/bc-climate-strike-rallies/

Large protests also occurred in Turkey.

Fridays For Future at National Museum Die-in in Istanbul, Turkey. 

Climate activists in Istanbul staged a "die in" outside the city's Gazhane Museum. 

The protests are part of thousands of rallies scheduled around the world alongside the United Nations General Assembly and as part of Greta Thunberg's Fridays for Future climate movement.

Today's rallies mark the first climate strike in Turkey since Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan announced at the UN on Tuesday that Turkey will bring the Paris Agreement to parliament for approval next month ahead of COP26.

https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/live-updates-climate-protests-unga-i...

In Amazonia, Brasil protests to save the Amazon that is critical to saving the jungle from the extraction industry, the indigenous people of the region, and preventing the immense forests that store immense amonts of  carbon also occurred on Friday. 

Different Latin American groups will meet this Friday to make visible the problems caused by extractivism in Latin America. Our voices unite to safeguard the Amazon and its biodiversity, to stop the displacement of indigenous peoples due to logging, water pollution, illegal mining.

The planned extraction of lithium for batteries used by electric cars will have irreparable consequences on the environment of the supplier countries. Join us, we wait for you at the exit of the station "Alte Oper" near the stairs, at 11:45. They convened: Abá, DLI Pro Amazonía, Peruanische Tanzgruppe Amazonia.

https://allevents.in/frankfurt/fridays-for-future-diasporas-latinoameric...

More than 30,000 marched for climate in the Fridays For Future protests in Austria. 

 

Today, all over Austria, more than 30 000 people joined the global climate strike to demand immediate #ClimateAction. The Austrian government still fails to act upon the climate emergency and ecological collapse. But together, we will #UprootTheSystem!

 

 

Halifax also held a large Fridays For Future protest last week over the failure of Canadian politicians to address climate change in any meaningful way. 

You are here: Home / Environment / Hundreds march through Halifax to demand action on climate change

Hundreds march through Halifax to demand action on climate change

SEPTEMBER 24, 2021 BY ZANE WOODFORDLEAVE A COMMENT

Dalhousie Student Union Vice President Mazen Brisha chants into a megaphone during the School Strike for Climate Change in Halifax on Friday. — Photo: Zane Woodford

Hundreds of students and their supporters marched through the streets of Halifax on Friday calling for action on climate change.

The protesters were taking part in the Global Climate Strike, an international student-led protest first started by Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg as Fridays for Future, in 2019.

In Halifax, the crowd marched from Victoria Park at South Park Street and Spring Garden Road, down to Province House on Hollis Street, to Nova Scotia Power headquarters on Lower Water Street, and then back to Victoria Park.

https://www.halifaxexaminer.ca/environment/hundreds-march-through-halifa...

Many Victoria students walked out of class to participate in the Fridays For Future protest last week. 

Students rally for climate change in Victoria’s Centennial Square on Sept. 24, 2021. (CTV News)

More than 300 middle and high school students from across Greater Victoria walked out of classes to take part in the “Our Earth – Our Future” strike for climate action on Friday.

The student strike was organized by two Vic High students who say they are rallying for all climate injustice, from old-growth logging in Fairy Creek to the plight of the endangered Southern Resident Killer whales. They say by holding the rally, youth will feel empowered to speak up and demand an end to the catastrophic effects of climate change.

“When we speak, it’s so important that we are heard by other people,” said rally co-organizer Solange Dorsainvile. “If it means we have to leave school and be on the streets so people can hear us, that’s what we have to do, because its our future and our children’s future.”

After acknowledging the territory and unceded rights of the Lekwungen and W̱SÁNEĆ speaking peoples, the group marched to Victoria’s Centennial Square.

Once there, students heard speeches from activists about the need to protect old-growth forests as a means sequester carbon and mitigate the effects of climate change.

“We’re fighting Canada’s lack of action against climate change,” said rally co-organizer Talia Collins. “It’s so frustrating to see all this talk about climate change and climate action, but no real action and no real laws are being put in place.”

Collins says she wants to see an end to fracking and is calling for an end to oil tanker traffic in the waters off Vancouver Island.

“We don’t see any real action, but we hear lots of talk from the NDP, we hear lots of talk from Trudeau, but I’m not seeing any true action,” said Collins. “It’s very frustrating, and as someone who can’t vote, it doesn’t seem like democracy to me.”

Collins says events, like the student strike, are important because they bring a diverse group of young people together to talk about the damaging effects of climate change.

Collins says she is calling for oil exploration and pipelines to be de-funded. She says companies and governments need to make more investments in green technology to end people’s reliance on fossil fuels.

“The future just needs to become more green,” said Collins. “We know our time is running out and we speak of economic balance, but there is no 50/50 balance between economic development and the environment as long as we continue to rely on fossil fuels.”

Collins says there needs to be a focused effort to expand public transit and produce green sources of electricity throughout the country.

“These are things that need to happen in order for us to meet our carbon goals by 2050,” said Collins. “I’m here because I want to give youth a platform and I want people to feel supported and uplifted.”

https://www.iheartradio.ca/move/kingston/news/greater-victoria-students-...

Tens of thousands showed up in Hamburg marched on the September 24th Fridays For Future march in Hamburg. 

A group gathered at the Jungfernstieg, a main boulevard in Hamburg, Germany.Credit...Axel Heimken/DPA, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/20/climate/global-climate-strike.html

In Toronto, where housing prices have exploded into the stratosphere, a strong connection was made between climate justice and housing during the Fridays For Future September 24th protest by ending "the forcible eviction of people living in encampments and by providing safe and dignified housing." 

Protesters march down Bay Street in Toronto as part of a global climate strike on Friday, Sept. 24, 2021. Photo by Morgan Sharp

One of the ancillary demands of the Toronto protest was for the municipal government to end the forcible eviction of people living in encampments and to provide safe and dignified housing, a sign of the growing alignment of the climate movement with other social justice movements.

“If you are wondering why a climate movement is talking about housing justice, it's because we know that marginalized folks, including those without homes, are most at risk from the effects of climate change,” Chloe Tse, a 20-year-old organizer with Fridays for Future Toronto, told the crowd.

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2021/09/24/news/young-activists-say-yea...

Youth activists marched in the streets of Milan and had a youth conference on climate change there to mock the  world leaders' Milan prepatory conference for COP 26 which starts at the end of October in Glasgow and their failure to deal with global warming.

 

People take down to the streets in the wake of the three-day Youth for Climate summit, in Milan, Italy, Saturday, Oct. 2, 2021.

Ahead of the COP26 UN summit on climate change, young people met in Milan to pressure world leaders before they meet at the end of this month. Thousands took to the streets of the Italian city on Saturday to push policy-makers to take action. It came on the final day of a preparatory meeting for delegates from around the world to identify where progress can be made before the summit starts in Glasgow on October 31.

Activists voiced their frustration at politicians and big companies during the march, saying not enough action has been taken, despite international meetings like the COP. "Despite the many demonstrations and the many international meetings like the pre-COP or the COP there hasn't been any turn in the politics to tackle climate change, they still talk about reaching zero emission by 2050 while we say it must be done by 2030," said 25-year-old activist Lorenzo Morandi. The UK's president for COP26 said the presence of youth delegates and activists had energised the process. "What we were hearing shamed this set of world leaders and there is no doubt that this group of young people and in fact young people around the world are going to hold this set of world leaders to account if at COP26, we are not able to credibly say that we have kept 1.5 degrees within reach," Alok Sharma said.

The previous day, Fridays for Future activists including Greta Thunberg and Vanessa Nakate, led another climate march in Milan. In a speech to demonstrators, Thunberg told the crowds that politicians are only "pretending that they have solutions to the climate crisis", adding that it's only "when people gather to make change" that there is hope for the future.

The 12-day COP26 summit in early November will aim to secure more ambitious commitments to limit global warming. The meeting also is focused on mobilising financing and protecting vulnerable communities and natural habitats.

https://www.euronews.com/2021/10/03/cop26-youth-activists-march-in-milan...

The next global Fridays for Future strike is October 22nd. 

 

REASONS TO STRIKE

Many question why millions of children and adults across the world are taking the time to strike: don’t they have school, work or other responsibilities? 

The answer is simple: We strike because we have no choice. We are fighting for our future and for our children’s future. We strike because there is still time to change, but time is of the essence. The sooner we act, the better our shared future will be.

LOWER WARMING, LOWER RISK

The Earth is already warming. In the 2015 Paris Agreement, countries undertook to pursue ambitious efforts to limit global temperature increase to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and efforts to limit the long term temperature increase to 1.5°C. Achieving this target, says the IPCC, will mean fewer climate-related risks for natural and human systems than warming of 2° Celsius. Higher levels of warming are causing worse heat waves, more droughts and floods, and higher sea level rise, causing destruction to the earth we have inherited. These effects will impact everyone – rich and poor – and be most devastating to our most vulnerable: the poorest and youngest people.  

WE DEMAND ACTION

Not enough is being done to limit warming – not even close. This is why Fridays For Future’s mission is to unite behind the science and make those in power take the facts seriously, and act accordingly. We strike for our own future but also for the future of coastal peoples, farmers, indigenous people, and others who are already suffering because of climate change. Farmers in countries like the US, the UK and India are already committing suicide because droughts and floods have undermined their livelihood. 

The good news is that scientists believe limiting warming is absolutely technically possible. With renewable energy technologies, changes in farming and transport, and other big changes, we can limit warming and avoid even worse outcomes. Scientists have modeled these pathways to a better future in detail, we simply need our leaders to embrace them. Scientists have been demanding this for 50 years and haven’t been listened to, and that is why we are taking to the streets. Non-violent protesting is an effective way to bring change.

THE CRISIS IS ALREADY HERE

So, we say to those who question our actions: How can we study or work for a future, which is being destroyed in front of our eyes? We are losing football-sized fields of irreplaceable Amazon rainforest every minute. Why should we spend the time and effort on an education, when our governments are not listening to the finest scientists? Why should we study so we can do great things later, when the time for greatness, for action, is now? Humans created this crisis, so humans have to stop it – or face global destruction. Already, we see heat waves, droughts, wildfires, floods and 200 species are disappearing every day from the face of the earth, never to return.  

It is important to add that while we want—even demand—action to keep global warming under 1.5 degrees Celsius, we will not quit or go away if the planet hits that mark. No matter what happens, it is never “too late.” There are always better and worse futures to be had. We will not give up.  

CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE IS EFFECTIVE

Collective action helps us cope with climate anxiety and worry. Striking together brings us hope, and it really does lead to direct change – we learned this much in the history classes you say we should be in. Fridays for Future. is powerful. There is a better life on the other side of the crisis. 

https://fridaysforfuture.org/october22/

Since yesterday more Fridays for Future protest locations have been added to the map and locations identified in the last post including in Canada, at the url below for Friday October 22nd global protests against governments' inaction on climate change. By clicking on bubble locations on the map at the url below, you can find the time and specific site of protests at the following new locations which anyone can attend:

Fridays For Future

​

 

https://fridaysforfuture.org/action-map/map/

BC Vernon, Kelowna

Alberta Edmonton

Ontario Hamilton, Peterborough

https://fridaysforfuture.org/action-map/map/

Those locations and times previously listed are: 

BC Vancouver, Nelson, Qualicum Beach, Hope, Spallumcheen,                                                        Yukon Whitehorse 
Ontario Sudbury, London, Stratford, Hamilton, Halton Hills, King City, Orangeville, Collingwood, Bracebridge, Huntsville, Perth
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Fridays For Future protests were held around the world today including in Bern Switzerland. 

Protestors take part in the Global Climate Strike of the movement Fridays for Future in front of the Bundeshaus, the seat of the Swiss federal parliament at the Bundesplatz square in Bern, Switzerland October 22, 2021.

Banner-waving climate activists rallied outside the Swiss parliament on Friday in support of a Global Climate Strike that youth movement Fridays for Future had called for ahead of the UN climate summit COP26.https://www.reuters.com/business/cop/fridays-future-activists-bern-deman...

Greta Thunberg led the October 22nd protest in Stockholm. 

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  Germany Climate Protests

  People stay in front of the Brandenburg Gate as they take part in a 'Fridays For Future' climate protest rally in Berlin, Germany, Friday, Oct. 22, 2021. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn)

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  Germany Climate Protest

  A young girl carries a poster reading 'Game over' during climate demonstration of the 'Fridays for Future' movement in Berlin, Germany, Friday, Oct. 22, 2021. (Britta Pedersen/dpa via AP)

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  Germany Climate Protest

  Seven years old Arvid had the globe painted on his face as he attends a climate protest of the 'Fridays for Future' movement in Berlin, Germany, Friday, Oct. 22, 2021. (Britta Pedersen/dpa via AP)

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  Germany Climate Protests

  People walk past the Brandenburg Gate as they take part in a 'Fridays For Future' climate protest rally in Berlin, Germany, Friday, Oct. 22, 2021. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn)

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  Germany Climate Protests

  People walk past the Brandenburg Gate, center, as they take part in a 'Fridays For Future' climate protest rally in Berlin, Germany, Friday, Oct. 22, 2021. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn)

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  Sweden Climate Protests

  Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg speaks during a Fridays for Future global climate strike protest, in central Stockholm, Sweden, Friday, Oct. 22, 2021. (Erik Simander/TT via AP)

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  Sweden Climate Protest

  Greta Thunberg, in white jacket at center, takes part in "global climate strike" demonstration, organized by Fridays For Future in central Stockholm, Friday, Oct. 22, 2021. (Erik Simander/TT via AP)

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  Sweden Climate Protest

  Greta Thunberg, in white jacket at left, takes part in "global climate strike" demonstration, organized by Fridays For Future in central Stockholm, Friday, Oct. 22, 2021. (Erik Simander/TT via AP)

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https://ca.sports.yahoo.com/news/campaigners-stage-climate-protests-acro...

Hundreds marched in Halifax to protest for climate justice. The url below includes a video of some of the protesters.

https://www.saltwire.com/atlantic-canada/news/video-students-take-to-hal...

On Saturday October 30, climate activists from Fridays For Future and Extinction Rebellion and others protested about world leaders failing to deliver on their promises on climate change including money for poor nations to deal with global warming, as well as on other issues, at the G20 meeting in Rome. As the following photo shows, Trudeau was one of the targets.

 

World leaders being asked where is the money for poor nations that was promised to deal with climate change

“From Rome to Glasgow your initiatives are the problem” and “The catastrophe is here, it’s time to act.”  

People arrive at Piazza Bocca della Verita during a protest against the G20 of World Leaders Summit | Alberto Pizzoli/AFP via Getty Images

Thousands of protesters marching in Rome on Saturday had a message for G20 leaders gathered in the city to tackle some of the world’s most pressing issues: You’re part of the problem.

The summit, being held in the fascist-era EUR area of the city, faced protests on two fronts — a larger demonstration with an international focus and a smaller one targeting Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi and his government. Climate change activists, schoolchildren, labor unions and Communists were among those taking to the streets.

Some said the G20 could only offer superficial solutions, while others accused the political establishment represented by the leaders of propping up a model of economic development that exacerbated global problems.

Following violent anti-vax protests earlier this month, Rome’s security forces were on high alert. Around 5,000 extra police and law enforcement officers were deployed for the summit weekend, as well as snipers, helicopters and a no-fly zone.

A sit-in by climate activists blocked a thoroughfare from the city center to the G20 venue on Saturday morning but the protesters were removed by police.

Beating drums and setting off flares, militants from left-wing organizations and unions joined students and Fridays for Future and Extinction Rebellion activists who marched on Rome’s Mouth of Truth monument in the afternoon.

Some made a connection between the G20 and the COP26 climate talks that begin in Scotland on Sunday. They held banners such as “From Rome to Glasgow your initiatives are the problem” and “The catastrophe is here, it’s time to act.”  

Flavio, a 17-year-old high school student with a group from his school in Rome, said his generation had “a right to be angry” because “today’s political reality has brought us to environmental catastrophe.” But until people question the current capitalist economic model, “nothing will be resolved,” he said.  

Cristina Re, a Ph.D. student from Bologna, pointed to a cyclone in Sicily this week as an example of a growing number of cases of extreme weather. “We shouldn’t have to get to human extinction for them to listen to us,” she said. “Our message to the G20 is: Don’t get comfortable because we won’t watch while you destroy our future.”

Paolo Spena, 26, an organizer in a Communist youth organization, said the pandemic “had showed that leaders put profit ahead of the health of people. Everything is worse than our parents’ generation. The only thing we can do is be here in person, and fight for our future.” 

White-bearded environmental activist Silvio Marconi called the G20 “theater.” He said, “There won’t be any meaningful change because it would put at risk the economic system we have had for 200 years. They will embrace, they won’t do anything. It will be the same in Glasgow.”

Riccardo Carraro, an ecologist and spokesman for the Acrobax climate camp, accused the world leaders of putting forward only “superficial solutions” and of greenwashing. “We want serious measures against climate change, drastic reduction in investment in fossil fuels,” he said.

A separate protest against Draghi’s government in Piazza San Giovanni attracted hundreds of demonstrators opposed to the EU and NATO, as well as anti-vaxxers who disagree with the prime minister’s strict vaccine regulations.

https://www.politico.eu/article/protesters-rome-g20-summit-host-mario-dr...

On Friday November 5th, Fridays For Future's Greta Thunberg and 100,000 others will be protesting in Glasgow at the COP 26 conference. Thunberg was not invited to the conference. Surprise! Surprise!

 

Greta Thunberg is set to be joined by 100,000 protestors in Glasgow, Scotland, on Friday 5th November as world leaders gather for the COP26 conference. 

Posting on Twitter, the teenage activist said she would join a climate strike march from Kelvingrove Park to George Square to coincide with the world's most important climate change summit. As part of her Fridays for Future marches, it will call for leaders to take meaningful international action on climate change. 

Urging others to join, Greta wrote: "On Friday Nov 5 I'll join the climate strike in Glasgow, during #COP26 Climate justice also means social justice and that we leave no one behind. So we invite everyone, especially the workers striking in Glasgow, to join us. See you there!"...

Greta Thunberg might be one of the world's most prominent climate activists, but she told BBC's Andrew Marr that she wasn't officially invited. "I don't know. It's very unclear. Not officially. I think that many people might be scared that if they invite too many radical young people, then that might make them look bad," she said. 

At first, the 18-year-old said she might not be at COP26, having called for the summit to be postponed until global vaccination rates have risen (there are concerns that developing countries will be excluded if attendees need a vaccine passport).

Despite this, Greta is expected to participate in other climate change rallies during the summit and will speak at a protect taking place on Saturday 6th November hosted by the COP26 Coalition.

https://www.countryliving.com/uk/news/a38130720/greta-thunberg-cop26-dem...

The erasure of non-white activists and their stories from Western media is part of the ongoing failure to cover global warming story from the beginning. 

Vanessa Nakate speaks at the Fridays for Future demonstration in Milan, Italy on October 1, 2021. ...

When I started reading Vanessa Nakate’s new book, A Bigger Picture (HarperCollins 2021), I didn’t immediately understand the connection between the title and the event that first introduced me to the Ugandan climate activist. It was January 2020 at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. She and four other youth activists were there to encourage attendees to take the climate crisis seriously. The five activists gave a press conference and posed for pictures. But when the Associated Press story came out, Nakate had been cropped from the photo.

“As I looked at the image,” the 24-year-old Nakate writes in the introduction to her book, “it became impossible to ignore that of the five women who’d posed for that photo, I was the only one who wasn’t from Europe and the only one who was Black. They hadn’t just cropped me out, I realized. They’d cropped out a whole continent.”

So even though Nakate shares that she had felt great trepidation and timidity organizing climate strikes in the Ugandan capital of Kampala and attending international climate conferences in the previous year, it was this singular “error of judgement” and the resulting backlash that galvanized her resolve to act on climate justice.

“Being cropped out of that photo changed the course of my activism and my life,” she writes. “It reframed my thoughts about race, gender, equity, and climate justice; and it led to the words you’re now reading.”...

“I am not in the minds of leaders right now, but I want to really hope that they rise up for the people and the planet,” she says. “And I just hope that their words really match their actions.” That’s one of her central criticisms of much of the global climate action—or inaction—she’s witnessed in her time as an activist: Leaders making promises about going net-zero by 2050, let’s say, but then turning around and continuing to extract fossil fuels or build new coal or gas power plants. Because climate change is not some future inevitability for her. It’s her everyday experience in Kampala, on the continent facing some of the most brutal impacts of climate change—violent cyclones, extreme drought, massive flooding, deadly landslides, and famine-inducing locusts—while only having contributed 3% of global CO2 emissions.

“The already-existing inequalities are fueled by the climate crisis, and this is leaving more Black people, more Indigenous communities, more people of color being exposed to these climate disasters,” Nakate tells me, “putting them on the front lines of these climate disasters, putting them at the front lines of air pollution, water pollution, putting them at the front lines of exploitation.”​ ...

 “While these communities are on the front lines of the climate crisis, they are, first of all, not on the front pages of the world’s newspapers. Their stories are not being told. … Their stories are not being amplified.”...

Especially in Uganda, women and girls are encouraged to be silent, under the guise of maintaining their dignity and self-respect. Nakate knew she would receive pushback for going against this cultural norm, standing on busy street corners with handmade signs about stopping the climate crisis. And she did, both in person and on social media. People accused her of using her climate activism as a front for prostitution, finding a husband, or selling drugs. ...

In the book’s final chapter, Nakate offers guidance to help readers turn these ideas into their own personal forms of activism. It’s hard not to feel as if a better world is possible when she writes, “Every activist has a story to tell; every story has a solution to give; and every solution has a life to change.”

https://www.yesmagazine.org/environment/2021/11/02/vanessa-nakate-climat...

IMAGE SOURCE, PA MEDIA

Indigenous activists from Brazil speak at the Fridays for Future demo in George Square

Indigenous activists from Brazil speak at the Fridays for Future demo in George Square

The Articulation of the Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (Apib), together with all its grassroots organisations, mobilised the largest delegation of Brazilian indigenous leaders in the history of the Climate Conference (CoP26) to discuss solutions to the climate crisis.

More than 40 representatives of the indigenous peoples will be in Glasgow, Scotland, between October 31 and November 12 with the proposal to occupy the Conference and alert the world about the need to demarcate the indigenous lands and protect the indigenous peoples for the future of the planet.

An excerpt from Apib’s message to world leaders, businessmen and civil society organisations attending CoP26, says:

“We stand against false solutions based on technological innovations designed from the same developmental and productivist logic that causes climate change. We criticise solutions that do not recognise indigenous peoples and local communities as central to the defence of forests, the reduction of deforestation and fires and as essential to ensure that we reach the stated goal of keeping global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius.” 

The Brazilian indigenous delegation at the conference will denounce the ongoing indigenous genocide and ecocide that is underway in Brazil, aggravated by the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic and the Federal Government’s death project.

On the international day of indigenous peoples, August 9, Apib filed an unprecedented denouncement at the International Criminal Court to denounce the Bolsonaro government for genocide.

The delegation says in its message:

“We have shaped and protected our biomes at the price of millions of our relatives. The genocide of the original people, the persecution of the defenders of territories and the illegal capture of our lands, is the largest and most widespread crime that humanity has produced throughout its history. This is a continuous and present crime, which we denounce in all the instances that we occupy.”

According to the delegation’s organisation, this is the largest delegation of Brazilian indigenous leaders in the history of the CoP. Apib has participated in the conference since 2014 and had mobilised, in 2019, a group of 18 people for the last CoP, which was until then the largest participation of leaders in the meeting.

In this context of the COVID-19 pandemic, which affected billions of people, indigenous people reinforce the need to respect the biodiversity present in indigenous territories.

For the indigenous delegation, the current policy of the Federal Government is harmful to the environment, the climate and traditional communities.

Apib and its indigenous organisations have constantly denounced the invasions of territories, the contamination of rivers and springs by pesticides and mercury, the rampant deforestation of the Amazon forest, the Cerrado and the Pantanal wetlands.

According to the organisation, despite this scenario, economic funds continue to financially support the unbridled greed that destroys the planet.

https://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/climate-change/indigenous-people-are...