Why you must join the Global Climate Strike

Friday 20th September is the day of the Global Strike for Climate. With a special UN summit on climate change scheduled on 23rd September, Greta Thunberg and the #FridaysForFuture movement have called a general strike. So here are 5 reasons why, as a parent/adult/human, you should join the Global Strike for Climate.

If not you, then who? If not now, then when?

1. Our children’s future is at stake

As parents, we will do anything to protect our children. To make sure they are safe. To ensure they are provided for. Literally running ourselves ragged to make sure they are healthy and content and thriving. 

Yet in our busy-ness, we ignore, or downplay, the biggest threat humanity has ever faced. Taking for granted that life will remain much the same as it’s always been, we simply look away and carry on with our busy lives.

Well, it is high time us adults woke up and grew up.

A few years down the line, I want to be able to look the acorns in the eye and say I did all I could to avert climate chaos.

It would be far easier to keep our heads buried in the sand in the hope the climate emergency will just go away. But our children’s future is at stake. And so we owe it to them to rise into climate action. With them. For them. 

Let’s be Parents For Future.

2. We all are the climate generation

The youth of the world have asked us adults to stand with them. The climate emergency is not of their making, yet they are going to feel the brunt of it for decades to come – sea levels rising, superstorms, wildfires, ice caps melting, not to mention wars over basic resources such as food and water, and wave upon wave of climate refugees.

It is still within our power to rewrite this apocalyptic future. But we must act now. And it starts by raising our voice with the younger generation.

Joining the Global Climate Strike alongside them is a matter of intergenerational solidarity and justice. Because we can’t leave it to them to clean up our mess.

Everyone is welcome, everyone is needed. 

3. Using our democratic right

We are lucky to live in a democracy. And that should be reason enough to exercise our right to protest.

We can take to the streets and protest safely. We  can walk out of work for a day, for an hour, without facing life-changing, or life-threatening, consequences.

For too many people on the frontlines of climate breakdown, standing up for their rights to a safe and liveable environment is a matter of life and death. So in solidarity with the indigenous peoples of the Amazon (among many others), forced off their land by devastating wildfires and brutal repression, let’s step out of our comfort zone and demand climate justice.

I think what we should do as individuals is to use the power of democracy to make our voices heard and to make sure that the people in power actually cannot continue to ignore this.

Greta Thunberg on The Daily Show (11 Sept, 2019)

4. Individual action is not enough

Of course, climate action starts at home. We all must do as best we can to limit our carbon footprint. But it would be foolish to think that all those small individual steps will be enough to stop the ecological crisis.

The powers-that-be must step in.

We need to make them take notice and take action.

We need loud voices. We need to join the Global Climate Strike.

5. It is an act of hope

Living with the terrifying truth of the ecological crisis is hard. It is all too easy to feel overwhelmed and to fall into despair. The trick is to come back from that dark space. The trick is to take action.

Together we can do this.

What we do matters.
We cannot save the world. We can save a great deal. How much, depends on us and us alone. That is our burden, and our greatest gift.

Emily Johnston, Loving A Vanishing World

So where will you be on the day of the Global Strike for Climate?

Related

• We all are the Climate Generation – an interview with Lorna Gold
• When the alarm bell of climate anxiety is ringing
• Four Acorns join the School Strike for Climate
• Rise into climate action now !
• Time to roar for Planet Earth

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