Surely you're here, dear reader, to hear me out on political opinions and polarizing topics. Surely you're curious as to whether or not I’m on the side of believing climate change is a real thing and if I believe we as a whole are largely responsible for it. I'm guessing too you're curious about whether or not I'm one to stand on a platform and raise my voice thinking it’ll change someone’s mind.
The Global Climate Strike this past Friday claimed four million participants around the world. There was a reported 60,000 (mostly young) New Yorkers out in force to say their piece and join other like minded people in demanding world leaders take real action towards combating climate change.
CAMERA/EDIT: Me
MUSIC: "Four Thirty" by Matt Lowery
It’s terrifying to see the environmental changes taking place, but easy for me to move on to the next thing on my plate. Climate change is a huge, worldwide issue that demands our attention, but oh man it’s awesome I can order dog food, toilet paper, or any number of things on the internet and have it delivered by the next day without even considering the environmental impact of what goes into making that happen. If you've followed along for any period of time you'll know I'm a fan of contributing more than you consume but that's so much easier to say than do. Still, I'm pretty sure the daily habits to consume less are more helpful than not. Kudos to the few jobs I've been on recently that have completely cut out plastic water bottles – looking at you Vevo and Hilton Hotels.
I've been to plenty of demonstrations, marches, and protests over the years but this one felt different. How do you change the opinion of someone in power who’s already made up their mind? Will another protest, march, or strike be the one to finally tip the scales?
This is the world we live in: Punishing heat waves, catastrophic floods, huge fires and climate conditions so uncertain that children took to the streets en masse in global protests to demand action.
But this is also the world we live in: A pantheon of world leaders who have deep ties to the industries that are the biggest sources of planet-warming emissions, are hostile to protests, or use climate science denial to score political points. - > NY Times
It's inspiring to say the least to hear from Greta Thunberg and read about #FridaysForFuture. I absolutely agree with the idea of education being pointless if you're not around to use it. Good grief what an amazing message and optic seeing her sail from Europe to NYC on a zero-emissions yacht instead of flying because of airplanes' high gas emissions. After all she was invited to speak at the United Nations Climate Action Summit.
Sitting next to Mr. Guterres, Ms. Thunberg took the microphone and said the millions of young people who protested around the world Friday had made an impact. “We showed them we are united and that we young people are unstoppable,” she said.
From Mr. Guterres came a hat tip. “I encourage you to go on. I encourage you to keep your initiative, keep your mobilization and more and more to hold my generation accountable.”
Whether the youth protests can goad many world leaders into changing their policies is a big question mark at best, said Michael B. Gerrard, a law professor at Columbia University. Some of them are closely linked to fossil fuel and extractive industries, he noted. Others have a record of crushing protests. And so the outcry, Mr. Gerrard said, may well fall on “intentionally closed ears.” - > NY Times