Why Striking Against Climate Change is so Crucial

This month, people all around the world started something that’s unlike anything the history books have seen before.

The 20th of September marked the start of the Global Climate Strike. Teenagers all around the country have already been protesting through the Fridays for the Future campaign, which questions why we’re getting an education when it won’t be put to use. This Friday, however, the school strikers joined activists across over 150 countries. 

They sat in, marched, and protested climate change and governments’ lack of commitment to stopping their crimes. It was absolutely inspiring to know that the youth rose where the adults fell short, to know that the children and teenagers that will have their lifespans cut down by this catastrophe are fighting. They have fire in their eyes and clenched fists; ready to march and chant and scream until their throats burn and their legs ache. What happened on Friday was not simply another protest. This one was history in the making.

According to NASA, climate change and global warming are both different concepts, although they are often used interchangeably. Climate change is the long term warming of our planet, and while it has happened many times in history, this time is different. The climate is not changing naturally, but by human effects through greenhouse gases. We aren’t killing the planet. It has been through this before and will regrow. But we are killing ourselves. 

How can we live with our cities underwater, our world on fire? Simply put, we can’t. We’re hurting the planet with our selfish needs, but really, it’s us and the innocent creatures that will suffer the most.

I find it terrifying how rapidly our planet is dying. The youth seems to care so deeply, but the generations with the power to do something won’t even live long enough to feel the true effects. I don’t want to live in a world without half the animals on earth. I don’t want to grow up where government corporations are taking all the money for themselves. We can’t eat money. This is why striking is so important, why people like Greta Thunberg are forced to fight. Thunburg, only sixteen, spoke to the United Nations on September 23rd. In her own words she cried, “How dare you continue to look away, and come here and say you are doing enough when the politics and solutions needed are nowhere in sight? You say that you hear us and understand the urgency, but no matter how sad and angry I am, I don’t want to believe that. Because if you really understood the situation and still kept on failing to act, then you would be evil, and that I refuse to believe.” A teenage girl is now the voice of the planet, and she is as angry about it as I am.

Climate change is a real issue. It’s not a hoax, not a prank. If we keep treating it like it will just go away, nothing will get any better. If you care about the future, I’d highly recommend you support and follow the protests this month and onward. I hope to see your support in making this danger come to light.