Young people like Greta Thunberg will ensure climate activism is here to stay
Photo courtesy of The National Observer.
By David Tindall | Opinion | November 9th 2021
A youth-focused climate strike march and rally drew at least 25,000 people to the streets of Glasgow on Nov. 5. Hundreds of events in other cities were also held that day. Fridays for Future states the strikes occurred in 81 countries, spread across 379 cities and involved more than 270,000 participants. Greta Thunberg, who is now 18 and arguably the highest-profile climate activist in the world, “headlined” the Glasgow event.
In Glasgow, participants carried signs that read: “We want to die of old age”; “Leave No One Behind, Climate Justice, Hear Our Voices!”; “System Change NOT Climate Change”; “Losing Nemo”; “There’s no economy on a dead planet”; “There is no Planet B”; and of course, “Blah, Blah, Blah”.
The following day, at the Global Day of Action march and rally in Glasgow (attended by 250,000 people, according to organizers), there was also a very strong youth contingent, and many of the rally speakers were global youth, mostly Indigenous and from developing countries. One stage participant was 20-year-old Ta'Kaiya Blaney from the Tla A'min Nation in British Columbia, who has been an environmental activist since she was a pre-teen.