By Katherine Rosales '21, Janelle Chua '21, and Amara Sequera '21
On Friday, September 20 the biggest climate protest in world history occurred. All around the world people took to the streets to protest. Four million people worldwide walked out of work, school, and their homes to protest political leaders’ inaction on global climate change. The climate crisis is one of the biggest problems that the human race is currently facing. Climate change is not a new thing; it has been in existence since the human race came to be. However, it has become a much bigger issue in the past few decades because of the impacts of industrialization. The main reason people are protesting and striking now is because all the change in the environment has piled up and nobody has done anything to reduce this massive change. Global climate change is when the global climate of the whole world is disrupted by excessive carbon dioxide and methane levels, greenhouse gases, oil pipelines, fossil fuels--the list could go on forever. These factors create imbalances that affect the world. As Sofia Murello ‘22 said, “Climate change is making big impacts on our world. Ecosystems are continuously getting destroyed due to this issue. I think that climate change is very dangerous and something should be done before it gets worse.”
The goal of the climate strike was to show political leaders that they need to take action on this crisis. The youth are the most affected by the inaction. They have just started their lives and now they are anxious and worried about their futures. They are angry at world leaders for ignoring the climate crisis. The intended audience of the climate strike is political leaders. The strike on Friday, September 20 was the most important because it was two days before the U.N. Climate Summit in New York, a conference where a lot of world leaders meet to address issues about the climate. Having the strike a couple of days before impacted the results of the U.N Climate Summit because it showed that even if people could be at the summit physically they were thinking about it and fighting for change.
Many of our fellow Spartans attended the Climate Strike in San Francisco. They were influenced to attend because of their passion for advocacy for climate change. Maria Arevalo ‘21 said, “Climate change is a crisis and anything that I can do to help fix that crisis, I want to do.”
We are very proud of all of the Spartans who attended the Climate Strike and we appreciate the passionate drive they have for helping the environment. The real question now is: what can we do to help? Picking up trash, recycling the can of juice you just drank, and having meatless Mondays are just a few ways to reduce your carbon footprint. Finally, continuing to protest can make political leaders continue to notice us. As Ms. Arevalo said, “Every student striking has a big impact because everyone says that the youth is our future and we are going to lead. If we use that potential we have to our interest, it can be really powerful.”
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