School children brought hundreds of thousands of people into the streets for climate action a year ago but now those same campaigners are largely confined to their bedrooms.
Key points:
- Because of COVID-19 restrictions, school climate strike organisers are going ahead with an online protest action
- Today marks the one-year anniversary of mass school strikes around the world
- A four-hour live stream with musical performances and talks will replace a physical rally
The Australian leaders of the children's strikes have had to adapt quickly and will today come together in a national online event, their most ambitious virtual gathering so far.
It was only in January that key organisers had gathered in Sydney to discuss grand plans for 2020.
Horrified by the emerging bushfire crisis and buoyed by the groundswell of support that had seen several hundred thousand Australians rally in September 2019, the young activists were planning another major strike and the sky was the limit.
Petitioning to hold the next protest on the Harbour Bridge was just one of the bold proposals on the table.
Stuck at home
Today, 16-year-old Jean Hinchcliffe, who kicked off the Sydney strike movement in late 2018, won't be marching across the Harbour Bridge after COVID-19 and curbs on social gatherings put paid to those plans.
"It's been crazy and everything has been cancelled," she said.
It took a while to adjust to the new normal but it wasn't long before the young activists had decided May 15th should go ahead, if not exactly as they had envisaged it.
Later today, a four-hour national live stream will feature music, discussion, story-telling and guest appearances by the likes of environmentalist Tim Flannery.
It's an attempt to keep momentum going within the movement and to show those outside it that it lives on through the pandemic.
"People need to realise that the climate crisis is equally as important and equally as damaging if not more so than the COVID pandemic and we definitely need to be focussing on both," said Ms Hinchliffe.
If she misses the heady days of standing in front of a crowd of tens of thousands leading chants and screaming hoarsely into a microphone "we will never back down", then she is careful not to dwell on it.
"As long as I'm involved and as long as I'm making change, I'm satisfied with what I'm doing."
It won't be the quite the same
In northern Tasmania, 17-year-old Gabrielle Dewsbury has also had to swallow her disappointment that the May 15 strike could not go ahead.
The local group had already organised permits and were hoping that they could swell numbers participating in Launceston to around 4,000.
The strikes of last year had been "super-exciting" and "a rollercoaster" for Ms Dewsbury, who initially worried about how her lead role would be received in a small town.
"I knew that everyone in the town was going to know that was me and that they could pin me to this event and these opinions and that was really confronting, especially as a 16-year-old, and I was like, 'should I really be doing this, am I really going to be setting myself up with this kind of profile in the town?'"
She said it took a while to adjust to the realities of the pandemic, describing the first meetings in the days after the strike was called off as "wishy-washy".
She concedes today's live stream is in many ways a poor substitute.
"When you're actually at a strike, there's this amazing energy and just like the vibe and the atmosphere is completely different.
"I think that was something that we had to accept and just, I guess, move around."
Gabrielle Dewsbury is looking on the bright side too, taking heart from the way the country has responded to the coronavirus.
It's a lesson she hopes can be applied to the climate crisis too.
"It's something we can definitely use," she said.
'We can become a better movement'
It's been a stressful few days for 15-year-old Ambrose Hayes.
The Sydney student of St. Mary's Cathedral College is responsible for making sure today's live stream actually works and, as you'd expect, the test runs haven't all gone smoothly.
He has a few weeks' experience under his belt at least, hosting smaller live streams called Climate Fridays, with a couple of guests and some music and discussion.
Some of the young activists have also been taking part in "strike school": online hook-ups to discuss how to better co-ordinate and promote the cause.
"I reckon that even though we might have lost a bit of momentum, we can still gain that back," Ambrose Hayes said.
The 15-year-old is also is looking to a future where the lessons of COVID can feed into the climate cause.
His theory goes that when social restrictions are lifted, people will "appreciate human connection more".
"That also hopefully makes them appreciate what they have and they might want to take action for what they have right now," he said.
Greta's gap year of travel and activism on hold
The hashtag #fighteverycrisis has been adopted by many of those in the climate strike movement.
It's a call to action for the world to show the kind of unity in tackling the climate crisis that it has shown in dealing with COVID-19 and its backers include the diminutive Swedish teenager who inspired the movement and swept to global fame.
After being always on the move and in demand in 2019, Greta Thunberg's plans for a year of travel and activism have been derailed by the coronavirus.
It would likely have culminated with the United
Nations COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland, in November this
year, but that meeting too has fallen victim to the coronavirus.
Every
Friday, the day the strikes were always held, Greta still posts shots
of herself and her trusty school poster, sometimes with her dogs in
shot.
A poignant recent post saw her empty jacket,
shoes and the famous strike sign placed without their owner outside the
Swedish parliament, where it all began in 2018.
The
now-17-year-old lamented the cancelling of a planned global strike, but
said, "in an emergency you have to adapt and change your behaviour".
A mantra Australia's climate kids are fully on board with.
No comments:
Post a Comment