Global Warning

Youth Strike for Climate

Last year, the Anacortes Activist Student Union organized an island-wide cleanup, picking up trash and raising awareness about pollution in our community and around the globe. Now, students across the nation and around the world are finding a cause worth disrupting their daily lives: the climate crisis.

At the latest General Assembly of the U.N. meeting, President María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés claimed that there are only 11 years until the damage done to our Earth will be irreversible. The main contributor to the crisis is fossil fuel consumption, she said, and countries must take drastic measures to prevent yet more harmful impacts.

In 2018, 16-year-old Greta Thunberg began protesting the lack of action to the issue, and now this protest has spread among youth all over the world.

“Why should I be studying for a future that soon may be no more, when no one is doing anything to save that future? And what is the point of learning facts when the most important facts clearly mean nothing to our society?”

–Greta Thunderburg

Sophomores Lucy Shainin and Caitlin Brar of Green Club are organizing an Anacortes Youth Climate Strike on Friday, September 27th to spread awareness on the climate crisis. This strike is one of at least 4,480 global strikes beginning Friday the 20th, according to 350.org, an organization dedicated to climate crisis awareness.

The world has to cut its carbon emissions by at least 45%; otherwise, we are going to permanently damage our planet, Lucy says. “The strikes are really just to raise awareness about the climate.”

“We want to make everyone eventually care about this issue, ” Caitlin adds. “And not just the people who are already aware.”

The strike on September 27th will begin at around 11:30 am during first lunch, outside the AHS Commons, and it will end around 1:00 pm at the end of second lunch.

After school on Monday, September 23, Green Club will briefly meet in Mr. Garcia’s room (E008) and then head up to Mr. Dellutri’s room (E113) to create posters for the protest. All are welcome to attend.

The Youth Climate Strikes from September 20th – 27th, dubbed Climate Week, are only one step toward change. The goal of these protests is to not only show how serious the issue is, but to show how serious the youth is about finding a solution. And if hundreds of thousands of students around the world are leaving school to voice their opinions about this issue, it’s clearly not just the students who are serious — it’s also the issue they’re protesting.