Image credit: Democracy Now
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg spoke in an Earth Day livestream earlier this week to discuss how the ‘Fridays for Future’ school strikes movement she is responding to the coronavirus pandemic. Tara Pilkington reports.
Speaking in a livestream which was hosted by the Nobel Prize Museum, 17-year old climate activist Greta Thunberg commented on how the youth- movement that she created, Fridays for Future, was adpating in the current climate.
In the livestream she said: “Within the Fridays for Future movement, there’s still this sort of big sense of resistance, and people are thinking, ‘We will get out of this. And when we do, we will continue, and we will do everything we can that is possible in that situation to continue to push even harder.”
She also added: “It feels like right now the world is totally different from how it was just a week ago. So we just have to adapt and see what happens and change our behavior and plan from there, from — and because that is what you — simply what you have to do in a crisis. You have to adapt to the current situation.”
Despite the current lockdown measures that are in place due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, Greta still feels positive that her Fridays for Future movement will help instil a sense of resistance and hope within young activists across the globe.
She said: “We will get out of this. And when we do, we will continue, and we will do everything we can that is possible in that situation to continue to push even harder.”
The current crisis has made many of us consider how our actions impact the environment, and it is likely that we will come out of this pandemic with a changed attitude and a sense of responsinbility.
Paul Allen, Zero Carbon Britain Research Coordinator at the Centre for Alternative Technology, has also reiterated this, saying: “The current virus crisis is large enough and immediate enough to make us stop and re-evaluate our entire way of living, but what lessons can we learn to help us better respond to or even avoid other emergencies, such as climate breakdown and the collapse of biodiversity?”
He added: “In this time where normality is interrupted, we have the chance to truly ask ourselves how we want to live. What does a world look like in which people live together in solidarity and support for each other? What opportunity do we have to re-think our normality? How can we build a more local and resilient food supply? Could we re-value essential work in food, healthcare and community? How can we be there for each other and for nature, because we care? Earth Day 2020 is unique, so let’s use this time to connect with such visions and begin to plan a new and better normal.”
- For more information on the Centre for Alternative Technology, visit https://www.cat.org.uk/
