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For the Planet by Tish Levee - April 2019

Students aren’t waiting any longer! They’re striking!

Across the world last Friday, March 15th, in the largest climate action ever, students and their older allies, went out on strike. Strikers met in 128 countries in more than 2083 places, carrying signs, mostly homemade, with slogans such as “Stop Denying, Earth is Dying,” “Sea Levels are Rising and So are We,” and my favorite, “There is NO Plan-et B.” Wherever possible they struck in front of governmental buildings; people turned out in small towns and huge cities.

In Santa Rosa 150-200 people met in Courthouse Square before marching to City Hall. Other strikes were in Sebastopol, Sonoma, Petaluma, Ukiah, and elsewhere in the North Bay. I was thrilled to see so many students AND so many of their adult allies—I wasn’t the only one there with grey hair.

In San Francisco, up to 1,000 strikers first went to Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s office, then to Sen. Diane Feinstein’s, ending up at a rally at Union Square. Australia and Europe have been holding these events, often tagged “FridaysforFuture,” for a while, so it wasn’t surprising that 30,000 Aussies struck in Sydney—just one of many strikes in Australia—while over 100,000 took to the streets of Milan and Montreal.

April 15th—Next Global Climate Strike!

With California’s claim to be a climate leader, it looks as if we need to ramp up our numbers—save the date!!

Nobel Prize Nomination for Greta!!

Just days earlier, Greta Thunberg, the young Swedish woman who started this movement, was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Just 30 weeks ago, inspired by the March for Our Lives (started by the survivors of the Parkland shooting,), she started sitting alone outside the Swedish Parliament; on March 15th she was joined by nearly 1.5 people worldwide.

Finally, someone seems to be listening!

UN Secretary General António Guerres tweeted on the 15th, “Young people can, and do, change the world…you understand we are in a race for your lives; your commitment & activism makes me confident we will win it.” In an opinion piece for the Guardian’s issue, guest-edited by the school climate strikers, he said, “My generation has failed to respond properly to the dramatic challenge of climate change.” Pointing out global emissions are continuing to rise, and the terrible impacts of climate change already being felt, he called all leaders to come to a global climate action summit in New York this September, with concrete, realistic plans to enhance their Paris Agreement Goals by 2020, in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 45% over the next decade, and to net zero by 2050. He continued, “The latest analysis shows that if we act now, we can reduce carbon emissions within 12 years and limit global warming to 1.5C.

But if we continue along our current path, the consequences are impossible to predict!” This, of course, is what the student strikes are all about. This summit will take place exactly five years after a UN Climate Summit in New York that led to the Paris Agreement—I marched with 400,000 others the day before, in what was then the largest climate action ever. (PLEASE NOTE: the US likely will not participate in this summit, as the current administration has given notice that we’ll withdraw from the Paris Agreement in 2020.)

Recycling is an issue but reducing is more important. Thank you, TJ’s.

While urging people to recycle, we need to emphasize reducing consumption. As China rejected more and more of our recycling, many cities found recycling too expensive; now they’re burying or burning their recycling.

Recycling doesn’t mean we can keep using more and more stuff—we must reduce our consumption. Trader Joe’s is taking a big step in doing so: TJ’s committed to reduce its plastic waste by more than one million pounds, in response to a consumer petition signed by 80,000 customers.

Santa Rosa’s 10th Annual Earth Day on Stage is April 27th.

I clearly remember the first Earth Day in 1970, and how hopeful I felt then. It’s been a long 49 years, but I still have hope. However, we can’t just keep hoping—we all have to take action and we have to get our political leaders to take action, before we run out of time!

© Tish Levee 2019

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