Two years ago I joined a group of high school students during their Climate Strike and school walkout.
🌎🌍🌏
It wasn’t the “main” one in town. Just the one closest to me. Still there were a lot of kids. And adults. I had the sense that this would be the start of something.
At the time, not everyone was convinced. There were adults along their route telling them they were being controlled by the media. There were supporters who had a hard time seeing it as another thing that would simply get lost in the stubborn persistence of the status quo.
Hearing one 16 year old after another, however, speak about what mattered to them confirmed my suspicion that this really was a turning point. At 16, I hardly ever thought about the environment, let alone how it was connected to refugees from the Pacific, marginalized urban communities, or disproportionate challenges faced by women and girls.
🗞📰🗞
Last week, we saw a string of headlines. On the same day, Stakeholders at Exxon and Chevron demanded a climate-responsive board and emissions cuts. The Netherlands tightened the deadline for Shell to cut emissions in half. And a week later the Keystone Pipeline was cancelled.
Half these headlines came from direct investors and the other half from popularly elected officials. I don’t think that those moves happen without the groundswell of pressure that had been building since 2019.
It’s easy to think of the status quo as stuck and to be frustrated when protests go seemingly nowhere. But pressure plus strategy can create change. Discouragement is common but don’t let it create another obstacle for yourself.
Apply The Pressure