Yesterday I took part in a Friday for Future protest in Hannover, Germany. It’s a worldwide movement that was started in 2018 by Greta Thurnberg, whom you probably might have heard of. It was the schoolchildren that made their first stand. It takes incredible courage for these kids to stand up, look the people in charge in the eye and simply say “You’ve stolen our future from us, now you’re going to help us get it back.” Now people of all ages, communities, and countries come together to march through the streets, raising awareness on this pressing issue. And it was very exciting for me to take part in such a movement. I’d never thought I’d see so many people united for a cause I believed in. Climate change is one of the biggest threats to humanity, and we really don’t have a lot of time to solve it before it’s too late. 

The youth of today are the ones who will suffer the real consequences of climate change. The people who are responsible for causing it, will be gone before things start going really bad. The industrialists and capitalists who sold out the future of the planet and their grandchildren, exploiting and polluting our home for their own greed and profit; they get to retire, enjoy their millions, and live out the rest of their lives in luxurious comfort. While we’re left behind trying to pick up the pieces, doing our best to undo the seemingly irreparable damages they’ve done. 

Even from the 70s and 80s, scientists have warned us that humanity’s exploits are negatively affecting the climate of the world we live in. They’ve tried again and again to make the people in charge see that we need to act soon, if we’re ever going to undo the damage that has been done. And for decades after that, this message has gone ignored again and again. That’s why even now, protests like Fridays for Future need to keep happening. 

Well then, what can we do? Well there’s the obvious answer of trying to personally minimize the damage we do to the environment via lifestyle changes. Use less plastic, eat less meat, bike instead of using cars, vote for the right people, etc… But unfortunately we as individuals can only do so much on our own. But organized, we can be very effective indeed. And being there at the protest yesterday, seeing thousands of people marching through the streets demanding for our right for a better future, it gives me hope. Because thousands of people in a city, means millions in a country, which means billions across the Earth. We have the numbers on our side, and at a certain level everybody knows that if climate change is left unchecked, the situation can quickly turn from uncomfortable, to unbearable, to unlivable. 

Sometimes I do tend to see a certain naivete in some people who think that if we’d only stop using plastic straws, or switch to electric cars, then all of the problems would be solved. Truthfully said, even though doing what we can personally to help is definitely good, it won’t bring about the change we really need. Because people like you and me, we’re not the ones who got us in this mess. While we worry about avoiding that one plastic bag in the supermarket, thousands of tons of raw sewage and pollutants are being dumped in the ocean every day. While we’re happy tweeting stuff with hashtags like #savetherainforest, hundreds of hectares of forests are being mowed down by the hour for palm oil plantations. 

Even our “carbon footprints”, are essentially just propaganda from corporations, trying to put the onus of the responsibility to fix the planet, on regular people like you and me. Letting them off the hook to essentially continue destroying the planet, on a scale millions of times than we as consumers could ever be capable of. These shameless corporations that have spent millions lobbying our politicians for less regulations, less taxes, And shame on the politicians that took their money and did their bidding, they have failed in their duty to represent the people, for their own self interests. 

If we’re ever going to start effectively fighting against climate change, we first have to get rid of the deeply flawed system that allows it to happen in the first place. The tone of this post has gotten a bit more serious towards the end, at first I only wanted to keep it light and share my experiences by Fridays for Future, but there are some important facts about this topic that many people are still unaware of. I think in my next writing I’ll elaborate on the inherent incompatibility of capitalism and continued sustainable life on this planet, particularly regarding the issue of climate change. Until then!