Climate Change is Not a Trend: A MUN Student’s Perspective on the Global Climate Strike

Screen Shot 2021 10 04 at 2.10.14 PM
Screen Shot 2021 10 04 at 2.10.14 PM
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Image from the Fridays for Future St. John’s twitter account (@fffstjohns).

On Friday, September 24th, the non-profit organization Fridays for Future organized another one of their annual Global Climate Strike events, where students were urged to not attend classes for the day and instead march from the MUN Clock Tower to the Confederation Building. This symbolic act was made in solidarity with the fight against climate change, a movement first sparked by the young environmental activist, Greta Thunberg.  

Many Memorial University students who attended the former rallies also chose to show up on Friday, including one MUN Student who asked to be unnamed. They arrived around 11 am and immediately noticed there was less of a turnout in comparison to the previous years. 

Naturally, the COVID-19 Pandemic could have had an effect on the number of ralliers, they explained. On the same hand, they noticed the more years that pass the fewer people are showing up to these events, regardless of the pandemic’s influence.

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“The declining number of people was probably due to the fact that it is not trendy anymore,” the MUN student stated. 

The poster advertising the Global Climate Strike called for “real action on climate change” immediately followed by, “no more of the empty platitudes.” Despite this, unless a real change is made to generate more “interest” in the Climate Change movement once more, empty platitudes may be all that can be expected for the future rallies to come. 

The moments of the rally that stood out to the student were the protest chants lead by the organizers, followed by a sing-along from an artist who called themselves “Teddy Bear.” Afterwards, was the long-anticipated march itself. 

When asked why they chose to attend the rally, the student stated that whether it was trendy or not to protest climate change, “the Earth is still dying, yo.” 

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