CLIMATE STRIKE 15. March 2019

I don’t know how detached from the reality my climate bubble is, but I hope all of you have heard about the 16 year old Swedish activist Greta Thunberg. If not – last year in August, she decided to skip school to strike for climate. And every friday since then.

school strike for climate
Michael Campanella/Getty Images
Gradually she was joined by her schoolmates, other schools, other cities, countries... And this friday a whole world joined her – more than 2000 cities in more than 100 countries.

Here, in Slovakia, the strike took place in Bratislava, Košice, Liptovský Mikuláš and in Žilina. But big strikes took place all over the world in cities such as Stockholm-of course, London, Paris, Rome, Helsinki, Milan, Warsaw, San Francisco, New York, Quebec, Auckland, Lisbon, Prague, Madrid, Barcelona, Dublin, Athens, Sydney, Hong Kong, Berlin, New Delhi, Cape Town, Nairobi..... well literally everywhere.

zewlakk - aktivistická fotografie

Jane Barlow/PA


Yasuyoshi Chiba / AFP / Getty Images


Jack Taylor/Getty Images


Rafael Marchante/Reuters


Altaf Qadri/AP

This issue interests kids everywhere. It’s mostly about their(ours) future. And we really really don’t understand how can we act normally in the middle of a climate crisis and a mass extinction. All the people, including me, feel like there’s quite a lot of discussion about climate change and that we know what it’s all about. But when was the last time you heard our politicians or economic leaders speak about it? And what did they say? Did they make fun like Donald Trump? Or did they say it’s the biggest challenge we have to face and then flew their private jet not to miss the beef steak they ordered for dinner?

We hear nothing about the urgency of the situation from the media. We all think we are informed. But none of us actually realises that by buying groceries in plastic bags, we're killing our childrens' future.

In Bratislava, there weren’t more than 1000 or 1100 students. But altogether, the number of striking students was more than 1,5 million according to 350.org . And all those people ale willing to do a lot and invest their time and energy.

And the atmosphere was reaaally amazing! 🙂 I recommend participating next time something like this takes place. Because striking and changing your lifestyle a bit will not going to bring you suffering. Not striking and not changing will.

Ondrej Koščík photos

To finish this post - here are some Greta Thunberg’s quotes and two videos that I recommend watching. The first one is a bit emotional but the second one 😄 I promise you’ll laugh.

"Today, we use one hundred million barrels of oil every single day. There are no politics to change that. There are no rules to keep that oil in the ground. So we can't save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed. Everything needs to change and it has to start today."

"You only talk about moving forward with the same bad ideas that got us into this mess, even when the only sensible thing to do is pull the emergency brake. You are not mature enough to tell it like it is. Even that burden you leave to us children.."

"You say you love your children above all else, and yet you are stealing their future in front of their very eyes..."

"Why should I be studying for a future that soon may be no more, when no one is doing anything to save that future? And what is the point of learning facts when the most important facts clearly means nothing to our society?"

"I don’t want your hope. I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to act. I want you to act as you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if the house is on fire. Because it is."

"The year 2078, I will celebrate my 75th birthday. If I have children or grandchildren, maybe they will spend that day with me. Maybe they will ask me about you, the people who were around, back in 2018. Maybe they will ask why you didn't do anything while there still was time to act. What we do or don't do right now will affect my entire life and the lives of my children and grandchildren. What we do or don't do right now, me and my generation can't undo in the future. "

"Some people say that I should study to become a climate scientist so that I can "solve the climate crisis." But the climate crisis has already been solved. We already have all the facts and solutions. All we have to do is to wake up and change. "