I chose to miss all of my Friday classes and attend the climate march at 3pm for the climate strike. I believe that the civil disobedience element is the part of the strike that can really grab attention, because skipping work, school, and any other related mandatory activities forces the higher up/more powerful people in society to take notice of the low attendance and low production of that day. The march is also beneficial, of course, inspiring support from the community and giving folks a feeling of unity.
However, I am of the belief that the people who have the power to make significant changes to the future of our planet, like CEOs and the government, prefer people holding signs and other symbolic protests because they can ignore it easily or address it superficially without being held accountable. For these reasons, I can understand why other students may choose not to strike. Though corporations, imperialism & military are destroying our planet, the march is a purely symbolic measure that may not facilitate real change. Even striking, especially in a context where many professors are understanding and even supportive of students striking, may not have an impact because the school doesn’t have a problem with us striking for one day of class.
The turnout of the march was decent nonetheless, and it was really empowering to hear speeches and music from the community, especially from Black and Indigenous people whose voices are not represented in the popular media’s climate change discourse. There were plenty of young kids there as well, which inspired hope in me as well as just being super cute.
I hope that the march and strike at least demonstrated that climate will kill us all; it is not a partisan issue or a political issue but a threat to all of humankind, and therefore everyone should be holding the perpetrators accountable in any way we can.