Greta Thunberg arrived in New York. Their movement “Fridays For Future” in the United States is still not great, but here, too, demonstrate, students for climate protection – such as Recently in Washington.
Fridays For The Future? Never even heard of. Many people in the US don’t know the movement, which was founded in August of 2018, the 16-year-old Swede, Greta Thunberg,. Every Friday students come together around the world to demonstrate for a more decisive Action for climate protection in the United States.
On a rainy Friday in Washington, D.C., a small group of young people sitting on the edge of a fountain in front of the Capitol. Madeline Graham, 16, is preparing their colleagues to potential problems. Officers of the Capitol police could ask the group to leave their place, explained Graham – but no one had the offspring.
“We have a right to be here,” stressed the student.
Graham (right): We have not created climate change, but our Generation must bear the consequences
A little later, about ten young protesters have found themselves together. These are just a few, when you consider that there are holidays, but after all, the group can stay to your space with views of the Washington Monument. “If we had more than 20 people, we would need an approval, and we don’t have,” explains Graham. “We would have to divide either into two smaller groups or to the White house not to go, where you need this approval.”
It doesn’t happen. The group remains small, but also the increasingly violent, provide a rain shower. The American offshoot of the Fridays For the Future (FFF) of movement, was founded only in January 2019 and is not yet as big as in Europe.
“Before our anger no one can hide”
Graham is sure that the young movement can lead to change in the United States induce. “Any politician who underestimated us, this will not do for a long time,” she says. “Before our anger no one can hide.”
In the centre of the small protest on Friday, the fire is in the Amazon in Brazil. Has now joined the young people also Carolina Schaffer, who moved a year ago from Brazil to the USA and to Protest a Poster has brought: “Help us to stop the fire in our forests”. With 29 years Schaffer “just young enough” for the youth Demo.
A little later she sings with the students of “Somewhere over the rainbow,” under the gray sky over Washington. Graham’s girlfriend, Ella Jacobs, 16, accompanied the small choir on the Ukulele.
Five hours of sleep per night
A couple of hours North of the Capitol Alexandria Villasenor in New York City for climate protection on the road. The 14-Year-old moved in last summer, from California to New York. In November 2018, it was to visit their old home and experienced the worst forest fire in California history first-hand.
“The Smoke was so bad that I had to go earlier than planned back to New York,” says the schoolgirl, who suffers from Asthma. “After that, I learned how the forest fires and the climate crisis are linked. This has made me angry.”
Video 02 view:00
Global Climate Protests
Facebook Twitter google+ send Tumblr VZ Xing Newsvine Digg
Permalink https://p.dw.com/p/3J3T9
Fridays for the Future: a global Protest for climate protection
In December 2018 Villasenor was on her first climate demonstration. Since then, she’s full of it: she has co-organized, among other things, the great New York Protest for the Global Climate Strike in may 2019 and is consulting regularly with other youth climate activists in the USA and in the Rest of the world. In addition, she started her own climate protection organization, Earth Uprising – and all this in addition to homework and class. How does it work?
“I can practically do anything, if I said enough to eat, and five hours of sleep wars,” Villasenor with a Laugh.
The people of the truth convince
Jerome Foster, II is 17 years old and starts these days, his last year of High School. He has worked for around two years, with the climate protection and says that the number of young, motivated activists like Villasenor grows. “But not fast enough.”
Foster doesn’t have much time for Hobbies: “We have more important things to do”
The student does not believe that the climate protection movement among young people in the United States is as large as in Europe, because in the USA there are still many climate change sceptics. Sometimes, says Foster, it is difficult to convince the interlocutor that the global temperatures really rise.
“We can’t talk to the people about climate change and then you believe us,” he says. “We have to prove it twice and three times. We try to convince people of the truth.”
Foster is not, however, discourage. He is already working on the organization of the next big protest: The Washington, D.C. Demonstration for the Global Climate Strike on 20. In September, the Friday before the big UN climate summit in New York. Foster hopes that the politicians, the on 23. September come together, this Time really ready to roll up her Sleeves and tackle the Problem. Finally, says the 17-Year-old, is climate change “the greatest threat to do with our species now has”.