By Mike Ma, September 27, 2019
I went on the climate march today with my 8 year old daughter. There has been so much hype lately about climate change, with Greta Thunberg shaming the “adults” in the room, and mention of mass extinction I really didn’t know what to expect. But getting there was fun being on a public bus full of kids going to a “protest.” It was kind of different. It was almost like a school trip! But once we arrived, it kind of looked like other such protests that start at City Hall, but with lots and lots of young people.
It was a nice feeling to be among so many fellow travelers who excitedly showed up with their school or kids or friends. There were lots of young people who not only bothered to show up, but also had some fire in their belly and brought plenty of energy and thoughtfulness to the event. So many of the teens were incredibly excited and pumped. I suspect it might even have been their first protest. There were sooo many people! It was packed. So packed I couldn’t find my older daughter who was there with her high school friends.
One thing of note was the ending… after we marched over the bridge and walked past the art gallery it then kind of ended. One fellow protester said as we lined up to get on the skytrain: “There was no finale!” Maybe it’s a fitting capstone to a momentary congealing of world wide attention and youth re: climate change. I guess we stay tuned for the finale to come.
Just a endnote: Just two days earlier I witness the 200+ logging truck protest coming into town on Hastings. They came to protest the demise of an extractivist cut-down-trees industry, and today I’m at a protest to call attention to the very issue of deforestation and catastrophic climate change. What strange bookends.
https://www.thesocialjusticecentre.org/blog/2019/9/25/21i1y109okb94l6o8qoe84a6n3hjsv
