By Rebecca Franke
SF Strike update: If you plan to march with the Sierra Club contingent at the San Francisco strike on Friday, September 20th, we want to flag that the start time has changed: We will gather at 9:30 AM at the intersection of Fulton and Hyde Street (near the statue of Simón Bolívar) at Civic Center/UN Plaza. Once the youth have passed us on Market Street, we will join in and march behind them in solidarity along with other adult ally contingents. To find us, look out for a Sierra Club banner! We’ll have signs and some shirts as well! The contingent is being led by Sierra Club volunteers Rebecca Franke and Richard Rollins (925-250-5957).The route for the march can be found here: tinyurl.com/strikeroute. A list for public restrooms along the route can be found here. Be sure to bring plenty of water, sunscreen, snacks, and signs supporting the youth!
Thousands of youth are coming together from September 20-27 to make sure that climate change tops the agenda in the U.S. and throughout the world. They know that time is running out to make hard but necessary decisions. They realize that change on the scale that's required won't happen without strong coalitions bringing the power of people together at all levels of society and government. They recognize that business as usual can't continue.
Support this youth-led mobilization! Here's how:
- The main Sierra Club Bay Area contingent will be at the San Francisco strike, meeting at 9:30 AM at the intersection of Fulton and Hyde Street (near the statue of Simón Bolívar) at Civic Center/UN Plaza on Friday, September 20th. Find more details and RSVP here for the San Francisco Climate Strike.
- If you can't make it to the San Francisco strike, there will be other events all across the Bay Area throughout the week, including in Mill Valley, Walnut Creek, Berkeley, and Richmond. Click here to find a Climate Strike event near you.
- Donate to Youth vs. Apocalypse, the diverse group of young climate justice activists behind the San Francisco Cimate Strike and other Bay Area climate justice efforts. They especially need funds to rent buses to transport students to the march.
- Sign up to volunteer! If you want to step into a volunteer role to help support the strike in lieu of marching, here are some roles that still need to be filled. If you have any questions about volunteer roles reach out to julia.foote@sierraclub.org.
- We need more marshals to ensure the safety of the youth marching and keep the peace if any issues arise. To be a volunteer marshal, sign up here.
- We need more chaperones to help school students get to the event if they are under 18. In some cases that means accompanying students on buses from their school, to the march, and back. To be a volunteer chaperone, sign up here.
- Volunteers for the food team are also needed to help prepare lunches as well as provide water and snacks for the youth who are marching. If you’d like to join the food team, sign up here!
Imagine you're a 14-year-old. You've grown up with talk of climate change. Perhaps you’ve experienced a fire, flood, or storm that the adults around you said they had never seen the likes of before. Or you’ve been burdened your entire life by the pollution that comes with planet-heating gases. Now you're in high school, gaining a better understanding of the causes of our climate crisis. You've been learning the facts and the science. You think critically and you operate on facts — exactly as adults say you should be doing. But to what end, when the future seems so at risk? As Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish climate activist, recently said: “I have no idea how the world is going to look… I can’t really start planning my future.”
Our climate, the one in which humans have thrived for thousands of years, has changed for the worse and it's not getting better. Our response hasn’t been sufficient. Too many adults seem paralyzed by the complexity of the climate crisis or are too busy just making ends meet and fulfilling family obligations to invest what little left over energy they have. Others seem to not care at all. Yet, if they thought back to when they were 14, they might see how much things have changed in just one generation.
Life ahead will be tough for today’s 14-year-olds. It will be full of heavy decisions about raising a family, being a consumer, supporting (or not) new laws and regulations, figuring out what it means to be a global citizen, and living under conditions made more difficult than those you and I enjoy now. Now is the time for you to act.
Show today’s youth that you do care and you will march in solidarity with them. Sign up for the Climate Strike in San Francisco on September 20th or join one of the many other events at locations throughout the Bay Area during week of September 20-27.
Photo courtesy Youth vs. Apocalypse.