Fridays For Future Climate Strike in San Jose, California

With the possible exception of removing Donald Trump from office in the 2020 US election, no challenge looms larger globally than reversing the catastrophic climate change that threatens to destroy the planet we love and call home.

Friday, September 20, 2019, was Global Climate Strike Day. The movement – Fridays for Future - was launched by 16-year-old Swedish student Greta Thurnberg in 2018. It has now spread to 150 countries, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. Students around the world are embracing the idea of “striking” from school on specific Fridays in coming years to demand action.

On Friday, 

Greta spoke to the thousands of “strikers” in New York City. She had disembarked in Lower Manhattan on August 28 after 15 days of sailing across the Atlantic on an emission-free yacht that prominently displayed the Twitter hashtag “#FridaysForFuture.” She is scheduled to address world leaders at the United Nations Climate Action Summit on 23^rd September. 

This is what she said to New Yorkers on Friday, September 20:

“This is an emergency. Our house is on fire. We will do everything in our power to stop this crisis from getting worse … Why should we study for a future that is being taken away from us. That is being sold for profit … Everywhere I have been, the situation is more or less same. The people in power, their beautiful words are the same. The number of politicians and celebrities who want to take selfies with us are the same. The empty promises are the same. The lies are the same, and the inaction is the same. The eyes of the world will be on the world leaders at the climate summit on Monday for the U.N. Climate Summit. They have a chance to prove that they too are united behind the science, they have a chance to take leadership, to prove they actually hear us. It should not be that way. We should not be the ones who are fighting for the future, and yet here we are. We demand a safe future. Is that really too much to ask?”

I am a teacher, not a student, but I was there along with mothers, fathers and grandparents, in my hometown of San Jose, California - over a thousand of us - to participate in this protest march against greedy and clueless politicians in the pockets of fossil fuel industries who have been plundering the earth to extinction. We assembled outside the Diridon Railway station in downtown San Jose and then marched along Santa Clara Street to City Hall about a mile away, chanting, singing, and erupting in wild cheers when cars and buses passing us honked in support.
 
“Hey Hey, Ho Ho, Fossil Fuel’s Got to Go.”
“Planet Over Profit.”
“What Do We Want? Planet Justice!” “When Do We Want? Now!”
“Whose Streets? Our Streets!”
“One, Two, Three, Four! Planet’s What We’re Fighting For!”

Posters tell the story better than words. What was so remarkable was how animated everyone was. Most were students but girls outnumbered boys by almost 10:1. That the earth is in danger of extinction, along with humanity and all the flora and fauna, is a truth no one can escape, certainly not through the same damn lies we have been hearing time and again from politicians, hypocrites and leaders blind to scientific evidence.

My pictures give only a glimpse into the thousand of us who marched under a hot sun in San Jose, joining our fellow “strikers” across the globe, to demand that we reverse the threat of catastrophic climate change that is choking the life out of Mother Earth, the planet we love and the only home we know.