In Canada, students go on strike for the climate
Canada has responded with conviction to the “Fridays for the Future” movement. Every Friday in different parts of the world people are joining the global movement to walk for the climate.
“We have just been born to the world; this crisis we will have to live with, and our children and our grandchildren and future generations. We will not accept it.”
Greta Thunberg, leader of the strike movement.
On Friday, March 15, for the first time, Canada responded with conviction to the “Fridays for the Future” movement. Students from different institutions went on strike to protest global warming. I joined a walk with students of all ages. Many parents, grandparents, families, politicians were there to support us. According to the media, there were several tens of thousands of people.
We enjoyed a spring thaw, which could have made us forget the reality of global warming. That said, it was enough to read the signs to return to earth. Slogans shouted, sometimes humorous, sometimes provocative or cynical, sometimes engaging: “We have no planet B”, “Your land, do you want it blue or over-cooked?», «The dinosaurs also thought they had time», «Change will happen, if you and I commit ourselves», «Why prepare the future, if we have no future»… The latter slogan made me sad. I perceived it as a cry of despair. And yet, if the young people who carried this were there, was it not because they believed that a change is possible, that life is always before us?
Is this not an opportunity to raise awareness of the issue of migration? I took the opportunity to collect signatures for the Lenten campaign of “Development and Peace” asking the federal government to intervene to treat migrants well, but also to act diplomatically to avoid creating situations of forced migration. The warm welcome of this petition testifies to the solidarity that unites us. May the tragedy of this global warming helps us to realize that we are all dependent on one another and that it is this unity on which depends our survival, the survival of the planet and the human species!
Sr. Marie Alice Terrettaz, Montreal, Canada
