We are not exempt from climate activism

Young people took to the streets across 150 countries to protest the lack of political action regarding climate change on Sept. 20. The movement was started and continues to be led by 16-year-old Swedish activist Greta Thunberg.

According to her website, FridaysForFuture.com, “Greta requests that people strike in front of their closest town hall, every Friday. With a sign, take a picture and post it with the hashtags #Fridaysforfuture and #Climatestrike.”

The goal of these protests is to call the youth to action because, as Thunberg questions, why are students required to go to school to prepare for a future that might not be there for us when we finish?

So this past Friday, Thunberg and other organizers of the protest claimed: “Around the world today about 4 million people have been striking … This is the biggest climate strike ever in history and we all should be so proud of ourselves because we have done this together.”

According to WHYY, in Philadelphia alone, “More than 2,500 young people gathered outside of City Hall” to join in the worldwide protest movement. But it was awfully quiet on Hawk Hill that day.

Plenty of our students are aware of the climate reality that the world faces, and there were some students from our campus who did skip class in order to go to the protest.

However there was minimal talk, action and overall awareness around what was happening at City Hall. Climate change is a problem created by past generations, and it is up to us to solve. As students at St. Joe’s, we are not exempt from this call to action.

There was not nearly enough attention to this movement on this campus, and we must do more. Student organizations on campus like the Green Fund and SJU Net Impact exist, but their membership is small and their scope of influence is currently limited. The University Student Senate has a Green Fund chair and participates in sustainability projects, but their outreach is also limited.

Even we at The Hawk are at fault. We have the resources and the staff, so we could have covered the protest in Center City on Friday. We are responsible for publishing climate related activism and events both on campus and off, because it is part of our job to bring awareness of these issues into the public eye.

We understand being a student is stressful. Now, we’re expected to be activists and quite literally save the world. Moreover, we are paying to go to classes, and we are paying to get an education. But that’s exactly the point.

Why are we paying for an education if our governments are going to sit back and let our earth die? Why should we even go to class, if the generations above us are refusing to take responsibility for the dangers they are posing to our future?

This is the primary challenge we need to overcome in order for us at St. Joe’s to incite activism and change. We need to respect our academic integrity and responsibilities, while we are making sure we get the most out of the education we all have the privilege of utilizing on this campus.

We are here to get a holistic education, so we have the opportunity and the resources to be more educated on the issue of climate change than any generation before us. We know what needs to be done because we are here gaining the information needed to have a basis in our calls for change.

But we need to balance this with the idea that although we may end up with a degree, where are we going to implement what we learned in college if there are no jobs, no resources and no habitable place to live?

We need to start with more mobilization, especially with the focus on student organizations here on campus. Climate change affects all walks of life. And all clubs, from Greek Life to campus ministry, focus on something that is unavoidably affected by climate change.

As just one example, climate change affects the poor before it affects those with higher socioeconomic status, thus creating a larger class of impoverished people. Philadelphia is not immune to this reality, and organizations should thus promote service based projects based on climate change related poverty.

Other student organizations can organize transportation to the city, they can take to social media to promote the Friday protests and they can widen the scope of awareness. They can be in charge of organizing seminars on climate change open to students on campus, and they should use their voice and influence to bring awareness to the issue.

If you cannot attend the protests, there is still action to be taken. You can do something small that day like chose not to use single-use plastic, take shorter showers or walk to class rather than drive.

There are a host of actions we as individuals and we as students at St. Joe’s can do to be a part of something larger than us. We should approach this as individuals, but real change comes from collective action and group mobilization.

This campus and its students are not exempt from the call to climate action, and we have a responsibility to ourselves and to our peers to do all that we can to ease the devastation that climate change is causing.

—The Editorial Board

This week’s Editorial Board is comprised of the Editor in Chief, Managing Editor, Digital Managing Editor, News Editor, Assistant News Editor, Assistant Features Editor, Photo Editor, Opinions Editor and Assistant Opinions Editor. This editorial reflects the views of the Board and not the entire Hawk staff.