September 20, 2019

You’ve Got to See These Inspiring Photos to Understand the Scale of Today’s Global Climate Strikes

“We are all connected.”

Protestors fill the streets of Frankfurt, Germany for the World Climate Strike.Andreas Arnold/Zuma

In a remarkable display of global collective action, hundreds of thousands of people around the world skipped school and work on Friday to protest the lack of meaningful governmental action against climate change.

The Global Climate Strike, a youth-led movement that has partnered with environmental organizations around the world, scheduled the strike to take place three days before the United Nations 2019 Climate Action Summit. The protests began in Australia, where an estimated 100,000 people marched in Melbourne, with 80,000 more marching in Sydney and 30,000 in Brisbane, CNN reports. As Friday dawned in time zones across the world, cities from Mumbai to Nairobi to Berlin joined in what is expected to be the largest day of climate demonstrations in history.

Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish activist who first inspired students to skip school to protest climate change in August 2018, will join protestors in New York City, whose public school students were excused from class Friday and encouraged to join in the march.

In March, Mother Jones environmental reporter Rebecca Leber wrote about what is driving young people like Thunberg to take climate action:

These young people compose the first generation that bears little responsibility for the 410 parts per million concentration of carbon in the atmosphere, but will face most of the consequences from it. They’re coming of age when the window to ward off this nightmare scenario is rapidly shrinking. Many older adults have been warning for decades that “future generations” will suffer for our selfishness and inertia from continued inaction. Now, those so-called future victims are finding their voice to try and shape the agenda.

Friday’s Global Climate Strike, an extension of students’ Fridays for Future strikes around the world, is one result of the “future victims” finding their voice.

We will keep sharing images as the day unfolds: 

New York, NY

 

Washington, DC

Melbourne, Australia

Mumbai, India

Berlin, Germany

Nairobi, Kenya

Dublin, Ireland

Islamabad, Pakistan

Paris, France

 

More Mother Jones reporting on Climate Desk

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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