In a series of youth strikes worldwide, youngsters are protesting against the people’s collective failure in tackling global warming.
In one such unique act of rebellion, 18-year-old British activist Mya-Rose Craig is staging a protest from the Arctic ice cap, armed with a placard reading ‘Youth Strike for Climate’.
Time is running out. The Arctic is melting, and could be gone by the time I’m in my 30s, and we need our leaders to make a decision now. I did the most northerly climate strike ever in the Arctic to convey my desperation and the urgency of the issue. pic.twitter.com/qyEiz0T7iw
— Mya-Rose Craig (@BirdgirlUK) September 25, 2020
These strikes were made famous by Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg. These are now resuming after the global coronavirus pandemic caused a lull. Public attention is yet again being brought back to the threats posed by climate change. ‘I’m here to… try and make a statement about how temporary this amazing landscape is and how our leaders have to make a decision now in order to save it,’ Craig told Reuters Television.
‘I absolutely think that my generation has always had to think about climate change… which is why as we’ve got older there’s been this massive wave of just this need for change, this demand for change when we realised the grown-ups aren’t going to solve this so we have to do it ourselves,’ she added.
Craig is from southwest England, and is known online as ‘Birdgirl’. Her blog, which chronicles her experiences of bird-watching, has attracted followers in thousands.
To protest against climate change being caused by human activities, she has travelled hundreds of miles above the Arctic Circle aboard a Greenpeace ship, Arctic Sunrise.
Craig’s journey involved a two-week quarantine in Germany, and then a three-week voyage to the edge of the sea ice.
Craig spoke up against those who dismiss these protests as just a rebellious phase by her generation, urging those in power to stop treating climate change as a low-priority issue, raised only to appease ‘the lefties in the corner’.
‘It’s everything now and it has to be treated like that,’ Craig said.
The Arctic sea ice or the floating ice cover of the Arctic Ocean has shrunk to the second lowest extent in four decades due to rising temperatures, scientists have said.
A recent study published in the journal Nature has compared Earth’s current situation to the 1,27,000-year old ice age. The study has revealed that in the coming 15 years, Arctic sea ice could disappear into the ocean.
Another study has claimed that polar bears could become nearly extinct by the end of the century if global warming continues unabated
Craig spoke up against those who dismiss these protests as just a rebellious phase by her generation, urging those in power to stop treating climate change as a low-priority issue, raised only to appease ‘the lefties in the corner’.
‘It’s everything now and it has to be treated like that,’ she said.
Also Read: Polar Bears May Go Extinct By 2100 Due To Global Warming: Study
