Kelowna residents joined protesters around the world for the 2021 global climate strike on Friday.
The event was organized to raise awareness for the current condition of the climate, and protesters on hand were demanding change. Ben Cuthbert, an organizer with Fridays for Future, tells Castanet what happened, and what the overall goal behind the protest was.
“We blocked Bernard, we made a ton of noise, we blocked some of the traffic, did a u-turn and then we came to finish at Tracy Gray’s office,” said Cuthbert. “We want Tracy to recognize that we need to immediately reduce emissions, and scale back fossil fuel extraction.”
Some students at KSS were also taking part in the global climate strike. Gracie Teslyk and a few of her science classmates chose not to walk out of class and participate in the protest downtown due to COVID concerns, so they found a unique way to show their support.
“We decided to build a 12-foot-tall Minecraft tree. We went around to all of our classes as a group and got all of our students to write a little message on paper that is currently being taped to the tree,” explained Teslyk. We got them to answer a couple questions like what are they actively doing to prevent climate change.”
Teslyk also said she wants everyone to be as educated as possible when it comes to the climate, as we all have a job to do.
Dayna Margetts is a science teacher at KSS, and she admits seeing her students take action on climate change makes her emotional. “I might tear up, it’s just so inspiring and we’ve worked our butts off this week to make this happen, and what I love is the fact that they love doing this.”
The teacher was also very blunt about older generations taking immediate action, as she doesn’t feel the younger generations should have to suffer the consequences of climate change.
“We as adults need to do something. We can’t leave it all up to them, because that’s just like us saying here’s an easy get-out-jail free ticket. Sorry, but we can do it too, and I think the young people seeing that someone in my position cares so much about their planet, I think that’s what really inspires them,” said Margetts.
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