350 Wenatchee Climate Conversations NCW

This is a long email, but we know that many of you have been hungry for an update on the September climate strike and week of action. There’s a lot of information below but most importantly we’re inviting all 350 organizers to a special call at the end of June so we can all start making some plans for what we hope may be a historic mobilization.

Register here to join a climate strike update call on June 27.

On March 15, 1.4 million students in 112 countries skipped school in order to demand immediate action on climate change. Their argument might be best summed up by the young Swedish activist, Greta Thunberg, who inspired the strikes after her continued protesting outside of the Swedish Parliament:

“Why should I be studying for a future that soon may be no more, when no one is doing anything to save that future? And what is the point of learning facts when the most important facts clearly means nothing to our society?”

Since then, their movement has been growing exponentially. And now, Greta along with youth across the world – including Isra Hirsi, Alexandria Villaseñor, and many other youth climate strike leaders in the US – have demanded in this op-ed that adults join them for a multi-generational, multi-racial #ClimateStrike on September 20, 2019.

A long list of movement leaders, writers, artists, and activists — including Anna Galland (MoveOn), Rachel Carmona (Women’s March), Ai-Jen Poo (National Domestic Workers Alliance), Varshini Prakash (Sunrise Movement), Rev. Lennox Yearwood (Hip Hop Caucus), and many more — responded to the youth call to action saying:

Starting Friday September 20, at the request of the young people who’ve been staging school strikes around the world, we’re walking out of our workplaces and homes to spend the day demanding action on climate change, the great existential threat that all of us face. It’s a one-day climate strike, if you will—and it will not be the last. This is going to be the beginning of a week of climate action all over the world. And we hope to make it a turning point in history.

We hope others will join us: that people will leave their offices, their farms, their factories; that candidates will step off the campaign trail and football stars off the pitch; that movie actors will scrub off their makeup and teachers lay down their chalk; that cooks will close their restaurants and bring meals to protests; that pensioners too will break their daily routines and join in sending the one message our leaders must hear: Day by day, business as usual is creating an ecological crisis that is destroying the chance for a healthy, safe future on our planet.

350.org has been working with a growing coalition to start building momentum for this September and beyond.  Working with international and US youth leaders, we have launched a website to allow people to register their interest and spread the word. Across the globe and in the U.S., a variety of organizations are calling for the September 20th Strike to launch a week of action that allows people nationwide to take action together for intersecting issues of racial, climate and social justice. An opportunity is emerging for groups from many walks of life to co-create events that amplify and add value to campaigns that center environmental justice and the efforts of communities on the front lines of the climate crisis.

The update call on Thursday, June 27 at 5:00 pm PT / 8:00 pm ET will be an opportunity to learn more about how 350.org globally and in the US is planning to engage with the climate strike, the emerging vision and goals for the week of action, our partners, and how we’re seeing this fit into 350’s and the movement’s longer term work. We’ll also share an update on some important logistics, including how we’ll be supporting local groups that want to participate, registering an action on the global map (coming in July), toolkits, online trainings, etc. We’ll have time to answer some questions, and then space for you to share your group’s ideas/plans and what support you would like from 350.org.

We look forward to walking alongside partners from all portions of the movement to build the political will necessary to take on the climate crisis. We must ensure this isn’t just one day, but an intensifying spark that grows the movement to the scale required by the climate crisis.

Emily Southard (350.org) and Alec Connon (350 Seattle) for the US climate strikes team

P.S. Here are the recording and slides from Wednesday’s local group call, Growing Resilience in the Time of Climate Anxiety.