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Answering Greta’s call with action
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Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg (C) takes part in a demonstration of students calling for climate protection on March 1, 2019 in front of the cityhall in Hambourg, Germany. (AFP/Axel Heimken)
“Our civilization is being sacrificed for the opportunity of a very small number of people to continue making enormous amounts of money. It is the sufferings of the many which pay for the luxuries of the few. We cannot solve the crisis without treating it like a crisis. The real power belongs to the people.”
That statement was delivered by Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old Swedish girl who inspired the Fridays for Future Climate Strike, a movement to skip school on Fridays to strike, pushing the government to urgently act on climate change. This movement has seen many critics but it might signal that the climate is already in a very dangerous state.
The strikes are now happening in more than 71 countries and 700 places, with thousands of students taking to the streets, from Sweden, the United Kingdom to South Korea. What about Indonesia?
In Indonesia, Greenpeace said only a handful of students showed up to strike. There could be several reasons for this: We don’t hear much about the movement, we hear about the movement but school classes are too important to skip, or perhaps, we simply don’t care.
Why strike for the climate? The fact that Indonesia is the fourth-largest emitter in the world should make us concerned. We’re home to the third-largest forests in the world that provide clean air, clean water, food, commodities, prevent flooding and landslides, as well as store carbon — but deforestation takes place at a fast pace.
The massive use of coal for electrification and energy has caused residents to suffer from air pollution-related diseases. Palm oil, present in our everyday products from soap to jam, is often produced through non-environmentally friendly measures.
