My city made history on September 27 when an estimated 500,000 people marched for the climate. I was one of them. Before I start talking about my experience, let me give a bit of a backstory and explain why and how this climate strike became a worldwide movement.
To put it briefly, two years ago, a young Swedish girl named Greta Thunberg started to protest her government’s inaction on climate change by skipping school on Fridays and sit in front of the Swedish parliament building by herself for hours.
About a year later, thousands of her school friends and people from all over the country had joined her. From there, her story went viral and she began speaking at numerous international events and meetings with politicians and organizations such as the United Nations. Her message sparked an enormous worldwide movement. Millions of people around the world have been striking for the climate. Montreal held one of the largest marches of the recent movement.
On the day of the march, Concordia students met up on campus to head to the meeting point together. I had only been to one other march in my life when I was in high school, but it was much smaller compared to this one. By the time my friend and I got to the Concordia meeting point, there was already a large amount of people. I honestly couldn’t believe the turnout. After a few speeches from students in front of the entire Concordia crowd, we started walking together.
Spirits were high and I could feel the emotions of everyone around me. Most of the time when I see strikes like these I just feel like people go just to participate in a strike. They never really are there for the cause. However, this time it gave me hope. It made me realize that people truly want to help save the planet and are aware of the environmental problems that are rapidly growing around us.
At first, I wasn’t expecting a huge crowd. I knew that a lot of people were planning on going, but I wasn’t expecting a larger crowd than the previous climate strike held in Montreal last March.
Once we got to the bottom of the Mont-Royal at around 11:30, which was the march’s starting point, I could not believe my eyes. An actual sea of humans filled up the streets. It was so beautiful to watch and to be a part of. I had so much fun.
I that found the march was well organized also. There were no riots, no trash, just hundreds of thousands of people peacefully walking together. I learned a lot. I learned what ways we could help save our planet, like reusing and recycling, but I also learned that I am not the only one who wants to make a change. I also met a bunch of new people who gave me some tips on how we can help the climate, like composting makes a huge difference, using a reusable water bottle can be a big help and it actually makes a difference. Some people were even handing out cards with locations to recycle your toxic waste, like batteries or cell phones. Over all, it was an amazing experience. Seeing Greta speak wasn’t too bad either.