First up, I filmed all the speakers and posted it here. Greta is the little yellow dot in the last five minutes. I’m not going to go in-depth on the content of the speakers here, I’m just going to give a summary of my impressions. The video does a reasonable job of this anyway.
I negotiated to work some weird hours this week so I could attend the climate strike on College Green. Eight days prior, it had been announced that Greta Thunberg, the next best thing to Captain Planet, would be speaking, so I made a point of attending. By the organisers’ own account, it had been a scramble to prepare for the upsurge in interest on such short notice, but that wasn’t evident to me.
Rivers of people were flowing up towards the green from the centre, at final count between 15k and 30k, depending on who you ask. There were as many umbrellas as placards, and the wet was keeping people to the paths to some extent, but there was no shortage of enthusiasm. Unsurprisingly, working-age people were not well-represented. When I had pushed forward as far as I was able, I ended up near a fairly vocal Green Party contingent, families, school-aged people and older people.
I couldn’t see much, but the PA system was plenty loud (playing Journey and the Bee Gees, I wonder whose playlist that was..). A sign language interpreter was interpreting throughout. There was probably no better symbol of the defiant optimism of the event than the massive solar panel standing proud in the pouring rain on a dark, grey day.
All the speakers preceding Greta were young, female, confident and well-informed. Francis from UKSCN, Mya-Rose Craig (aka “birdgirl“), and Katie Climate spoke on subjects including political action and wins for the movement, the human costs of climate change and green technologies, and the nefarious ways in which vested interests are trying to shift blame from polluters to individuals. I encourage you to watch them and not just skip to Greta.
Greta was a polished and emotive speaker – even more impressive considering she is an autistic person speaking in a second language. Hers was largely a motivational and brief speech. In keeping with the rest of the day, it was more about putting fire in people’s bellies than persuading anyone who might be on the fence about the necessity for action. But drawing attention to the cause was the point of the march.
Fool Rushing In 