On Friday, Sept. 20, millions of protesters across 150 countries joined together to begin a full week of Climate Strikes.
The September Climate Strikes are the most recent and most highly attended of the school strikes for climate movement, inspired by the teenage Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg. Though there was no organized Climate Strike at ETSU, students are by no means disengaged from climate action.
One new campus organization, ETSU Green, is attempting to tap into the energy of frustration and fear felt so acutely by young people, the inheritors of a dying planet, to enact ambitious reform on environmental policies on campus and around the world.
“We believe that we shouldn’t be divided by politics when it comes to the environment,” ETSU Green member Rubi Estrada said of the organization. “We are very privileged to live in a beautiful area where nature surrounds us. The beauty of Johnson City should encourage all of us to act. The mission of ETSU Green is to create a culture on campus that motivates sustainability actions.”
ETSU Green’s mission is to look beyond ideology to secure a future for all, but that does not mean the group is necessarily apolitical. Instead, the group is looking for a more expansive definition of what climate justice means. Climate change is not just about an abstract entity of “the environment,” but also its ruinous effects on marginalized communities, particularly communities of color and the working class.
Class consciousness is a prerequisite for climate justice. It is a mission that will not be realized without first building a coalition of politics, exemplified in ETSU Green. Detractors and proponents of the movement agree: Climate justice will require massive, structural change.
Working in solidarity with climate activists across the globe, ETSU Green imagines a way forward for this change, beginning on our very own campus. The organization plans to launch a week of climate-focused events from Oct. 21-26.
The movement for climate justice is global; it is time for students at ETSU to join together to demand action from those in power.
