Pat Taub
GUEST POST by JANET WEIL
On a gray morning, we climate strikers massed together in downtown Portland, Oregon–and I was getting claustrophobic. Unlike the lively but small turnout of youth activists in downtown Los Angeles I wrote about for WOW last March, the turnout for the Global Climate Strike here, as around the world, was huge.
The Portland school district had given general permission for all middle and high school students to participate; that helped to swell the crowd to an estimated 20,000. Pacific Northwest folks’ deep roots in environmental activism was a factor. The original “Fridays for Future” striker, Greta Thunberg, had inspired many.
Portland, Oregon’s massive turnout for September 20th’s global climate protest
There was another ingredient in the mix of humanity: old(er) women. Sitting near me in the crush, a grandmother handed out snacks to her grandchildren.
Brightly costumed Raging Grannies squeezed their way through the crowd to perform at the rally. Still other elders, men and women in whiteface, were dressed in sackcloth with grim signs around their necks, mourning the environmental destruction.
Many older women had heeded the call to strike from our regular Friday activities – paid or unpaid – and join our voices to the youth-led chorus, to shout: “This is an emergency! The world must end the era of fossil fuels, transitioning quickly to renewable energy for all.”
After the rally but before we marched across the Hawthorne Bridge, a stir in the crowd alerted me to the Extinction Rebellion PDX , a silent procession of red-garbed women acting as the “red line” humanity must not cross. The Red Rebels parted the crowd, and we watched quietly as they performed ritual gestures and bowed down. Their ages ranged from 20s to 70s. All were powerful, but I was most impressed by the oldest woman in the group, bravely acting out the role of masked crone, an ancient symbol of warning to the community.
On the bridge, children and parents carrying babies most touched my heart. I saw joy, camaraderie, hope. I heard giggling and talk of homework assignments as well as chanting of slogans. I also saw determination and flashes of anger. I felt concern for how much children are already in terror and despair over the climate crisis when it is the responsibility of adults to protect them.
As Seattle activist Jamie Margolin, co-founder of Zero Hour, testified to Congress: “There shouldn’t have to be youth climate activism.”
We’re marching – but where are we going? This worldwide, coordinated day of action declaring Climate Emergency cannot be a one-off.
As a longtime peace activist, I feel some trepidation that September 20, 2019 could follow the historic “The World Says No to War” mobilization on February 15-16, 2003. Millions of people marched, listened to fiery speeches, even got arrested – and then mostly de-mobilized themselves as the U.S. occupation of Iraq dragged on for 8 terrible years. We must learn from that failure.
Conditions are different now: the war – on the natural systems on which all our lives, and future lives, depend – is happening everywhere. Women aged 60 and up bring to the struggle our experience and resilience, long memories, well-honed skills, and profound love for our children and nature. We can all do something.
POSTSCRIPT: as I prepared to send this for publication, activists have shut down major streets in Washington, DC as part of a week of Climate Action, and Greta Thunberg has just spoken a bitter warning to the United Nations General Assembly, and by extension, older generations:
“You are failing us. But the young people are starting to understand your betrayal. The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us I say we will never forgive you.”
