Digital climate strike: Another tactic to stay on the grind
Large crowds, brightly colored placards, and voices on the streets — such protests have been on a rapid rise since September 2019 and continued to be in a massive display meant to demand urgent action on climate change. Scores of students missed school to take part, some joined by teachers and parents.
In the pressuring times of the COVID-19 pandemic, public gatherings and allies marching have been strictly limited, but that doesn’t stop youth climate activists from making a transformational change for people, planet, and our shared prosperity. They continue to move forward with their weekly strikes. The only difference? The events are held online.
How digital technology benefits the social movement
Greta Thunberg, a sixteen-year-old Swedish environmental activist, called on other young climate activists to avoid big protests and move their demonstrations online. She has been one of the first strikers to underscore climate change as a global crisis, encouraging thousands of students across the globe to protest inaction on climate change. Now, she’s asking people to stay home.
On Twitter, Thunberg asked people to “post a photo of you striking with a sign and use the hashtag #ClimateStrikeOnline, #DigitalStrike”
“We were like ‘finally! Thunberg recognises our movement’, and people started joining very, very fast afterwards,” says 16-year-old Iris Zhan, who founded FFFD alongside George Zhang, also 16, after they met at a Fridays for Future conference in the US last year. “The more Greta legitimises what we’re doing, the more it will become mainstream, and people will just be doing it.”
Zhan lives in the suburbs in Columbia, which is very far from the government building where she can strike outside. She and George have a quite strict school attendance policy, which resulted in their absence in rallies and gave them the idea to shift the protests online, afterward.
“Thousands of people strike every single week, but there are even more people who can’t strike that support this movement,” she says, noting the fact that in some schools, striking is forbidden altogether. “If we can collect all of those voices, then that is really powerful.”
Since the outbreak of coronavirus, and Thunberg’s subsequent endorsement, the online movement has garnered almost a thousand online strikers. More people from across Europe, the Philippines, Africa, Argentina, and all over the world are taking a stand in fighting against climate change.
This new reliance on social media has also created more opportunities for Deniz Çevikus, 12, from Istanbul, who usually protests alone.
“During a typical solo strike I can talk to 20 or 30 people at most, but with the same [digital] strike I can reach thousands of people on social media,” she says, “striking before the virus was more challenging because I skipped school every Friday, missed classes, had to make up for them later and stood for a few hours in cold weather. My persistence to strike at a different location each week made it even harder. This feels a bit like vacation.”
Recently, more non-profit and non-governmental organizations, led by young students, have been established to promote further action and environmental awareness of climate change.
As a non-profit, Linens N Love has gathered many international youth activists by pushing the striking platform online to showcase current climate issues, along with a strong demand for immediate action.
Exploring the digital side of climate movements, Liens N Love has successfully captured global attention, contributing to building a new age of student activism.
The utility of social media effectively expands the amount of public engagement and bypasses traditional media channels. According to some researchers, activists can enhance their self-organizational skills while using the Internet. Thus, without the structure or hierarchy of traditional organizations, digital platforms can allow completely new forms of activism to flourish.
A great example would be 350.org, a virtual climate advocacy group. Founded in 2008, 350.org (which is both a URL and reference to the safe level of 350 parts per million carbon dioxide in the atmosphere) led the first wave of internet-savvy, youth-driven environmental organizations.
The struggle
In the face of the coronavirus pandemic, outdoor climate-action campaigns have to be canceled. According to Cherise Udell, the founder of Utah Moms for Clean Air, this is such a disadvantage when dealing with a global crisis. She has learned firsthand how building trust face-to-face is crucial for taking on big issues associated with a healthy environment.
In a surreal and sensitive time of 2020, COVID-19 is considered as a nearly pressing dilemma due to its vastly economic, well-being deterioration. Its massively global destruction out-shadows the unprecedented scales and pace of human-induced climate breakdown, which may cause the movements to lose ground.
People are raising concerns about health and economy, but climate change has been an inescapable reality in the form of deadly wildfire, floods, and hurricanes for decades. Time is running out for meaningful action, and the COVID-19 pandemic has served as the first warning.
Far less visible than huge crowds in the streets, the young people leading climate protests are still highly effective at using social media to build their movement. They were born as “digital natives” and are making the most of cyberspace to build collective identities, leading up to collective action and advocacy for climate change.
Sources
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Edited by Rena Watanabe, Director of Research Bloggers
