Environmental activists protest for action on climate change on the U.S. Capitol grounds in Washington, D.C.: Glynn Wilson

By Glynn Wilson –

WASHINGTON, D.C. — An estimated four million people around the world walked off the job, skipped school and joined marches and rallies on Friday to protest inadequate government action to address climate change due to global warming from the burning of fossil fuels in what youth organizers called a Climate Strike.

In the nation’s capital, however, only a few thousand people gathered in John Marshall Park on Pennsylvania Avenue and marched the few blocks up Capitol Hill to the United States Capitol grounds for a protest rally that was significantly smaller than one held five years ago.

The epicenter of the protest was in New York City, however, since that’s where Swedish schoolgirl Greta Thunberg, who sailed to New York earlier this month, came to address the United Nations Climate Summit on Monday.

While organizers claimed 250,000 marched through the narrow streets of Lower Manhattan, the mayor’s office estimated the crowd at only 60,000.

Reportedly they turned out in force in Berlin, however, according to the New York Times, where the police estimated the crowd at 100,000. Similar numbers were posted Melbourne, Australia and London, England. Young people also demonstrated in Manila, Kampala and Rio de Janeiro. A group of scientists even rallied in Antarctica.

But there were no strikes or protests in China, currently the country where the most greenhouse gases are emitted next to the U.S., which has produced more emissions than any country since the start of the industrial era.

While some progress has been made here and in other countries to regulate pollution and begin the switch to alternative energy sources like wind and solar and away from coal, the Trump administration has been rolling back environmental regulations for the past three years and continues to deny the problem even exists. Science positions in many federal agencies are not being filled, and top cabinet level appointees are pro-big business conservatives who openly deny the existence of climate change.

The way is being paved like a giant parking lot for multi-national corporations to rapidly expand oil and gas exploration even in places like the Arctic National Refuge in Alaska, a pristine nature preserve that has been protected from the ravages of development since the environmental movement came into its own in the early 1970s. Trump wants to open up the Gulf of Mexico coast to oil and gas drilling, even inside the 100 mile limit established in Florida 30 years ago. The administration is moving to open up more national forest and park land to development, something we warned about in 2016 well before the election. And Trump wants to open the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to more drilling, something the Obama administration considered but backed away from under political pressure from activists.

In Rolling Stone magazine, environmental activist and author Bill McKibben said September 20 was shaping up to be the biggest day of climate action in the planet’s history.

“Everyone from big trade unions to over 1,200 workers at the Amazon headquarters, and from college kids to senior citizens, are setting the day aside to rally in their cities and towns for faster action from our governments and industries,” he wrote.

“A year ago, inspired by Swedish schoolgirl Greta Thunberg, young people around the world began ‘climate-striking’ — walking out of school for a few hours on Fridays to demand action against the global warming that darkens their future. In March, when 1.4 million kids around the world walked out of school, they asked for adults to join them next time. That next time was September 20 (in a few countries September 27).

Find out what’s happening in your community at GlobalClimateStrike.net.

“There’s no planet B,” the protesters chanted on the Capitol steps, and a number of people in the crowd carried signs with that message.

“You had a future, and so should we,” demonstrators chanted as they marched through New York City.

Whether this global action solves the problem — reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases to slow climate change from global warming — now depends on how effectively climate advocates can turn Friday’s momentum into sustained political pressure on governments and companies that produce those emissions, according to the Times.

Megan Mullin, a political scientist at Duke University, said that would be crucial.

“The challenge is translating something that is a global movement into a kind of concentrated political pressure that can influence government decisions,” she said. “It needs to be translated to influencing decision makers who aren’t already convinced.”

“Right now we are the ones who are making a difference. If no one else will take action, then we will,” Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish climate activist whose one-person strikes in Stockholm helped ignite the global movement, told demonstrators in New York City. “We demand a safe future. Is that really too much to ask?”

Environmental activists protest for action on climate change on the U.S. Capitol grounds in Washington, D.C.: Glynn Wilson

Environmental activists protest for action on climate change on the U.S. Capitol grounds in Washington, D.C.: Glynn Wilson

Environmental activists protest for action on climate change on the U.S. Capitol grounds in Washington, D.C.: Glynn Wilson

Environmental activists protest for action on climate change on the U.S. Capitol grounds in Washington, D.C.: Glynn Wilson

Environmental activists protest for action on climate change on the U.S. Capitol grounds in Washington, D.C.: Glynn Wilson