Mendocino Students Take A Stand School Strike for Climate on October 1st Ravel Gauthier Mendocino Coast youth activists organized a youth-led climate strike at Heider Field in Mendocino Friday, October 1st and marched to Friendship Park for a multi-hour event with booths representing local environmental groups and organizations. The booths gave out information to educate the broader community on the disastrous effects of climate change. According to organizers, “Our specific aim with this strike is to get lawmakers and people in power to take action to stop the causes of climate change in our own community, specifically, the logging in Jackson Demonstration State Forest. Climate change is real and our generation is the one who will be most affected by the inaction of lawmakers and government officials. And so our generation is the one taking action across the world. Mendocino County needs to be a part of that movement.” See the statement from organizer Ravel Gauthier below. “Sara R. and I organized a youth climate strike on Friday October 1st because we realize that it is our generation that will be most heavily impacted by climate change. We are seeing the effects of climate change already, and they are devastating. This is only the beginning. We need to take action right now if we want to stop it before it’s too late. Our generation is not in power, and while there are small things we can do to directly impact climate change, it’s the current generation who needs to be persuaded to do something. Our generation is trying to make ourselves heard. Drought is already ravaging communities across the world. Extreme weather is intensifying with the
"Stop Logging Our Future"
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"The future is in our hands." Mendocino Coast youth activists organized a youth-led climate strike at Heider Field in Mendocino Friday, October 1st and marched to Friendship Park. All photos by Chad Swimmer.
frequency of such events increasing, and wildfire is destroying natural habitats and infrastructure alike. But by the time climate change truly begins to spiral out of control, the older generations will be gone, and it will be people from our generation living in an inhospitable, ravaged world. Lawmakers are taking too little action, and taking too long to do it. They must know that this climate disaster is real, and that we have to do something -- climate change isn’t going to fix itself. We hope that this school strike will be the first of many, and that it attracts enough media attention to make some people think about what’s happening to our planet. If local or state lawmakers notice our school strike and take action, that would be a dream come true: they are the ones that can impact this situation. Our immediate goal is simply to get more people involved and to attract attention: this strike is only the beginning.” Ravel Gauthier (they/them pronouns) is a 12 year old student at Montessori del Mar Community School. They are a youth climate change activist who is working with the Trail Stewards to prevent devastating logging in Jackson Demonstration State Forest. This summer www.yournec.org
Ravel attended a Climate Change Summit bringing together youth from around the world to collaborate on local solutions for the current climate crisis.
"The Planet Shouldn't Be Hotter Than Leo Dicaprio."
NOVEMBER 2021 ECONEWS
