My Memories of the school strike for climate 2019

This is a personal story. In 2019 I was in year 11, the global political climate was tumultuous to say the least, you could tell it was because I knew multiple minister’s names. That year I had walked back and forth from parliament house what had seemed like a hundred times. I had marched, chanted and even held a sign or two. I was a real hero, I was so angry. I could barely hold a climate change centred conversation, but I was definitely angry. I couldn’t specifically tell you who I was angry at, but someone was killing the earth where I lived. It seemed hypocritical to be so upset about someone failing to look after something, at that point in my life plants were dying one after another on my sil.

I cared in the same way someone might care about their local sports team, but only during the game. If they were asked at work, they would say “I love the raiders”. Essentially I cared but only when it was apparent that everybody around me really did. It’s not as if I wasn’t hyper aware of the impending doom we all faced (and still face) if things didn’t change. The fact is if I thought about it too much, I would feel nauseous.

The school strike for climate was one of those things that felt huge. It was exciting, we were rebelling. At my school, the plan was to walk out. Everyone at the same time would get up from their desks and march to the exit. First period, before recess. The teachers knew it was coming, they didn’t even bother writing the date on the board. The progressive, public school that it was, a few teachers decided to discuss with us why it was important and that we weren’t simply missing a day of school for nothing.

This clarification came in handy. For some, this was any other day, until a more news savvy classmate had given them the brief of the walkout. Excited at the prospect of protesting, they would run through the halls, banging lockers, yelling “fuck the cops”.

For me, yes I knew what was happening, but I didn’t grasp the magnitude. In the following years I would reflect on this day as a movement with more appreciation. At the time it wasn’t clear to me how loud the collective voice of Australian students could be. The message that was sent by a one day, nationwide school walkout, imagine if we had refused to come back.

“This is a really cool thing that's happening” my mum had said to me as I was leaving for school that morning. “Thanks mum” I said, like I organised the thing. No, I didn’t organise it. But if asked for my opinion on the school strike, I would reply with an empty statement like, “something has to be done.” That was involvement enough I thought.

Canberra’s light rail tram was only a few months old. It served as the perfect chariot as we all charged into the city. As we would hit different stops, a new platoon would pack into the tram, all with different uniforms but with the same cause.

It was still early in the day, so many students decided to take advantage of the mall and their freedom before the speakers started.

When we arrived in the city, I felt the familiar urge to buy a slurpee from 7/11. I had walked from school to the tram, so I could justify getting my slurp on before the picketing began. I walked into the 7/11, selected the jumbo size, filled it to the brim with a sickening combination of cola, lime twist, fairy floss and limited edition kumquat orange. I was a shameless 16 year old, a 7/11 jumbo slurpee is the drink equivalent of wearing a feather boa. I hauled my enormous, psychedelic colored plastic vessel through the city. Happily inhaling a mixture of sugar and ice.

It was only when I reentered the crowd and saw a sign saying “Say no to plastic” that I realised my own thoughtlessness. I was standing alongside students holding signs with pictures of the ocean, so full of garbage no water was visible. We were watching year eights speaking to the audience shaking so hard they could barely hold on to the microphone. Yet they knew what they had to say was important enough to fight through the crippling fear.

Immediately I identified my role in all of this. I was the guy who didn’t really care. The guy holding a 20 centimeter tall chunk of future sea trash. Kind of listening to the speakers, but also kind of thinking about Star Wars.

My jedi infused thoughts were interrupted by a voice that didn’t belong to the greens spokesperson whose voice was booming around Garema Place.

“Hey!” it said

“Hi” I said, turning around expecting to see a classmate.

“Down here idiot”

I looked down, nothing but the slurpee in my hand. I held it up to my ear just to be sure I wasn’t going insane.

“Yuh” said the voice, “That’s me”.

What the hell did they put in that slurpee I thought.

“Just ice, sugar and kumquat baby.” The slurpee answered the question I didn’t even say out loud. “you look a little flustered.”

“Well to tell you the truth I’m feeling a little self conscious” I thought that if I was going to talk to an inanimate drink I may as well be open. “I just realised I’m nothing but a fraud.”

“Is it your baggy jeans and sneakers despite your middle class upbringing?”

“No… I’m thinking about how I want to stop climate change but I actually don’t do anything to fight it.”

“Well yeah” said the slurpee. “You and everyone else, no one wants to make life harder for themselves. They would rather drive than walk, they would rather fly than drive. Companies use plastic like me because it's easier, cheaper and I’m waterproof. Not even Greta Thunberg likes using a damn paper straw.”

“I hate paper straws,” I said.

“Imagine when you're forced to drink out of cardboard water bottles. You know when humans started using stone it was the stone age, when bronze came along it was the bronze age? Well this is the plastic age and as it stands, it’s not going anywhere.”

“You make a lot of good points slurpee”

“I believe that as a society to actually do something about climate change we have to go back before we can go forward. It’s simple, did the caveman stand around worrying about carbon emissions? Hell nah, they were too busy riding dinosaurs.”

The slurpee continued while I thoughtfully took a sip.

“I’m saying all this… protesting and striking is cool and it’s important but will you be out here when the earth warms by six degrees? There’s no set deadline with global warming, there's no playbook. We gotta start changing our ways now, literally this second.”

“I gotta buy me a keep cup and –”

“Okay” The slurpee cut me off. “Listen buddy, you seem like a nice guy, your heart is in the right place but you’re all talk. Seriously.”

“I’m ready, let’s do this. It’s fight time. Let’s stop this thing.”

“It’s not that easy, but fine. Stop eating meat.”

Visions of pulled pork nachos, fried chicken and lemongrass beef banh mis floated through my mind.

“ummmm maybe”

“I’m a degrowther Leon, I think we’ve gone too far. Deep down I think there’s nothing we can do about this. Here’s the thing, I don’t care if you or your people live or die. I’m a plastic slurpee cup, I’ll outlive you anyway. Probably by floating in an acidified ocean for a hundred years before eventually killing a sea turtle.”

“Man… you’re a real cup half empty kind of person.”

“That’s right and that’s before you got to me.”

I was taken aback by the slurpee’s doomsday mentality. I didn’t think it was that serious, was it?

“So what can we do?” I asked, I felt the nauseous climate anxiety brewing in my stomach. “Is there a way out?”

“Not realistically.” replied the slurpee.

We both paused.

The slurpee continued, “Well, I suppose if there was just like a halt on the world for a bit. Like if everyone minimised air travel all together at the same time. If we just let the world heal for a while, but this grace period would have to be like a couple years long to really see progress. Not to mention the human commitment of content in a more simple, stay-at-home lifestyle. But how likely is that?”

“If that’s the way out, great. I’ll try and get something like that going.” I said

The Slurpee laughed. “Good luck with that. Now what do you say you put me in the right bin?.”

*****************

Present day.

It’s been four years since the school strike for climate. I like to think that that period of unrest in 2019 did a lot to turn people’s attention to climate change. Especially young people like me. Since then lots has changed. A clean energy future seems to be doable. As the Slurpee said, we were in the plastic age, but thanks to wind and solar energy we could be heading towards a ‘bio age’. We are now in a new decade, but there were points in the 2010’s where scientists thought we were completely doomed. But, thankfully changes have been made to at least not be doomed.

Although things have gotten better it is still an uphill battle. As science writer Ramez Naam said “we are no longer totally fucked, but we are not totally unfucked” (Plain English podcast, 2023). However there is certainly room to be an optimist in the climate discourse now.