WHEN: Saturday, February 29, 9 AM - 3 PM WHERE: Westminster Presbyterian Church, Buffalo [Map] COST: $10, Students $5; Lunch provided REGISTER: Click here NOTE: Register Before Wednesday, February 26 at 5:00 PM
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Keynote Speaker: Rev. Dr. Jim Antal
The Rev. Dr. Jim Antal, author of the acclaimed book, Climate Church, Climate World, is immediate past President of the Massachusetts Conference of the
United Church Christ and a long-time climate activist, speaker and author.
Foreword by Bill McKibben
Breakout Group Topics and Facilitators
Youth Climate Strike - Rev. Micah Nutter Dowling
Creation Justice for Congregations - Roger Cook and Rev. Katelyn Nutter Dowling
Eco-Justice on West and East Sides of Buffalo - Joshua Wallace
Our Sacred Waters - Lynda Schneekloth
Renewable Energy (Wind/Solar) - Bob Ciesielski
WNY as a Region for Climate Refugees - Brendan Mehaffy
The civil rights movement
leaders of the 1960s had no idea that school-shooting survivors from one
of the most southern points in the U.S. would lean on their teachings
to power a modern nonviolent movement to end gun violence. Students
around the world began standing up for their survival, leaning only on
the fire inside them to prevent the pain they understand too intimately. Greta Thunberg saw her power in us, and we in turn see our power in
her. Fighting in her home country, Sweden, for a future free from
pollution, environmental degradation and climate change, Greta is
inspiring steadfast students and shaming apathetic adults. She realized early on that the powers that be would be stacked
against her and her mission, stating, “We can’t save the world by
playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.” Greta went
on to plan a multitude of student protests centered on action against
our changing climate. Climate change is our reality, and youth activists
like Greta are doing everything within their power to work against it,
and demand a change. González, a graduate of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, is a March for Our Lives co-founder
Greta Thunberg is part of TIME’s 2019 Next Generation Leaders series.
‘Now I Am Speaking to the Whole World.’
How Teen Climate Activist Greta Thunberg Got Everyone to Listen
The Climate Kids are Coming With a Green New Deal and Student Strikes for Climate, will young people save us yet?
By Mark Hertsgaard | January 28, 2019 | The Nation
If you don’t know who Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg is, you can think of her as an international climate-change counterpart to Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Like the rock-star congresswoman from New York, Thunberg is a charismatic young woman whose social-media savvy, moral clarity, and fearless speaking truth to power have inspired throngs of admirers to take to the streets for a better world and call out the politicians and CEOs who are standing in the way.
Ocasio-Cortez, 29, is known for championing the #GreenNewDeal and schooling right-wing haters on Twitter. Thunberg, 16, is known for launching the #SchoolStrike4Climate movement—tens of thousands of high-school students worldwide are skipping school on Fridays until their governments treat the climate crisis as an emergency—and for torching billionaires and heads of state at the World Economic Forum in Davos last week.
Demolishing the convenient notion that we are all to blame for climate change, Thunberg told a Davos panel that included president Trump’s former chief economics adviser Gary Cohn, “Some people, some companies, some decision makers in particular have known exactly what priceless values they have been sacrificing to continue making unimaginable amounts of money.” She paused before a final thrust of the knife: “I think many of you here today belong to that group of people.”
Call them the Climate Kids. Like Ocasio-Cortez and Thunberg themselves,
the grassroots activist movements they have roused are comprised almost
exclusively of teenagers and twenty-somethings. These are not your
father’s environmentalists: supplicant, “realistic,” and accepting of
failure. These young people are angry about the increasingly dire
climate future awaiting them and clear-eyed about who’s to blame and how
to fix it. And they seem to have the bad guys worried.
Below is a repost of my article posted at Re-ENERGIZE Buffalo (Dec.16, 2018) along with an UPDATE:
Young Activist Condemns World's Inaction on Climate Change at U.N. Summit
Greta Thunberg, a 15 year-old high school student from Sweden, realized at a young age the difference in what climate
experts were saying needed to be done and the actions that were being taken in
society.
She decided
to take matters into her own hands.
With focus and poise beyond her years, Greta spoke truth to power in an
audience of adults including U.N. officials and world government
representatives at the recent Climate Summit (COP 24) in Poland. She
cited inaction on climate change as a burden that adults are leaving on
their children:
You say you love your children above all else, and yet you're stealing
their future in front of their very eyes. Until you start focusing on
what needs to be done, rather than its what is politically possible,
there is no hope.
Watch a short video of Greta's powerful and moving speech at the U.N. Climate Summit below:
On Hope:
Elsewhere, in a TEDx Talk, Greta said, "Yes, we do need hope, of course we do. But the one thing we need more than hope is action. Once we start to act, hope is everywhere."
School Strike for the Climate:
The U.N. Summit speech was not Greta’s first climate action. Earlier this year, Greta demanded that her government in Sweden undertake a radical response to climate change. She protested for more than a month in Stockholm, sitting on the steps of the parliament building, every day during school hours for three weeks. She has returned to school for four days a week; she now spends her Fridays on the steps of parliament. Read more about Greta and what makes her special in The New Yorker
UPDATE: Greta was invited to speak at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Here is part of Greta's message to Davos before leaving by train from Stockholm to Switzerland:
“Some people say that the climate crisis is something that we all have created. But that is just another convenient lie because if everyone is guilty then no one is to blame. And someone is to blame.
Some people, some companies, and some decision-makers in particular have known exactly what priceless values they are sacrificing to continue making unimaginable amounts of money.
I want to challenge those companies and those decision makers into real and bold climate action. To set their economic goals aside and to safeguard the future living conditions for humankind.”
Watch the video below and Listen to this articulate young human being:
~ ~ ~
Greta's Speech at the World Economic Forum
Greta’s bottom line:
“I want you to act as you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if our house is on fire. Because it is.”
Watch a short video of Greta’s speech and read the full text of her speech at The Guardian
School Strikes over Climate Change continue to Snowball:
Greta
Thunberg, whose solo protest outside Sweden’s parliament has snowballed
across the globe, will join a strike by Swiss school children in the Davos ski resort on Friday — the final day of the World Economic
Forum. Read the report atGrist
Greta Thunberg, a 15 year-old high school student from Sweden, realized at a young age the difference in what climate
experts were saying needed to be done and the actions that were being taken in
society.
She decided
to take matters into her own hands.
With focus and poise beyond her years, Greta spoke truth to power in an audience of adults including U.N. officials and world government representatives at the recent Climate Summit (COP 24) in Poland. She cited inaction on climate change as a burden that adults are leaving on their children:
You say you love your children above all else, and yet you're stealing their future in front of their very eyes. Until you start focusing on what needs to be done, rather than its what is politically possible, there is no hope.
Watch a short video of Greta's powerful and moving speech at the U.N. Climate Summit below:
On Hope:
Elsewhere, in a TEDx Talk, Greta said, "Yes, we do need hope, of course we do. But the one thing we need more than hope is action. Once we start to act, hope is everywhere."
School Strike for the Climate:
The U.N. Summit speech was not Greta’s first climate action. Earlier this year, Greta demanded that her government in Sweden undertake a radical response to climate change. She protested for more than a month in Stockholm, sitting on the steps of the parliament building, every day during school hours for three weeks. She has returned to school for four days a week; she now spends her Fridays on the steps of parliament. Read more about Greta and what makes her special in The New Yorker
