Fridays For Future

 Fridays For Future  (FFF) is a youth movement that began in 2018 in Sweden with then 15 year old Greta Thunberg. In an effort to protest the inaction by government officials on climate change, Thunberg protested outside Swedish Parliament for several school weeks and shared her protests via social media. Her efforts went viral, and she has become a well known figure to youth around the world by sacrificing her education on Fridays for awareness. Since 2018, this movement has gained momentum and inspired millions of youth around the world, setting off a chain reaction of school strikes which have been broadcast over social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram using hashtags like  #FridaysForFuture , #SchoolStrike4Climate and #ClimateStrike. While originating in Sweden, this movement locates itself among the younger generation across borders who are united through a common fear about the future living conditions on earth. While ineligible to vote, students have disrupted the function of education systems in order to have their voices heard. The key concepts of modernity, industrialism, capitalism and the relationship relationship between human beings and nature all play a factor in the context for and aim of the FFF movement.

On the Fridays For Future website, the demands and rules of the movement are listed. In the image to the left, the rules include "always refer to science". In this way, this climate change advocacy movement has framed itself as the believers and defenders of science. Another part of their demands is the idea of "climate justice." A demand for justice recognizes the injustices present. In The Great Derangement, novelist Amitav Ghosh highlights the predicament of climate justice by writing, "the resulting equity would lead not just to a redistribution of wealth but a recalibration of global power" which for those countries who want to maintain dominance is "precisely the scenario that is most greatly to be feared” (Ghosh 143). The governments of wealthy nations fear losing their economic status in the world which has inhibited the adoption of the necessary climate action policy worldwide. They do not wish to share power with the countries they colonized, which enabled them to become rich and powerful in the first place. This mindset is what the FFF movement seeks to call out and combat because in reality, the desire for money and power is not as important as the need for a habitable earth.

The inception of the Fridays For Future movement came two years after the Paris Agreement in 2016. According to the United Nations website, "The  Paris Agreement  central aim is to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change by keeping a global temperature rise this century well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius." Despite these aspirations, there is no mechanism for enforcement, a problem exemplified in the United States' withdrawal from the accord. As a result, no large scale concrete efforts to stop climate change have been made by most participants in the agreement.

This movement is places itself among the younger generation. It began with Greta Thunberg protesting the Swedish government, a local issue and has since evolved into a network of youth protesting a worldwide problem. It is the local implications of climate change inaction that motivates youth to participate in this movement but the common threat of climate change unites those across boundaries. The movement engages the local with the global through social media. The Fridays For Future website has an entire page dedicated to tweets. Social media is a medium that enables youth to connect with ideas across borders and link their local protests, in both time and spirit, with other protests around the world. The FFF website has social media post templates and suggestions for youth interested in starting their own strikes. as is shown at the bottom of the document below.

Environmentalism is not a new concept and Greta Thunberg is not the first climate change activist. In the 1960s and 1970s, Environmentalism as a movement came about but ideas about protecting the environment from human impact have existed much earlier (Class Lecture 11/21). Concerns about pollution and disease were present in Europe as far back as the 14th century and in China, India and Peru "soil conservation" was exercised as early as 2000 years ago (Britannica). In the 1960s, biologist and conservationist Rachel Carson wrote  Silent Spring , a novel highlighting the dangerous effects of using the pesticide DDT, a human invention, on the environment. Her novel, while not well received by pesticide companies, influenced pesticide reform in the United States and impacted the emerging environmental movement. Environmentalist Bill McKibben highlights Carson's influence writing that she "was the very first person to knock some of the shine off modernity" ( NYTimes ). Rachel Carson synthesized information and highlighted how how humans negatively impact the environment from the perspective of a biologist. While Carson was a hugely influential environmentalist for her time, many others also fought to make an impact.

Youth have found that they do not need to be biologists to have their voice heard. Around the world, they have utilized new media platforms to connect and protest in the name of climate change advocacy. No longer is it an impending problem that can be ignored. Today silent springs can be ignored with headphones, but hurricanes, monsoons, wildfires, floods and droughts cannot. Fridays For Future is one part of a larger environmentalism movement.

• The media advisory link below gives a template for youth strikers who want to invite media to cover their acts of protests.

“For more than thirty years the science has been crystal clear. How dare you continue to look away and come here saying that you’re doing enough when the politics and solutions need are still nowhere in sight?” -Greta Thunberg at 2019 UN Climate Action Summit.

At the 2019 UN Climate Action Summit in New York, Thunberg highlighted one of the main messages of the Fridays For Future Movement–the failure of the older generation to take action on climate change. The future conditions on Earth will be a product of the behavior of the past generation. The issue that Fridays For Future seeks to highlight is tied in with the history of modernity and the movement to carbon based economies. Author Ulf Strohmayer writes, “modernity’ is often synonymous with the attempt by human- kind to master nature in its many shapes and guises” ("Modernity and Democracy" 212).

The industrialization over the last few hundred years, first amongst Western nations and later in Asia, was the product of western society's attempt to master nature and extract as much from the earth as possible for its own gain. ("Modernity and Democracy"; Strohmayer 196). This attempt to “master nature” has backfired over time as industrialization and extractivism have begun to destroy nature. In addition, the desire to master nature has altered nature in ways that make it more dangerous to humans, as is evident in the increase in extreme weather events. The Fridays For Future seeks to bring justice to this issue, as the younger generation are the ones who have to live with the consequences of “modernity.”

Later in the speech Thunberg adds,“We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairytales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!” Thunberg frames the issue of climate change as a collective derangement, in which the older generation has prioritized money and the desire for wealth instead of the future of the earth. Similarly, in order to order to explain the political and ethical conundrum of the great derangement Amitav Ghosh highlights the words of geologist David Archer who writes, “Money flows toward short term gain and over the top exploitation of common unregulated resources” (Ghosh 111). While not explicitly, Thunberg also alludes to the “‘self-expansionist’ nature of capitalism, a global system characterized by “a drawn-out process of social change that relies centrally on the production of commodities and the development of systems of commodity exchange” (“Capitalism and Industrialization” Strohmayer 199). Key Concepts in Historical Geography coauthor Ulf Strohmayer makes the connection between capitalism and nature writing that because nature is “conceptualized as a resource only, and thus measured as a direct costs only,” it is “accorded a status similar to the one accorded to labour in that it registers only when acknowledged to be scarce” (“Capitalism and Industrialization” 197). In relation to Fridays For Future, the younger generation that fuels the movement not only has recognized that nature and healthy ecosystems will be scarce in their future, but they wish to do something about it. The recognition of climate change in science is nothing new, but the desire and vocalness of young people worldwide, especially those of a non voting age, has increased in part due to media that enables them to connect with each other. They do not wish to be complicit in what Amitav Ghosh calls the great derangement: a system and mindset in which “our lives and our choices are enframed in a pattern of history that seems to leave us nowhere to turn but toward our self-annihilation,” (111).

The reception of the Fridays For Future movement has been mixed. There is no doubt that the movement has been effective advocacy but sacrificing education for climate change awareness is not completely well received. For example, the Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel, has expressed her support for the movement. In one of her weekly  podcasts  she said of the FFF movement, “"I think this is a very good initiative,” (“Merkel encourages school strikes for climate, upsetting her own party”). But, the article below also highlights that Merkel’s encouraging comments have caused tension among members of her political party. Merkel’s mixed reception represents how divisions among politicians fuels climate change inaction. Many global leaders and politicians have prioritized power over nature. As a result, youth are prioritizing activism over education.

As the Fridays For Future protests continue, the average temperature of the Earth continues to rise as do sea levels. The youth that participate in these events are taking a stand for their future. On December 11th, FFF founder Greta Thunberg was chosen as  Time Magazine's  Person of the Year. The author of the article summarizes the effect of Thunberg and the FFF movement writing, "Thunberg has no magic solution. But she has succeeded in creating a global attitudinal shift, transforming millions of vague, middle-of-the-night anxieties into a worldwide movement calling for urgent change” (TIME) What started as one girl protesting alone outside Swedish parliament has turned into a global movement of youth striking for their future. Thunberg's voice has only gotten  louder  as empowered young people from all around the world join her.

"Thunberg has no magic solution."

Morrissey, John, et al. Key Concepts in Historical Geography. Sage Publications, 2014.

• Industrialism
• Capitalism
• Modernity
• Nature

Brown, Kate. Dispatches from Dystopia: Histories of Places Not Yet Forgotten. The University of Chicago Press, 2015.

Ghosh, Amitav. The Great Derangement. Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 2016.

Massey, Doreen. “A Global Sense of Place.” Space, Place, and Gender. University of Minnesota Press, 1994.

Seraphim, Franziska., Willard, Mara.“Class Notes 11/21”. Chestnut Hill, MA. 2019.

Websites:

https://www.fridaysforfuture.org

 https://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/23/magazine/how-silent-spring-ignited-the-environmental-movement.html 

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Spring 

 https://time.com/person-of-the-year-2019-greta-thunberg/ 

- https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/the-paris-agreement 

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eljw9qoNAo&feature=emb_logo  “

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOP2V_np2c0&feature=emb_logo 

- https://www.bundeskanzlerin.de/bkin-de/mediathek/die-kanzlerin-direkt/merkel-klimaschutz-in-europa-gemeinsam-anpacken-1586124!mediathek 

- https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/merkel-encourages-school-strikes-climate-upsetting-her-own-party 

-https://www.dw.com/en/german-state-education-minister-tells-students-to-protest-on-their-own-time/a-47545207

- https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/english_paris_agreement.pdf 

- https://www.iied.org/iied-partner-events-2019-un-climate-action-summit h-

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XwJNxG53AxEHHdHPkpYskmFT-CKeOTvyG2S85qyxXH8/edit

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/kidspost/students-worldwide-walk-out-of-school-to-push-for-action-on-climate-change/2019/03/15/310f363a-4781-11e9-90f0-0ccfeec87a61_story.html 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nsrXfPo9Xt-Qjxa8w2QZaG-izS6YJQzBVoVF8G2oPvI/edit#heading=h.wfdo1bylbra4

Map layers created by: Maps.com_carto

 https://www.britannica.com/topic/environmentalism/History-of-the-environmental-movement