Voices at Parliament Lawn from last month’s Global Climate Strike #UprootTheSystem!

During last month’s Global Climate Strike we asked fellow activists ‘Why are you protesting today?’ Watch their reasons in this 90 second video.

Voices from September 24, 2021 Global Climate Strike at New Zealand Parliament Lawn.

The Global Climate Strike in numbers

Close to 1,000,000 people in over 100 countries across 1,900 strikes took their climate concerns to the streets. For the Global Strike in March 2019 it was less than 1,000 strikes; 900 strikes more is a huge leap forward, considering we are still facing the challenges of the global pandemic.

A snapshot from Fridays For Future Action List of our collective achievement.

Doing our bit here in Aotearoa

It wasn’t an easy task to get the message out to as many folks as possible for our local strike on Parliament Lawn. The delta outbreak, moving alert levels, the uncertainty that comes with it and the need to keep all of us safe were weighing on our shoulders. Surely you can all sympathise with the difficulties around decision making during these times. 

Yet, it felt like a responsibility (at least for us) to do something, even if it is little.

First of all to send a positive message to our fellow New Zealanders in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland who couldn’t protest. Kia kaha Tāmaki Makaurau 💜

And secondly to keep the Climate Crisis in everyone’s mind, especially when witnessing the recent delay tactics from our government despite having declared a Climate Emergency in December last year, that is 9 months ago. Rod Oram found some clear words for it in his newsroom comment article ‘Govt lacks integrity, skill and will on climate’ from September 17, 2021.

With some last minute Fast Chalking action in Pōneke CBD, a social media and email mahi, and support from other wonderful grassroots action groups – a green shout out to Alex and the awesome humans from Picnic in Parks 💚 – we were an energetic crowd of 30. We sang together, we chanted together, we cared together. Sending gratitude to everyone who had a chance to come along and support the action. Ka pai team!

A massive thank you again!

PS You can find us every Friday from 12.30 Noon protesting on Parliament Lawn. ✊