How has the Covid-19 pandemic changed youth climate activism?
This interview is part of a feature series exploring how the Covid-19 pandemic and the measures to prevent its spread are impacting the human rights of under-18s.
Social distancing and lockdown measures mean public gatherings and protests are not currently feasible. In March, youth climate activists announced they would no longer be organising climate strikes, with Greta Thunberg explaining that “In a crisis we change our behaviour and adapt to the new circumstances for the greater good of society”. Instead, they’ve moved their activism online.
To find out how youth activists are handling the situation, how they’ve adapted their work and what lessons from the pandemic can be applied to the fight for climate justice, we spoke with Mexican high school student Jerónimo Zarco Martinez, member of Fridays For Future, Fridays For Future Mexico, Extinction Rebellion Youth in the United States, and Earth Uprising México.
What impact has the Covid-19 pandemic had on the youth climate strikes where you live and globally?
The Covid-19 pandemic has shaped the way we work a lot. Since public gatherings are now risky and sometimes prohibited, we have cancelled the global climate protests that we usually did. We had one of the biggest protests planned for the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, but we had to cancel it. Instead, we wanted to start working a lot online. And this is what has happened. Fridays for Future, for instance, is doing a global 24-hour live stream on 24 April. And since we’re a movement that’s very targeted towards youth, I think that the research we have online and social media has really helped us to start on track with our agenda, and since everyone is on their phone nowadays, it’s a good time to be online and engaging in web activism.
How does online activism compare to street protests? Is it an effective alternative?
I don’t believe that online activism is any less important than street protests, but it is less impactful, because I think the masses are really something that can impact you. And although we’re not able to organise in public areas for now, I think web activism is important since it can take many shapes and forms. For example, webinars, trending topics on Twitter or engaging with key influencers and talking to them about the issue to get them on board.
At Earth Uprising México, which is still very new, our current work is focused on producing webinars to increase the visibility of climate change. In Mexico the discussion around the issue is not something that you hear about a lot. This is understandable because of the situation the country lives in, and there’s a lot of inequality, but it’s also important for people to understand that it’s an issue that matters and will matter more in the future. So I’m hoping that this organisation, which is all about climate education and spreading awareness, will at least - and I’m being idealistic here - move the conversation about climate change into Mexican local elections in 2021, at least a little bit.
While I’m not involved with it, there’s also the Talks for Future series with Naomi Klein. We’re trying to do something like this on a local scale, for example we recently had a webinar on how to link the fight against climate change with the fight for the rights of campesinos (peasant farmers) in Latin America, and other webinars on the circular economy and why it’s important not only to make an economic transition but a social and environmental transition, too, which is all about sustainability.
So the least web activism can do is raise awareness. It’s not a good example, but what we saw with the Notre Dame fire, despite not seeing the same response with the Amazon forest fires, a lot of money was raised very fast and it was all because of the exchange of information and social media. So again, web activism may be less impactful, but it’s not less important.
Now that youth climate activists are working online, has there been any change in how you coordinate your activism to how you did it before?
Coordinating our activities can be done online anyway. It’s not so different now to how we used to work here in Mexico, as we already worked a lot online, meeting on Zoom - although we used to be able to meet in person occasionally. The biggest change has been that we can’t do the Friday strikes. But since we’re not coordinating them now, we’re using our time to do other stuff. It’s been interesting to shape our work beyond global climate change and link it to other issues like campesinos’ rights and local climate education.
So yes, we’ve experienced changes in what we coordinate, but I think they’re healthy changes. Since we’re part of a movement in which what we do is repeated every Friday, it risks becoming repetitive, and for us as coordinators organising events, it was just doing the same every week. But now we have more time to do more things, more time to think about the things we’re going to say online, so I think it’s a healthy change, which will have an impact of our future activism.
When social distancing and lockdown measures are lifted, will you go back to doing school strikes and street protests?
Yes, we will, but we will also continue with web activism for sure. Even before the pandemic, Fridays For Future already had a digital strike which will continue for those who don’t have the privilege or time to go to protests in person. But we’ll do both, since having the presence of the masses is important for having a big impact on our national and local governments and the corporations.
What lessons do you think we could learn from the response to the coronavirus crisis which we can apply to fighting for climate justice?
I think the biggest thing is how fast governments and societies mobilised around the pandemic. And it’s happened around something that may have seemed so remote or far away or not as important as we initially thought it was going to be, which has completely turned the world upside down. But the most important thing we’ve seen is that the response has been based on science. This can be linked to the fight for climate justice because it’s about listening to the scientists - how much time we have, the effects climate change will have on our world and societies. Many governments still don’t want to listen to that science, but the response to this pandemic has proven that fast, impactful change can be done. The only thing is for people to recognise the ultimate effect of climate change, that it can be even worse than coronavirus because it will not only affect vulnerable people, but homes will be destroyed and countries will disappear. It’s been very interesting to see how governments can make big, significant changes fast and effectively, completely changing how society works, and in a short time, all because they listened to the science.
Is there a final thought you’d like to finish with?
I’d like to add something which I think is very important. I’ve seen many people take this coronavirus outbreak as something good, which I think is just wrong, because they make statements such as ‘humans are the real virus’ or ‘overpopulation is the root of climate change’ or ‘don’t have any kids because that’s bad for the environment’. I believe these ideas are what we, in our climate activism groups, call eco-fascism. These claims are saying that the loss of human lives - the most vulnerable ones - is the price to pay because humans created the climate crisis, instead of actually laying the responsibility onto those who are responsible: the 1%, the true polluters, the biggest corporations. So I think we have to be aware that the problem is not us as humans; we’re not the real virus. The true virus is our unequal and unjust system that just keeps pushing the climate to the extremes.
Beyond this interview, are there any resources you could recommend to our readers?
Naomi Klein has two very good books for what’s happening right now. One is The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, which is about how the system profits from crises. And the other is called This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs The Climate, which says we can actually make the most of the crisis and our attempts to avoid catastrophe by making our societies work better and be more sustainable.
I’d also recommend people search for their local activist groups, which will also probably be doing webinars about climate education. Actually, Extinction Rebellion NYC has been sharing its NVDA (Non-Violent Direct Action) trainings online, for people who want to get involved more directly, both online and once social distancing is over.