FIVE THINGS ABOUT GRETA’S FRIDAY VISIT TO VANCOUVER
Activist Greta Thunberg will be in attendance Friday for a student-led climate rally at the Vancouver Art Gallery. This rally is organized by Sustainabiliteens, the Vancouver group that has been staging Fridays for Future rallies inspired by the Swede, who in 2018 started skipping school on Fridays to protest inaction on climate change. This will be the Sustainabiliteens’ ninth local rally, Harrison Mooney writes.
1. When is the rally, and when will Thunberg speak?
Organizers of the first postelection youth climate strike have provided a preliminary schedule of events, but didn’t disclose when, or if, Thunberg is among the list of planned speakers.
The rally kicks off at 11 a.m. on the main steps of the art gallery at 750 Hornby St. After a few speeches, at 11:30 a.m., the group will march through Downtown Vancouver, returning to the VAG at 1 p.m. for more speeches from Sustainabiliteens’ organizers and local Indigenous activists.
The activists plan to call on the new Trudeau minority government to work together for a “Green New Deal that legislates science-aligned emission reduction targets, prioritizes Indigenous rights and creates good jobs for all.”
2. Who is Thunberg?
You don’t know?
Where have you been?
If it feels like there’s been a climate protest every week in this city: A) there has, at least for the last four, and B) this is at least partly Thunberg ’s doing.
She’s certainly not the only one making noise about the seriousness of the global climate crisis but, over the past year, she has galvanized the movement like no one else.
Thunberg ’s rise to fame has been swift. The 16-year-old, born in Stockholm, began her school climate strikes in late 2018, a few months after winning a climate-change essay competition held by a Swedish newspaper. By December, more than 20,000 students had joined her movement; school strikes in recent months have been attended by millions. In May 2019, Thunberg was featured on the cover of Time magazine, which also named her one of the 100 most-influential people of the year. She has also been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
3. She sounds pretty busy. Does she still go to school?
Not really, no. Thunberg is taking a gap year, of sorts, as she brings her climate fight to North America. She’s a little busy for school right now.
4. Where else in Canada has she been?
Last week, Thunberg spoke outside Alberta’s legislature before a crowd of thousands, while a group of oil and gas supporters held a smaller counter-rally nearby.
“We cannot allow this crisis to continue to be a partisan, political question,” she said. “The climate and ecological crisis is far beyond party politics and the main enemy right now should not be any political opponents, because our main enemy is physics. We teenagers are not scientists, nor are we politicians, but it seems many of us, apart from most others, understand the science because we have done our homework.”
The month before, Thunberg was in Montreal, where she was awarded keys to the city, and led a climate rally attended by a half million people, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
5. What else does she have planned for her time in B.C.? Right now it’s just the rally. But B.C. Green party Leader Andrew Weaver has extended an invitation to Thunberg to speak in the provincial legislature.
Weaver said he cleared the invite with Speaker Darryl Plecas. Thunberg has yet to accept the invitation, but if she does, she’ll be the first non-elected B.C. politician to address the legislature since Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee in November 2017.
Considering Thunberg took a sailboat to North America, there was some speculation that she wouldn’t visit Victoria due to the absence of fossil-fuel-free sailing options. But Thunberg said that’s not the case.
“I don’t know anything about an invitation to Victoria,” Thunberg tweeted Tuesday, “and
I have definitely not declined it because of ‘emissions’ from the public transport ferry. Just so you know:) I try to visit as many places as I can, but there’s unfortunately not enough time to visit everywhere.”