Section:GDN 1N PaGe:6 Edition Date:190831 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 30/8/2019 18:43 cYanmaGentaYellowbl
- The Guardian Sat urday 31 Aug ust 2019
(^6) News
Thunberg
rally tells
UN: act
now on
climate
or we will
Miranda Bryant
New York
The Swedish climate activist Greta
Thunberg was joined by hundreds of
American teenagers in a protest out-
side the United Nations in New York
yesterday calling for adults to act over
the climate crisis.
Many of the young protesters said
they had been inspired by the 16-year-
old to take action. For some it was their
fi rst ever climate demonstration.
Carrying hand-drawn placards with
messages such as “united behind the
science” and “act now or we will”,
children and young people met in front
of the fl ags of the world outside the UN
building in Manhattan.
Holding her trademark “skolstrejk
för klimatet” (“school strike for the
climate”) sign, Thunberg sat in the
middle of the rally where young activ-
ists gave speeches calling for action on
climate change, amid chants including
“system change not climate change”
and “don’t just watch us, join us”.
Thunberg arrived in New York on
Wednesday on the yacht Malizia II,
more than two weeks after setting sail
outside the UN headquarters yester-
day. Catherine Tsarouhtsis, 16, a high
school student from Long Island, has
been striking since the fi rst organised
global strike in March.
She said: “I’ve been having climate
anxiety for a long time and then I heard
about Greta and how she was striking
in front of her parliament and I was
confused why Europe was starting to
‘catch the fi re’ but why it wasn’t cross-
ing the ocean.”
She added: “And then Alexandria
started in this city, that was very
shocking to me actually and it inspired
me, kind of fuelled my fi re and it just
went from there. [Thunberg] coming
to another continent on a boat, that
proved a pretty big point, coming to
America [where] we have not called
the climate emergency.”
After arriving on Wednesday,
Thunberg said that her generation
ha d been put in a position of having
to “clean up” the climate crisis that
older generations had caused.
For Dana Henao, 16, from Brent-
wood, Long Island, yesterday marked
her fi rst climate protest.
She said: “The government isn’t
taking enough action to protect the
environment and all they care about
is the money they make with corpora-
tions polluting the planet and I think
we should put a stop to it. The young
people are the only ones taking action
and we want to call attention to this.”
She added: “She [ Thunberg] is
really popular and she’s like the face
of the movement.”
from Plymouth. She is to attend the UN
general assembly next month, where
there is to be a special summit about
the planet’s climate emergency.
She told the Guardian in an inter-
view shortly after disembarking that
she wanted “a concrete plan, not just
nice words” from leaders about taking
urgent and comprehensive action to
head off the climate crisis.
She does not, however, plan to meet
Donald Trump. Speaking before start-
ing her Atlantic crossing – which she
embarked on with her father and two
crew – she said such a meeting would
▲ Greta Thunberg carries a placard to
the youth protest outside the United
Nations building in New York
PHOTOGRAPH: SPENCER PLATT/GETTY
‘Greta being here
will really galvanise
students just because
of how much of an
inspiration she is’
Alexandria Villase ñ or, 14
US climate crisis activist
be a waste of time as the US president
ha d not been persuaded by the experts
he ha d already spoken to.
“I’m not that special. I can’t con-
vince everyone,” she said.
Yesterday morning, American
schoolgirl Alexandria Villaseñor, 14,
who has protested every Friday out-
side the UN since December, was in
her usual spot and said she had been
inspired by Thunberg.
“Greta being here in the US will
really galvanise students just because
of how much of an inspiration she is.
Everyone who’s been striking on Fri-
day was really empowered by Greta .”
After one full day to recover from
her crossing , which she has described
as “camping on a rollercoaster”, Thun-
berg was already back to protesting.
Villaseñor, who is thought to be
America’s fi rst school striker to join the
movement and has been exchanging
tips with Thunberg online, was among
a group of American climate activists
who welcomed her to the US when her
yacht docked on Wednesday.
She said: “What’s really important
about Greta being here today is it’s the
start of something new because with
the UN climate summit coming up it is
the way for all the youth to unite here
and send a message to world leaders at
that climate summit. So even though
Greta’s voyage on Malizia ended a cou-
ple of days ago, the climate action we
will take on this continent has really
just begun.”
Other US youngsters have been
spurred into action and gathered
Helen Pidd
North of England editor
Extinction Rebellion protesters
blocked Manchester’s Deansgate
yesterday in protest at the “huge
contradictions” of a city region that
has declared a climate emergency at
the same time planning to massively
expand its airport.
A yellow boat bearing the words
“Planet Before Profi t” was parked at
the John Dalton Street junction and
straw bales were unloaded, while
guerrilla gardeners set up a nursery
of plants on what is one of Manches-
ter’s most polluted streets. A camp
kitchen was also erected.
As the demonstration got under
way, Richard Katsouris was ready for
the four-day environmental takeover
of the road outside his Katsouris deli.
“We’ve ordered in loads of vegan
sausages for a vegan paella. We’ve
made sure we’ve got a vegan soup
option and we’re experimenting with
falafel, too,” he said.
Staff were dancing behind the coun-
ter as they served up breakfast barms
at 8.30am as drummers were banging
away outside and dozens of Extinction
Rebellion protesters worked to block
all access routes on to a key section of
Deansgate, one of Manchester’s busi-
est shopping and eating streets.
Securing the southern picket was
19-year-old Jessica Agar, who is await-
ing trial after being arrested in April on
Waterloo Bridge in London.
She was one of more than 1,
people detained during Extinction
Rebellion’s mass action in the capital
and said she was charged with a pub-
lic order off ence “after sitting on the
bridge and singing protest songs when
the police had asked us to leave ”.
She admitted she was concerned
about getting arrested again, but
deemed the risk to be worth it. “Of
course it worries me. I was 18 when I
was arrested, I’m 19 now and it’s not
what I want to be doing. I worry about
how it’s going to aff ect my future job
opportunities,” she said.
“But it worries me more that we are
facing nothing less than the extinction
of humankind if governments do not
act fast, so I am willing to make sacri-
fi ces in order to make change.”
Many of the Deansgate businesses
affected by the closure seemed
cheerful about the occupation. Chris
Seville, of Forsyth’s music shop, said
they would get their deliveries round
the back “and maybe we will sell a few
more drums this week”.
Like Lee Scholes, the manager of
the Sofa Workshop next door, he said
he supported the protesters. Seville
was worried about impact on the Ama-
zon rainforest, while Scholes said he
would get behind “anything that is
about reducing carbon emissions”.
But not everyone was happy. Joe
Connor, a self-employed tiler working
Extinction Rebellion blocks
roads at pollution hotspot
in Manchester city centre
Protesters from Extinction Rebellion
block roads in Manchester city centre
during yesterday morning’s rush hour
PHOTOGRAPH: JOEL GOODMAN/LNP
on a refi t of a shop just off Deansgate,
found his deliveries stuck on the wrong
side of the cordon. “We’ve got 50 boxes
of tiles over there and a whole pallet of
adhesives. We’re self-employed and if
we can’t work we don’t get paid. These
protesters can’t put working people’s
lives on the line like this,” he said.
He said he did not necessar-
ily believe the warnings from the
United Nations and others that there
were only 12 years left to limit global
warming to 1.5C to avoid a climate
emergency. “I don’t think it’s a proven
fact, to be honest,” Connor said. “Yes
we have had a rainy summer but I used
to live in Los Angeles, where we would
have big downpours in the summer,
too, and that was years ago.”
He was not comforted by the pink
leafl ets being handed out by protest-
ers apologising for the disruption.
“We’re sorry,” they said, explaining
that the inconvenience was necessary
because “for the human race to sur-
vive, we need big changes fast.”
Greater Manchester police said
its aim was to “facilitate the protest,
whilst trying to minimise disruption”.
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