Why I participated in the Fridays for Future strike in Edmonton

The world is dying because of humans. We can prevent it, yet we’re not taking the steps necessary to fix our mess. This frustration is what drove me and 650 other students from around Edmonton to miss our afternoon of school on March 15 and attend a protest at the Legislature building.

We were not alone in our Edmonton protest. We were part of the Fridays for Future movement, which demands action from world leaders and which has seen millions of  students from across the world participate in strikes.

As young people, we have been told our whole lives about the implications of global warming. We hear about the polar bears starving, the vibrant coral reefs bleaching into a white wasteland and the increased frequency of high impact weather events such as hurricanes and typhoons which devastate coastal villages in foreign countries.

We see these changes taking place all around us, and we hear the warning cries from thousands of climate scientists. However, governments are only taking baby steps in the right direction. We must call upon governments to begin taking this issue seriously and shift our economy towards renewables. 

Students also realize that there cannot be a just future on this land without upholding the rights of Indigenous people. This includes free, prior and informed consent in regards to fossil fuel projects. Canada, as a whole, needs to respect the rights, sovereignty and authority of the Indigenous people who have lived on this land much longer than the rest of us. 

As one of the original organizers of the Edmonton event, I had the opportunity to be part of the entire process of bringing our strike into fruition. I originally heard about the movement through my friend Cordelius, who goes to Victoria School with me. We attended planning meetings with some adults from the organization Climate Justice Edmonton to get some tips on getting the word out. We created an Instagram account and after two days, it already had almost three hundred followers. With word beginning to get out about the strike, we now had students from other schools beginning to take leadership roles. Over the next few weeks we released information to media, selected our MCs and picked our order of speakers, while continuing to spread the word. 

At Victoria School, since many students were unable, or not allowed, to miss a full afternoon of school to join the strike, a half-hour school walkout was organized on the same day  with support from the school. 

I was anxious on the morning of March 15. I was worried about whether or not we would get the numbers that we were hoping for at both the walkout and the strike. However, the walkout at Victoria School went very smoothly. We had incredible speeches and between 150 to 250 students attended. 

At the strike, numbers were even better: we had roughly 100 students attend from Victoria School alone, and large numbers from other schools. The entire base of the Legislature steps was filled with signs and banners. To start off the strike, we had a prayer and song from Lyndon Aginas, the head medicine man from Alexis Nakoda Sioux Nation. Later we had inspirational speeches from passionate students and from experienced adults such as University of Alberta climate professor Laurie Adkin.

The day was a huge success in Edmonton and across Canada - roughly 150,000 students from across the country participated. If one thing should stand out from this day, it’s that in Alberta, students are passionate about starting to take the steps towards a greener future.

This post was submitted by Luke Nelson, a student and an Edmonton community member. If you live in Edmonton and have a climate change story to tell, let us know! Your story could be shared here too.