Keywords: Greta Thunberg, climate change, activism, protest, digitalization, climate strikes, Fridays For Future.
School strike week 88.
Today we had planned a global climate strike with millions taking part. But in an emergency you have to adapt and change your behaviour.
The climate crisis is still ongoing and we must fight every crisis.#climatestrikeonline #StayAtHome #fridaysforfuture pic.twitter.com/3l1IvRJWQs— Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) April 24, 2020
This blog post will draw on the fact that climate strikes, activism and movements have been removed from the streets and placed in social media. I will discuss how these strikes and movements have developed due to a global pandemic and digitalization, and what the possible outcome can be.
“Fridays for future” is a movement that probably every one of us has stumbled upon in the last couple of years. It is a movement that began in August 2018, after 15-year old Greta Thunberg and other climate activists decided to sit in front of the Swedish parliament to protest against the lack of action regarding the climate crisis. Greta hand-painted a sign saying “Skolstrejk för klimatet” (School strike for the climate) and she posted her actions online, on Twitter and Instagram. This became viral and eventually, young climate activists and people all over the world followed Greta´s actions and started to protest on the streets with signs with messages saying we have to save our planet (About Fridays For Future).[1]
[1] https://fridaysforfuture.org/
We are all trying to adapt to a “new normal” as I have mentioned in my previous posts, due to the current pandemic. Lockdown or very strict social distancing has been established in most countries. Environmental activists have, therefore, being forced to move their protests online. The hashtag #climatestrikeonline is being spread in social media. Will this change the environmental movement, Fridays For Future, for good? What will Fridays for Future actually look like in the future, when social measurements are eased?
Environmental activists are constantly talking about how we should act locally but we have to think globally- regarding our planet. However, now, environmental activists are thinking globally and acting digitally. Therefore, I constantly come back to the question of how this will change the environmental movement: Fridays For Future. (Finnegan, William, 2020, Environmental activism goes digital in lockdown-but could it change the movement for good? In “The Conversation”).
If it is any generation that can handle a transition of a movement such as Fridays for Future, it is the generation of Greta Thunberg and other young climate activists. We can call them “digital natives” as they lead us through social media but with the same, consistent focus on how we should save our decaying planet. (Finnegan, William, 2020, Environmental activism goes digital in lockdown-but could it change the movement for good? In “The Conversation”). Therefore, we cannot do relevant comparisons between movements such as “Fridays For Future” with former climate change-organisations such as “Earth Day”, founded in 1970. Climate activism and the current environmental movements will be live-streamed indefinitely. However, if this will change the outcome and the future of the current movements remains to be seen and answered. (About Earth Day).[1].
Again, I come back to previous arguments from earlier posts, which is that we have to be prepared to adapt to a new normal. We have to understand that some parts of us and our society have changed, and we have to find new paths to walk on. However, these new paths should still lead towards the same goals as before. We still have to keep following our young climate activists, but we do need to start thinking globally and act more digitally, as they do, to keep the movement moving (Poell & Van Dijck, 2018: 2-3). This time could be used to learn and understand the issues our planet is facing. We are currently not travelling the world as before and we spend an infinite amount of time on our phones, where we also do most of our news-reading. Therefore, as climate change-movements are moved online, this is perhaps a good opportunity for climate activists such as Greta Thunberg to get people to view at our planet with new eyes.
Will our current life situation change the Fridays for Future movement for good, and could this help the movement grow even more? Discuss in the comments!
References
Poell, T. & van Dijck, J. (2018). Social Media and New Protest Movements. In J. Burgess, A. Marwick & T. Poell (Eds.), SAGE Handbook of Social Media (pp. 546-561). London: Sage.
