USC students, faculty and staff will join thousands of climate activists across the country who are going on strike. The student-organized event aims to “disrupt business as usual” through a massive coordinated walkout to end the age of fossil fuels.
Co-Executive Director of the Environmental Student Assembly Claire Mauss is encouraging students to come out.
“Show your commitment, not only to USC sustainability but to the greater community, to the greater world,” she said. “This is a chance to see what USC’s values are.”
The Climate Strike is the kick-off event to UN’s Climate Week. On Sept. 21, 2019 the UN will host the Youth Climate Summit, a “platform for young leaders to showcase their solutions at the United Nations.”
The origins of tomorrow’s worldwide climate strike began in August of 2018 when 16-year-old Greta Thunberg of Sweden began skipping school to sit outside the Swedish Parliament. She remained on strike until the Swedish elections that September, sparking a worldwide conversation. Hundreds of thousands of students across the world have followed her lead, including those at USC who will sit out tomorrow.
The climate strike coincides with one of USC’s biggest events of the semester—the inauguration of Carol Folt as USC’s new president. Folt showed full support for the climate strike.
“She [Folt] actually helped us get permitting to do this on campus,” said Nathaniel Hyman, co-director of the USC Environmental Student Assembly. “She helped us expedite the process. Without her support, we wouldn’t be able to have this event on campus.”
Not everyone agrees that the climate strike is the best way to approach environmental issues. Chairman of USC’s College Republicans Sahil Nandwani believes the strike is an ineffective way to spark change.
“You can’t make a difference on these issues of conservation that we need to be talking about just by skipping class on a Friday,” said Nandwani. “We’re off actually trying to work on these things, not walking out on a strike to do absolutely nothing for no reason whatsoever.”
For some like Nandwani, striking feels like a useless attempt to deal with climate change—an issue that he believes requires a more nuanced approach. “We approach climate change like it’s one issue but it’s really not,” he said.
For Hyman, however, the strike is all about signaling that many students are committed to this issue.
“We want to make sure that they [the administration] know via a large demonstration that they have support,” he said. Hyman added that USC had not done more to combat climate change because “historically they have not seen that students care.”
“Why would they when their customers [the students] are uninterested?” he asked.
Yet many involved with the strike see it as one of many solutions. For Mauss, striking alone is not enough. “You have to vote, you have to be an advocate, you have to reflect those values in your daily life choices,” she says. “Striking is the first step but there is so much more.”
The climate strike will take place from 3 to 4:30 p.m. at Tommy Trojan.
Correction: A previous version of this story misstated the Environmental Student Assembly as the Environmental Student Association