MEDIA RELEASE: Sudbury Youth Join School Strike For Climate Friday, November 2, 2018

Sudbury Youth To Join School Strike For Climate Friday, November 2, 2018

For Immediate Release – October 28, 2018

Greta Thunberg, climate strike, October 2018. Photo Credits – Greta’s Twitter feed

SUDBURY ON:  Following the hottest summer on record in Sweden since records began 262 years ago , Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg started cutting classes at school. Dismayed by lack of real action on the climate crisis, Greta said, “If grown-ups don’t give a <__> about my future, I won’t either.”

In August, when 11-year-old Sudbury youth Sophia Mathur watched a video about 15-year-old Greta Thunberg striking from school, she asked her mom if she could strike from school too. At the time, her mom said, “Let’s think about it”.

Sophia is no stranger to climate activism.

With her family, Sophia took part in the world’s largest climate march in New York City on September 21, 2014 and has been lobbying politicians on Parliament Hill in Ottawa and  on Capitol Hill in Washington DC for climate action since she was nine-years-old with the organization Citizens’ Climate Lobby where her mom works as the International Outreach manager.

In the summer of 2017, at the screening of an Inconvenient Sequel Sophia met former Vice President Al Gore and gave him one of her drawings thanking him for protecting her future. At this same event, Sophia also made a pinky-promise to get adults to protect the climate with Canada’s Minister of Environment and Climate Change, the Honourable Catherine McKenna. Sophia quickly got to work. In the summer of 2017, she convinced a local restaurant, Eddies, in Sudbury to stop automatically giving out straws and soon after two more local restaurants in Sudbury took up her challenge: Gloria’s and Buzzy Brown’s.

Sudbury youth with their MP Paul Lefebvre on Parliament showing them a parachute for the planet they created

From October 13-16, 2018 Sophia and her two of her friends, Salma and Maggie, attended Citizens’ Climate Lobby Canada’sfifth annual national conference and lobbying days in Ottawa.  They brought Parachutes for the Planet to Parliament Hill to show to MPs that they want a soft landing on the climate crisis. They also watched the Emergency Debate on the United Nations 1.5 C report on the urgency climate crisis in the gallery in House of Commons. After watching the exchange between the politicians Sophia’s said, “The MPs need to cooperate more.”

Sophia knows that although Canada is doing a lot to combat the climate crisis, we are not doing enough nor our fair share.  She also knows we don’t have time to wait.

Thus, when she returned home from Parliament Hill last week, Sophia and her mom talked and concluded that they needed to do more to create the political will for climate action.  They researched more about Greta and found out that she is only striking on Fridays.

In the movement “Fridays for a Future”,  (a.k.a #FridaysforFuture) Greta asks for people to sit outside their parliament buildings or local government buildings on Fridays and strike for the climate.

Sophia agrees with Greta, “If adults don’t care about our future why should I? What is the point of going to school?”

Sophia across the street from the Municipal Buildings in Greater Sudbury

Thus, Sophia has decided to join 15-year-old Greta’s “Fridays for a Future” and strike from school one Friday a month to draw attention to the fact that adults are not doing enough to protect her future.

Starting Friday, November 2, 2018, and the first Friday of every month, Sophia will sit near City Hall in Sudbury, Ontario in Memorial Park from 9:00 am to 3:00 pm with placards and information about the urgency of the climate crisis. Anyone is welcome to join her. Bring a nice chair and a blanket because it is almost winter now in Sudbury.

Sophia’s key message will be, “Adults need to cooperate and listen to the experts. This is a crisis.”

MEDIA CONTACT Cathy Orlando cathy @ citizensclimate.org, 705-929-4043

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Citizens’ Climate Lobby is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, grassroots advocacy organization focused on national policies to address climate change. With nearly 500 active chapters across the world, our volunteers work to generate the political will necessary for passage of our Carbon Fee and Dividend proposal