Afraid for Future, BMCC Students Demand Climate Justice
A year after her first strike outside the Swedish Parliament, the 16-year-old activist Greta Thunberg marched Manhattan’s streets with 250,000 protesters to demand climate justice. Amarfy Abreu, a BMCC student was one of them. “I feel that there is not going to be an earth in a few years, so to me it is very important to be here,” she said.
Like Abreu, dozens of students from Borough of Manhattan Community College engaged with the event and marched for a cleaner future. Students demanded for proper actions to be taken, and despite their feeling of inaction from the US government regarding global warming, the protest remained peaceful.
The demonstration started at noon in Foley Square, and was scheduled to march through the Financial District all the way to Battery Park City, where a rally took place at 4:00pm. There students chanted, “The sea levels are rising and so are we,” while holding handmade signs they had fashioned especially for the event.
Some of them read, “What I stand for is what I stand on” and “The planet is getting hotter than my imaginary boyfriend”.
Two days prior to the strike, CUNY chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez called students to take action in a statement noting that the climate crisis was, “one of the most urgent global concerns of our time”.
Matos Rodriguez invited students across the CUNY system to participate in the march if their class schedule permitted, or otherwise to engage with the movement through online platforms.
“Interested students with classes on Friday could consider other opportunities that Friday’s call to action may present to learn more about climate change, pursue additional platforms of advocacy for this urgent issue, or discuss the possibility of an excused absence with their faculty,” he wrote.
The support statement marked the official point when students decided to take action without fear of reprisals from their professors. After the publication of the announcement, some teachers even encouraged students to join the protest.
“When I told one of my professors about it, he dismissed class for all of my classmates to participate in this important event,” said Sakshee Sharmaa, a communication student.
A few hours after the strike, many students posted pictures on their social media in order to spread awareness about the issue and allow those who couldn’t participate to engage as well.
“We need to end extraction and consumption of fossil fuels. We need for frontline communities and workers to be prioritized in transitioning to renewable energy,” wrote Diana Azimova, a Business student.
The action initiated by a handful of students inspired the BMCC community and opened the dialogue on an ongoing crisis.
Denise Dellaporta, the Student Life Peer Mentoring & Success Specialist said, “This generation represents hope for me because it is not as tainted by the need to waste everything in pursuit of wealth as people in my generation”.
