9:00 Saturday morning. It is raining, the temperature is maximum 4°C and we are leaving our campus to go to a demonstration against climate change, while I am at the same time thinking that a little higher temperature right now would not be too bad.
We were going to take part in the Climate march in Freiburg that was part of the Global Climate March movement organised by the online platform Avaaz.The idea of this marches was to mobilise people all over the world against climate change and at the same time to send a message to the politicians negotiating in Paris about an agreement against climate change. A message that shows that the citizens of this world care about the earth they are living on. Because of that also a couple of student from our college decided to participate in the March organised in Freiburg.
So there we were now, standing in the cold and listening to several people talking about climate change and the upcoming COP21 in Paris. One of the speakers was Selina from our college, who reminded us in a drastic way how important the fight against climate change is, because with a global warming of 2°C her home the Marshall islands will just disappear. After listening to music and getting into the mood for the demonstration, we started walking towards the city.
Singing, shouting and accompanied by two donkeys we marched through the city centre of Freiburg, where we fused with other marches. From there on we continued to walk as one big group. All the confused and surprised looks we got from the other people on the street only showed me again how important marches and protest like this are. It is one of the only ways to wake up both the public and the politicians.
And we were not alone with this! People from all over the world took part in marches like ours in the past two days. The send out a signal that can no longer be ignored. A signal that we care about the thing that are happening on this world and that now in Paris it is time to change something! It is time to take a step into the direction of a new world!
I feel incredible proud to be part of this movement!
Marina
UWCop 