'Ecological breakdown': Greta Thunberg and youth activists rally as wildfires burn
Paradise is not what
it used to be, as Greta Thunberg witnessed earlier this week. Today the town
with a lovely name is best known for the apocalyptic fire that ripped through
it last year, decimating
nearly every home and killing 86 people.
This week California
is once more in flames as fires rage in the north and south – a point that was
not lost on the 16-year-old
Swedish climate activist who spoke at a rally in Los Angeles on
Friday. “We can see the
wildfires happening right around the corner,” Thunberg said outside City Hall,
just miles from an ongoing blaze. “Right now we are living in the beginning of
a climate and ecological breakdown, and we cannot look away from this crisis
anymore.”
More than a thousand
people joined Thunberg for an afternoon of youth-led environmental action, a
scene that has become familiar as she – and young people like her – are
increasingly frustrated with the inaction of their elders. “The older generations
are failing us,” she told the crowd, where organizers of the Youth Climate
Strike were demanding that California’s governor Gavin Newsom impose an
immediate moratorium on new oil and gas drilling. “They are failing future
generations. But future generations do not have a voice. And the biosphere does
not have a voice. So we will be the voice that speaks for them.”...
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/01/great-thunberg-los-angeles-rally-paradise-wildfires