Edna Grant
Staff Writer
Over 100 local protesters in Pocatello picked up their signs and took action for climate change awareness outside of City Hall twice this past September, and hope to continue providing opportunities for the community to make their voice heard.
The strike, led on September 20th by members of the Pocatello Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, saw more than 100 people outside of the hall hoping to spread their message of love for the planet.
“Locally, people really care about the Earth,” said Reverend Jenny Peek, minister of the Pocatello Unitarian Universalists Fellowship. “The youth are calling for a Global Climate strike, let’s do that,” she said to her church board.
After obtaining approval, she created a Facebook event to get the word out about the local strike, and notified City Hall.
On the day of the Strike, Peek prepared by bringing chalk for children and extra materials for signs. What she did not expect was how many people actually showed up to join the strike.
“Folks care about this,” Peek said, “but a lot of us don’t always know how to jump in. I think they’re hungry for an opportunity to.”
Felix Kai Lovelace, a first year student at Idaho State University, was among the crowd of participating community members. Lovelace only became involved with the strike because of his math professor, Linda Angle, who had cancelled class that day in order to allow her students to attend the event.
“I’d vaguely heard about the Global Action Strikes,” said Lovelace. “I figured I’d check it out.”
After the event, Lovelace was inspired to continue providing the community with opportunities to share their thoughts on the state of the environment. He decided to team up with Peek and a couple students from the Youth Activist Society at Century High School to plan more events focusing on climate change.
The second strike, which took place the following week on Sept. 27, saw a smaller crowd of about 18 people.
“It’s like a movie sequel,” said Lovelace. “Everyone is excited when the first movie comes out, but then less people show up for the sequel.”
He is not, however, concerned about the smaller numbers, claiming that it will be harder to get lower numbers at this point. Lovelace is hoping he can reach out to the ISU campus to bring in more numbers at future climate change rallies, which he and Peek are projecting to happen at least once a month for the foreseeable future.
Climate change has been one of the most pressing issues in the world recently, coming back into the forefront of the nation’s mind by teenage activist Greta Thunburg. While many young people are being inspired by the likes of Thunberg, Peek claims to be even further inspired by the young Irsa Hirsi, the 16 year-old daughter of Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar.
“Irsa is a quiet, behind-the-scenes activist, and she is quietly co-organizing this youth movement for the climate,” said Peek.
Irsa made it clear that climate change isn’t just the problem of upper middle-class white Americans, according to Peek. She believes it’s not just a national issue, but is convinced of its importance because of what intense climate change could mean for people of color and those living in lower socio-economic regions. “It’s going to be them who are impacted first and hardest,” she said.
“We need to find a way to break out of this upper-middle class way of thinking and bridge the disconnect between people who will be hit the hardest,” said Peek.
