The Climate Strike Calamity

Thousands of students from across the globe joined forces on Friday, September 20, in a valiant attempt to #savetheworld. This march was organized by Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg (16), as a global school strike. Thunberg had to travel to the United Nations from Sweden in order to deliver her speech. She opted to come to New York via a zero-emission yacht rather than by plane, which required a 15-day journey. At the strike, protesters donned posters with crafty slogans such as “There Is No Planet B” and “We’re missing our lessons so we can teach you one.”

In preparation, senior Grace Goldstein relayed the event to her posse at Stuyvesant High School. “Let’s storm City Hall, they can’t stop all of us,” her Facebook post read. More than half of the school marked itself as “going.”

Two hundred students walked out of the building at 11 a.m., the start of fifth period. Each one of them wholeheartedly believed in the cause. Junior Oliver Stewart spoke to The Spectator on the day of the strike. “I made such a sacrifice to be here today,” he said. “Trust me, I would much rather have sat through my seventh-period physics lecture. But instead, I showed up here today, for the greater good of mankind.”

The Spectator also met up with protesters at Wok Wok over a bowl of pho at noon. “Wait, my absence is excused, right?” senior Tim Chen asked, slurping his fried rice in chicken broth. “I’m so glad this thing is happening on a school day.”

At the end of the day, police and janitorial staff were stuck picking up hundreds of posters littered on the ground, which attests to who the real heroes of the day were. Additionally, members of the staff who manned Thunberg’s fancy boat flew themselves back to their homeland, effectively leaving her stranded. “I don’t know how I’m going to get back,” the activist admitted. If only we all had our own personal zero-carbon yachts, so we could take after her virtuous example.