Fridays for Future is a worldwide movement started by Greta Thunberg in Sweden to strike for the climate crisis. Naples has a new chapter now.
Wangyuxuan Xu/Naples Daily News
Protesters prepare to parade through downtown Naples to bring attention to climate change on a Friday in September at Cambier Park.
We are striking for the climate because there is no time left to waste. We are in a climate and ecological emergency. We are in the midst of a sixth mass extinction. And we need politicians to act now. We have only 11 years left to prevent irreversible damage to our climate. We have to begin a transition to a 100% renewable energy.
Special to SW FL Parent & Child
Sandra Villamizar of Naples
Striking for the climate is very important for me because I know that I won’t die because of my old age but because of climate change. I know that in 50 years the planet will be in horrible conditions for us to live in. I don’t even want to have children because I don’t want to bring another living being on this earth without making sure she/he will have a safe future. I don’t want a future where I am telling kids stories about how cool going to the beach was, how amazing the water in the rivers used to be, how huge jungles could be, how beautiful and innocent animals used to be, and not be able to let them live that experience themselves because outside the air is too polluted, we can’t get close to the water anymore, and animals are extinct and we are in a surviving situation.
We, young people, are scared, because we don’t know. All we know is that adults have failed us, they knew about this 30 years ago and decided to do nothing,because they didn’t care enough, but we won’t fail our generation nor the ones to come. We will be fighting while we still can.
Demanding action is important, for all the youth, every newborn that is to come, for the indigenous people and all species on earth, for everyone, because it is about everyone’s future. The people have the power to change. If we all come together to the streets, the impact would be much higher, and we would be able to make our voices be heard louder, and our politicians would not be able to stay silent, but they would have to take immediate action instead.
We need to care about this crisis because manufacturing companies and industries just keep on pumping excess amounts of carbon dioxide into our atmosphere knowingly killing us, and no one else is doing something to stop them.
I am one of many young people fighting for our future, for a future with no pollution, a future where animals coexist with us, a future without injustice, a future where we care about indigenous communities and low-class communities, a future where we can all live happy; but the system we live on is letting monopolized industries destroy it and take away from us our time on this planet just for money.
The United Nations, with the IPCC report (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), told us to act. NASA did so, too. Almost all scientists in the world agree that humans are causing this climate breakdown, therefore we are the ones who need to stop it.
I strike because I care!
Strike because animals are being burnt alive in the fires in the Amazon rainforest, Australia and many others, for meat, dairy and fossil fuel industries.
Strike because our governments move with such painful slowness, treating climate change as a belief, when it is a fact.And the big banks continue to lend hundreds of billions to the fossil fuel industry — people are literally trying to get rich off the destruction of the planet.
Strike because forests now seem like fires waiting to happen. What we do this decade will matter for hundreds of thousands of years.
Strike because indigenous people around the world are trying to protect their rightful land from the animal agriculture,the coal and oil companies.
Strike so you can look at the youngest generation in the eye and say, I care for you!
Join our Global Climate Strike on December 6 in Naples. And stay tuned for the next ones on our social media pages,on Facebook (@fffnaplesfl) and Instagram (@fridaysforfuture.naplesfl).
Voices is a monthly guest column in SW FL Parent & Child magazine. Sandra Villamizar is the founder of Fridays for Future Naples, Florida (on Facebook: @fffnaplesfl, on Instagram: @fridaysforfuture.naplesfl and @sandraheartbeat). A 2019 graduate of Barron Collier High School, she studies business at Miami Dade College.