BROOKLYN COLLEGE–Flames were ablaze on Sunday, Sept. 17, as thousands carrying posters of the Earth on fire took to the streets in Midtown, Manhattan to protest America’s fossil fuel usage. Brooklyn College’s Sustainability Club and the campus’s New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG) chapter joined forces with the marchers, leading the call for BC to take action in the climate crisis.
The march, organized by the youth-led grassroots movement Fridays For Future, was scheduled ahead of the United Nations General Assembly that is convening in New York this September. The theme for this year’s UN meeting, “Rebuilding trust and reigniting global solidarity: Accelerating action on the 2030 Agenda […],” is slated to discuss ways the international community can come together to address global crises of the environment, migration, and economic instability.
For activists, issues regarding climate change cannot be addressed without taking an intersectional lens and acknowledging the injustices the crisis has exacerbated for different communities around the world, especially the geographic disparities countries in the Global South face. While the 54 countries in Africa make up 4% of all carbon emissions, according to the Brookings Institution, these countries are left facing drought, food insecurity due to a lack of crops, and extreme weather conditions. This is in comparison to the U.S., which accounts for 20% of the world’s emissions but does not face a proportional amount of consequences, according to activists.
