TRURO, N.S. — TRURO, N.S. – Katrina Alten Kirk fears she won’t live past the age of 30.
It was this fear that drove Alten Kirk to join roughly 100 other student protestors on the streets of Truro Friday, warning politicians there is no time to lose if they are serious about avoiding a climate change catastrophe.
“More needs to happen and it needs to happen now,” said Alten Kirk. “I’ve seen all the fires in Alberta and the floods in New Brunswick. There’s nowhere to go.”
The Truro protest formed part of the international Fridays for Future movement inspired by teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg. Student-led demonstrations took place in towns and cities across Canada on May 3.
In Truro, students marched from Civic Square to the town office, calling on Mayor Bill Mills to declare a climate emergency and take measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Some demonstrators also held placards demanding an end to natural gas fracking.
Fridays for Future comes as leading scientists and the United Nations are warning humanity has just 11 years left to drastically cut fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.
Failure to do so will result in the complete melting of polar icecaps and the release of methane gas from Arctic tundra as the permafrost thaws out. The resulting sea level rise and runaway global warming will endanger all life on Earth.
For Grade 12 student Ian Addis, world governments are doing nowhere near enough to avert disaster, prompting him to walk out of Cobequid Educational Centre.
“More than anything, I feel terrified for my children and my children’s children,” said Addis. “For my generation, I feel scared.”
Local MLA backs protests
While Mayor Mills was not at the town office when protestors came calling, they did win support from Truro-Bible Hill MLA Lenore Zann.
She was unable to attend the protest as planned, but Zann said demonstrators were “putting their emotions towards action [and] they are actually the change bringers.”
Zann, who sits with the NDP, echoed the students by calling on politicians at all levels of government to listen and act.
“We are at a tipping point where you can go one way or another,” said Zann. “If we don’t act as if our lives depend on it with regard to protecting ourselves from a rapidly warming climate, we will pay for it with our lives and those of the next generation.”
