By Steve Otto
It was announced as “Visions for Our Future: Youth Climate Action Rally,” and it started at Naftzger Park. About a hundred or more area high school and college students marched around a few blocks, then came back for a rally.It was nice to see so many young people concerned about climate change. Just today the morning national news TV show covered extreme record heat along the entire western US coastal states, with temperatures well over 100 in many of those states. In many of these places the temperatures were record highs. Also of concern were wildfires and drought.
At the same time there is massive rains and flooding all along the eastern coastal states. Again there are record rains. And through all of this, we still have conservative politicians, such as former President Donald Trump, trying to claim that climate change does not even exist.
The young people who came out for Saturday’s march were not about to let the naysayers have their way. Many of these young people demonstrated that they are determined to hold modern day politician accountable for their actions or lack of.
One interesting note is that many of these young people are not afraid of such terms as socialism or Marxism. There were several tables at the park to go along with the rally and I saw some political buttons with Marxists slogans, such as “seize the means of production,” “working people of all countries unite!” and “The Proletarians Have Nothing To Lose But Their Chains.” The last button has a picture of Karl Marx. Many of these students were clearly progressive and left-wing.
Among the speakers was Marissa Rapp, one of the organizers
of the event, who complained that city officials did not pay much attention to
those who approached them over issues of the environment and climate change.
Anjali Singh stressed that we have a climate crisis.
“The city does not see this as important,” she said. “But the
teenagers do see it as important.”
“Kansas doesn’t have a plan,” said Jason lin. He said the
city needs to work on a plan for renewable energy.
He said that Wichita and Sedgewick need to step up and take
action.
He also said that every minute that goes by where we don’t act time is wasted. He sited some statistics that show Wichita has a terrible record for taking action on renewable energy.
Another speaker Alice Fitzgerald said that Wichita ignores
climate change. She gave the example of a program in Toronto where they reduced
plastic bags by about 250 million.[1]
Jarod Hudson spoke about the affects of poverty as such
people are affected by climate change and other economic issues.
“Working class has struggled,” he said. “My mom worked a lot
of jobs. None of them paid a livable wage.”
He said politicians constantly focus on bringing in jobs,
but not jobs that pay a livable wage. He discussed all the empty platitudes
that politicians make when running for office, but they then ignore chronic poverty
after they get in office.
“They want us to pull us up by our boot straps, our boot straps
have fallen off from us trying to pull us up by them,” he said.
I’m really happy so see so many progressive young people. I
especially like to see young Marxist people. And that is especially important here in Wichita,
a bastion of ultra-conservatism. Maybe finally after all these years we will
get some change—badly needed change.
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