The 9/20 climate strike is part of an entire week climate action happening around the city. Below is a select list of events and an inspiring report on the day. For the full list visit the calendar (scroll down to see full calendar) and read the report below.

Let’s keep the momentum going! Special thanks to all who worked hard to make 9/20 and Climate Week such a success!

A few recommended upcoming actions:

Monday 9/23: Stop the Williams Pipeline, 12PM Rally, Mineola, NY

Tuesday 9/24: Climate Strike Utilities, 9:00-10:30AM National Grid, 1 Metrotech

Wednesday 9/25: No More Business As Usual, 8:00-9:00AM, organized by Rise and Resist
Greet World Business Forum leaders as they arrive for their annual meeting.

Thursday 9/26 Financing a Low Carbon Future, 6:00-9:30PM, Riverside Church

Friday 9/27: Communities Strike for Climate over Colonialism, 2:30PM Sunset Park

Report: 250,000 New Yorkers Joined the Worldwide Climate Strike on Friday

An estimated 4 million people across the globe - from Sydney to Karachi, Paris to Lagos, New York to Buenos Aires - joined together to demand action on the climate crisis on September 20. Led by young people, it was an awe-inspiring demonstration of our power and commitment to organizing and taking action.

A quarter of a million people took to the streets of lower Manhattan in a strike led by New York students and Greta Thunberg. The march was organized by a coalition of youth groups including Fridays for Future NYC, Earth Uprising, Zero Hour, Sunrise Movement and a coalition of adult groups led by 350.org, Future Coalition and People’s Climate Movement-NY.

Coming up the subway stairs at City Hall, the energy was palpable. The sounds of kids out of school, not on the loose but massing to change things reverberated off the stone courthouses and glass office buildings.

In Foley Square, Sirce Guevara, a senior from LIC High, said it wasn’t easy, but they had to take on this crisis: “Most of our friends don’t know too much about the issues that affect them, like climate change, and our parents aren’t as conscious of the problems, either. So we’re on the cutting edge, because we are the future. It’s up to us to stand up and make this world change.”

Young people ruled the day: “I’ll do my homework when you take action!” “Frack you, gassholes!” “Think or Swim” and “The climate’s hotter than my imaginary girlfriend” were just a few of the mostly homemade signs.

And seniors and parents with little children were a good part of the crowd that headed south from Foley Square. A classic, beautiful NY mix of races, genders, classes and styles marched down the canyons of Wall Street in solidarity with the planet.

Dorothy Reilly, a climate activist and retiree from Southampton, NY framed it this way: “I’m here because the most important thing we can do is to listen to the young people, and act like adults to reverse global warming.”

Madeline Pickard, a fifth grader at KIPP, came from the Bronx with her mother. She marched because “climate change is a big problem. I want to stand up as much for the animals as I do for us and the planet. Animals can’t come to an event like this. But we young people can speak for them.” Madeline added, “It’s exciting to see all these people here, it says I’m not the only one who thinks climate change is a problem.”

At the turn from Centre Street to Chambers, where club music pulsated from somewhere around the Municipal Building, Daphne Schisgal, a seventh grader from St. Anne’s School, marched with a pack of classmates. “We all just care about the climate and nobody’s doing anything about it. We’re young and want to see that change,” she said. Cormack Gill, a ninth grader there interjected, “The biosphere is collapsing and we’ve got to act in the next 12 years or we’re through.”

A fearless girl no more than six led a call of “whaddawewant?” and “whendawewannit?” When the responses subsided, she beamed to her little sister, “I did it – we did it! We led the chant!” And another young person found her voice.

Jackie Weisberg, a member of 350Brooklyn, summed the day up well. “Greta Thunberg is my hero, she’s an oracle who has risen to show the kids how to take action. I’m hoping this energy has legs. Now it’s time for the hard work. These kids have to remember the feeling of today and keep it with them for years and years to come.”