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Haidee Chu
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Haidee Chu
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Haidee Chu
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Haidee Chu
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Haidee Chu
Memorial High School senior Stephanie Salgado remembers the day when she and her cousin ran along the waves by a beach in Honduras, giggling against the backdrop of the orange-toned sky.
Honduras was Salgado’s happy place, a place that carries memories from her childhood. Most of these memories are cherished; others, not so much. Returning to the beach one day was devastating for Salgado, her family and her friends. Syringes, water bottles, toothbrushes, straws and plastic bags polluted the same waves she had run along just a day earlier.
“I felt more powerless the more I tried to collect the plastic from the tide. While crying, my uncle picked me up and told me ‘it’s useless what you’re doing, this won’t be solved immediately,’” Salgado told a crowd gathered at the state Capitol for Madison’s iteration of the U.S. Youth Climate Strike on March 15. “For the last three years I’ve lived in Madison, the most environmental activism I’ve seen is [people] sharing a Facebook post of a turtle with a straw in its nose.”
Salgado, Memorial High’s co-lead of the strike, and her peers have encouraged Madison youths to do more than just share Facebook posts — in large part because United Nations scientists have found that governments and citizens alike have only 11 years to address climate change before triggering irreversible environmental effects, said Memorial High School senior Sophie Guthier, one of the organizers.
Salgado, Guthier are part of a student coalition that took their passion to fight for climate justice from social media to the streets by organizing a strike in solidarity with the Youth Climate Strike, which was held in cities around the world. Hundreds of high school students from the area gathered at East High School around noon Friday and marched toward the Capitol, where they rallied at State Street and listened to speakers.
Madison Youth Climate Strike
Citing the United States’ withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement under President Donald Trump, U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Madison) told the crowd that the urgency of the problem does not seem to faze politicians in Washington D.C. who are “too willing for too long to ignore the facts.”
“Now the president and too many in Congress might not care much what the planet will look like in 20, 30, 50 years, and maybe it’s because they won’t be here to see it,” Pocan said. “Or maybe more accurately, the special interests don’t want to change how they do business to make the planet better, and they want to use their political clout to stop planet-saving actions from politicians who are only too willing to oblige.”
While politicians debate the legitimacy of climate change, Guthier said students in Madison are already feeling and witnessing the effects of climate change.
“Our state stopped functioning for a week because it was too cold to even exist outside,” Guthier added. “Like most things, these impacts will affect marginalized groups the most. When those hurricanes came, rich people were able to escape. And when they came home, they were able to fix their houses. Poor people were left stranded on their rooftops and left without their homes.”
As a member of the Ho-Chunk and Anishinaabe tribes in Wisconsin, Madison East High School student Ma’iingan Wolf Garvin said she grew up with respect for the Earth. She was told that spirits live among nature and that all life around her is essential to her own. Although indigenous cultures around the world have always understood the importance of the Earth, Wolf Garvin said they are among the most impacted by those who are contributing to climate change.
“I was taught that the Earth raises us, and that we cannot control it, that we can only add or take away [from it]… Yet today, indigenous land is the biggest target for toxic waste, dumps, landfills and factories. The cultures who have understood the value of land since the beginning of time have been forced to live in the least valuable and most inaccessible parts of the country,” Wolf Garvin said. “We’re not asking for change on behalf of more resources for ourselves, more luxury or more ease. We are asking for change on behalf of life.”
This change begins with students demanding that their schools take steps that would reduce waste — less paper and more digital resources, biodegradable instead of plastic utensils, effective recycling and composting systems — said Middleton High School junior Ella Roach, state communications lead.
The student coalition that organized the Madison strike also advocates for reforms across industries, including a statewide transition to renewable energy, agricultural reform, protection of fresh water sources, mining restrictions and more.
“Hero,” is what Ali Muldrow, co-director of GSAFE and a Madison school board candidate, called the students. She told them that they’re on the side of love, justice and solidarity.
“When it comes to the world, we are all in this together. There will be people who tell you that it’s too late, that this is the way it has always been and it will never change. And when they tell you that, know you are not the first person to be told you cannot change the world and in fact you are in great company,” Muldrow said as the crowd cheered on. “Not believing the people who are working against you is the first step to changing the world. Know you are not the only one in this fight for a future that is joyful and possible.”
