Greta Thunberg visited Bristol on February 28th.
We asked 17 year old Mia, one of SEEd’s Youth Ambassadors, to write about her experience of joining the thousands of young people who gathered to hear Greta Thunberg speak in Bristol last month.
‘It was evident from the moment my friends and I got to our local train station to travel into Bristol that the crowds would be tremendous. However, nothing could have prepared me for the tens of thousands of people who joined the strike to demand climate justice. There is no denying how humbling it is to be part of such a large movement, using our democratic right to freedom of speech. but this was beyond anything I could have imagined
I felt so proud to be one of the estimated 30,000 activists, standing patiently in the freezing drizzle waiting to see the teenager who has inspired and mobilized us all. When Greta Thunberg, 17 year old pioneer and inspiration took to the stage, backdropped by the Bristol Town Hall, huge cheers erupted. She stood on a scaffolding platform in her now iconic yellow raincoat and began her powerful speech, calling out world leaders for behaving like children with their beautiful words that ignore the climate emergency. A feeling of hope and empowerment was shared by everyone when she talked about how this many people cannot be ignored and we will not give up.
Coming away from this show of determination, I was instilled with a new fighting force. When people gather together in numbers that defy expectation, they cannot be ignored, only respected. Surely by now it has to be known by everyone, from the lowest to the highest in power that we are willing to risk everything from our jobs to our education to ensure the survival of the planet we know and love. We will not stop until there has been appropriate global action against climate breakdown.’
