Fridays for Future

 Fridays For Future 

Hi! In the last week I researched to Fridays for future and now I want to update you on my research.

 When you think of successful movement from the recent past one that immediately comes to mind is Fridays For Future. It is a globaly acting movement that seeks to achieve more climate protection worldwide. But how did Fridays for Future start? What did they achieve so far and how did they managed to get so successful as they are today? That it what I want to talk about in this blog post

Everyone will probably remember the pictures of Greta Thunberg sitting outside the Swedish parliament holding her sign saying “School Strike for Climate”.  This pictures started one of the biggest climate activism movements in recent history. It made Young people around the world come together and join they’re forces  for a common cause. They broke their silence together and came out to the streets in protest of government actions or more the lack of them concerning the climate crisis.All of this had  a global effect which no one could have anticipated. The pictures of a single girl released an international protest and inspired young people all over the globe to take on a public opinion against climate change. Within a few months after the first picture more than 20,000 students across the world had started the weekly school strikes (‘Fridays for Future’)

Only A year later it already grew to nearly 6 million people. All of them joined together for the Global Week of Climate Action to request urgent action of the politicians on the more and more escalating ecological emergencys that were already know to happen in the future ahead of the 2019 United Nations Climate Action Summit. Their requests even if they were more demands were to  create a safe pathway under 1.5C They wanted to unite the world politics behind climate science and a law to guarantee climate justice and equity for everyone. Greta Thunberg sailed across the Atlantic to bring their very important message to world leaders assembled in New York. Her exact words were:” You are failing us. But the young people are starting to understand your betrayal. The world is waking up. And change is coming, whether you like it or not”

 The activism was not useless. Several studies show that people because of the young activists, feel more confident that they can also  do something about climate change. For example a 2020 study by the World Economic Forum showed that 8 out of 10 company managers are now more likely to invest in environmentally-friendly technologies. They also believe that climate strikes helped raise awareness of sustainability issues within their various company’s.

When COVID-19 started, Fridays for Future was at its peak. It was definitely bad timing for them to stop at that point. The once small movement had grown to an millions of young climate activists from all parts of the world thanks to their continues online activism and real world demonstrations. United by one simple cause: to push politicians into taking the climate crisis seriously. The pandemic as timewise unsuitable presented both challenges but also  opportunities for the climate activists.

Despite preventing mass demonstrations Covid did not stop them from expressing their anger and demanding immediate action. Young climate activists around the globe still had too many important topics and were not ready to be silent yet again. So the strike continued Online. Making use of social media they created hashtags such #DigitalStrike and #ClimateStrikeOnline.

Fridays for Future was able to expand their network and reached more people than ever, making the climate fight more inclusive at a global level.

Fridays for Future activists  started online petitions, YouTube live broadcasts to share ideas on how to fight global warming and webinars to educate people on environmental topics. They also made use of social media such as Instagram and TikTok and started the ‘Newsletter for the Future’ to share information on urgent topics and keep the conversation going. Public virtual meetings were used to keep the organisation together and growing.

But nevertheless the visual impact of strikes was and is very important for FFF . Pictures of hundreds of thousands of young people marching in cities across the world every week has one strong advantage over online campaigns. They  are able to attracted the attention of the media. And quite frankly that is crucial to ensure real political change.

But in the end during the Pandemic FFF became more international and did not lose their importance. A 2021 study conducted in the UK showed that despite the pandemic, climate concerns have not vanished or lost in importance. For example during the 2008 global financial crisis these concerns lost heavily at importance. In this case they didn’t, showing that Fridays for future is succeeding to draw attention and hopefully also solutions to the environmental crisis.

It became a consistent concern within most country’s public and politic consciousnesses. Therefore despite huge barriers Fridays for future survived even the pandemic and is continuing to try to influence politics to save the world of the environmental collapse. All of that showing that online activism is successful if you know how to use it and especially in times like this it is a great way to support or start a cause.

Thank you for reading this!