# taz.de -- Climate Strike during Corona: „We go onto the streets anyways“
> Covid-19 is the biggest challenge ever? Wait for the climate crisis.
> Three climate activists report what they are doing to keep protest going
> on.
IMG Bild: „We need to do more than take a picture of ourselves and post it.“ Global strike, Berlin 24-4-2020
Anna Conradie: „In South Africa our biggest worry is drought.“
„Without Corona, I probably would have had fundraising events for
„artivists“. “Artivists“ is an organization I founded to use art as a means
of protesting to draw people outside of the climate movement into the
climate movement.
Since we could not do that, I set up some meetings for a youth think tank I
also founded. We work with a bunch of high polluters here in South Africa
on how they can make their companies more environmentally friendly. How it
works is, that I contact big corporates, tell them that we want to work
with them and not destruct them or anything until we finally meet. It took
me nearly a year to get a meeting with one big company we now work with. So
that is how I started to get involved in the climate movement last year in
May. I started joining strikes and organized a national school climate
strike.
We were planning to do another one this year, but because of Corona that
plan shifted. It is very difficult to make people understand that this is a
very big issue, it is something that we need to act on rapidly.
I think where you come from defines how you see issues and how you
understand them. Here in South Africa, we have the richest square mile next
to the poorest. So, I think the youth in Africa sees climate issues a lot
different than European activists, we call them „the West“. African
activists feel very strongly about social justice, because poverty and
injustice is on every corner of our hometowns.
In terms of the climate crisis though, our biggest worry is drought! Last
year, two regions were declared by the UN as “national disaster zones“.
They did not have water for four month! We should have enough water but
because of lack of infrastructure, it causes us to lose about 40 per cent
of water that should go to homes. So our biggest concern is the fact that
drought will affect all of our subsistence farmers. If we do not act
rapidly, it will impact all of our rural areas, people will lose all their
livelihood.“
[1][watch full interview]
Anastasija Sergienko: „In Russia the biggest problem we are facing are
fires.“
„I started to be a climate activist with Fridays for Future in Russia last
September. One night I saw a speech by Greta and the next thing I sat on
the floor drawing a sign for the strike on the next day. Since then I have
striked on 16 fridays. Fridays for Future in Russia is not very big. When I
started we were about 700 people from 34 cities. I live in Moscow and here
we need agreements from the government to do mass strikes. They deny it to
us most of the times. So we go onto the street anyways, but only one person
can strike at a time and the others wait with their signs in their bags. We
call this form of protest “single picket queue“ in Russia. We put pictures
of our strikes into the social networks and explain different topics
related to the climate crisis there and I think this gives us more
visibility. So right now we are in self-isolation and strike online only.
In my opinion, the biggest problem we are facing at the moment are fires.
There is an awful tradition of burning grass. People think that helps the
new grass to grow. And they also think that burning the grass helps to
prevent forest fires. But thats not true. They are causing the fires. And
we have a huge problem with smoldering peat fires. They produce a lot of
smoke but you dont see flames so they are difficult to discover. So what I
and other people do is monitor the spots of the fires on my computer and
mark them on the map. I send this information to the volunteer firemen and
they take our spots in the navigation system and know directly where to go.
But I still fear that we will have an australian extent of fires in the
summer. And the second issue we as a movement struggle with, is that
government and people dont want to quit oil and fossil energies and build
up renewable energy. Russia is a oil and gas country. And the arguments
against renewables are stupid. They say windmills are dangerous for birds.
Yes. But oil, gas and coal are dangerous for health, nature and our future.
We should put solar panels on the top of our houses instead of bringing in
the oil and coal from far away. It would be better to have renewable
energies surrounding our big cities. One day I want to see windmills from
my window. I might put it there myself.
[2][watch full interview]
Xiye Bastida: „We need to make sure that we know what has worked, what has
not worked and what we have to get to work.“
„I live in Manhattan, New York, almost at the heart of the city and in the
middle of the epicenter of the pandemic. I spend my days inside, doing
homework and activism and at the same time hearing the ambulances going and
going. I dont go outside, I dont want to risk other people or myself.
I am one of the lead organizers of Fridays for Future in New York City and
we havent been on the streets for seven weeks now. If we want other people
to listen to the science, we need to do so as well. We do the same thing as
Fridays for Future international: keeping the community going with digital
strikes.
But to ensure that climate activism works I think we need to to more than
take a picture of ourselves and post it. Thats why I started
re.earth-initiative. It began as a campaign but now has become a youth
organisation. We teach people about different aspects of the climate crisis
and how they can get involved on an individual and systemic way. Each week
we are focussing on a certain topic. This week its the global water crisis.
Then there will be a plastic week, a food week, a fashion week. All the
resources will be available on our website.
When we climate activists hear politicians say “we should go back to
normal“ we shake our heads. The normal means burning fossil fuels, it means
keep exploiting the planet, keep polluting. And that can not be the normal.
I dont know how that became the normal. I come from an indigenous
background, my dad is Otomi, which is an indigenous group in Mexico. I
lived in Mexico until I was 13 years old. My relationship with the earth
has always been: I take care of the earth. It gives us everything we need
and all that it asks is that we protect it. When I saw that the normal for
the world was destroying, contaminating and polluting, I decided to try and
change.
My parents met at the first Earth Summit in Rio 1992. 10 years before I was
born. My dad has been a public speaker and I learned it from him. I learned
to speak from my heart. To speak from what I care about and to give all my
thoughts this kind of energy. The first time I spoke publicly was when my
dad was invited to Mauritia to a UN conference and couldnt go, so he sent
me. I was 15 and I saw that people were impressed when a young voice
brought up climate.
As kids we think that we are the first ones to think that the planet has to
be protected. Obviously this has been going on for a long time. We need to
make sure that we know what has worked, what has not worked and what we
have to get to work. This is why I'm going to go to university for the next
four years to study environmental studies, concentrating on policy and
international relations.“
[3][watch full interview]
13 May 2020
## LINKS
DIR [1] https://www.instagram.com/tv/B_iFfuUnuoS/
DIR [2] https://www.instagram.com/tv/B_ow2kcH2Or/
DIR [3] https://www.instagram.com/tv/B_0GA0jHEna/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
## AUTOREN
DIR Leonie Sontheimer
DIR Celine Weimar-Dittmar
## TAGS
DIR Schwerpunkt Klimawandel
DIR Schwerpunkt Fridays For Future
DIR Globalisierung
DIR taz in English
DIR taz international
DIR klimataz
DIR Schwerpunkt Klimawandel
DIR Schwerpunkt Utopie nach Corona
DIR Schwerpunkt Fridays For Future
## ARTIKEL ZUM THEMA
DIR Climate Strike and Corona: „Not back to old normal“
The pandemic did not replace climate crisis. It is adding to it. What does
that mean for the movement? Three activists tell their stories.
DIR Konjunkturprogramm in Grün: Jetzt oder nie
Corona bietet die Chance für einen grünen Neustart der Wirtschaft – doch
die „braune Industrie der Vergangenheit“ lauert schon.
DIR Zukunft der Klimabewegung: Ende Gelände – und wie weiter?
Ende Gelände, Fridays for Future, Extinction Rebellion – die Klimabewegung
erlebt einen Höhenflug. Das stellt sie aber auch vor grundsätzliche Fragen.