In the beginning God created they Heaven
and the earth and it was void it was dark.
Climate change is one of the most
intensely studied phenomena in the world
today. Thousands of studies conducted by
researchers around the world of
documented changes in land, air and ocean. Temperatures along with glacial melting,
shrinking sea ice, rising sea levels,
ocean acidification, an increased
atmospheric water vapor. Out of the
crisis in the Amazon where fires are
raging in a record rate. 74,000 in Brazil this year up 84% with
the Amazon fires posing a devastating
threat to the region and the world.
On this entire speaking tour I've been
focusing on the various ways by which we
could lose habitat for humans as animals.
So we're vertebrates we're mammals were
animals and we generally don't think of
ourselves as animals, we think of
ourselves as separate from the animal
kingdom but we are at the highest
temperature ever experienced by Homo
sapiens on earth already. Imagine a world
where you can sail right up to the North
Pole
or the largest ice sheet in the northern
hemisphere is simply melting away. The
melt is winning this game.
We've now broken all-time records for
three consecutive years. As oceans
continue to rise, flooding the streets of
American cities half a world away. What
happens in the Arctic doesn't stay in
the Arctic. Imagine a world where
hurricanes and heat waves wreak havoc..
..where politicians deny the problem as
temperatures continue to rise. It's a
hoax, I mean it's some money-making industry
okay. Greenland is an epicenter for
climate change. What have I told you this
is already happening right here, right
now.. that we are the primary cause and
that only we'd have the power to stop it?
Jarring photos and videos of the flames
tearing through the Amazon have caught
the world's attention. Scientists using
NASA satellites to track the fire say,
"2019 is shaping up to be the Brazilian
Amazon's worst fire since 2010." The main
consensus, the fires were caused by human
activity. It's not a natural  accident, people set
fire who are just you know reduced cover
to give new forage for cattle grazing. This
morning one of the world's most
important natural treasures in flames.
Over 9,500 fires have broken out since
last week threatening the most
biologically diverse place on earth and
the long-term health of our planet an
area about half the size of the US these
forests produced 20% of the world's
oxygen. The fires in the Amazon
rainforest so huge, they're even visible
from space.
Strong winds pushing the smoke hundreds
of miles plunging the Brazilian city of
Sao Paulo
into darkness. Now celebrities like
Arianna Grande, Demi Lovato, Leonardo
DiCaprio and Kendall Jenner all posting
on social media to spread awareness. On
Wednesday hundreds took to Brazil's
streets to protest the government's lack
of response. Fires are common in the
summer but environmental campaigners say
this year is worse than ever because
Brazil's new president has allowed
deforestation to accelerate. Now it's
thought an area about the size of a
soccer pitch is lost every minute of
every day to deforestation in the Amazon;
that's largely to clear space for
cattle but these fires are a reminder
that the Amazon is losing trees at an
unsustainable rate.
well hurricane durian is continuing to
wreak havoc in the Baja and the Bahamas
where massive storms and flooding killed
at least five people and left many more
stranded on the Grand Bahama and ibaka
islands over the weekend the storm
pummeled the islands throughout Monday
after making landfall Sunday as a
category 5 storm with sustained winds of
up to 185 miles per hour the hurricane
which has now been downgraded to a
category three continue to be stalled in
the region Tuesday pandorean is the
second strongest storm ever measured and
the Atlantic it's tied for the most
powerful Atlantic hurricane ever to make
landfall it's expected to continue a
destructive path towards Florida then on
to Georgia and South Carolina made
landfall as a category 5 storm but
President Trump claimed over the weekend
he'd never heard of category 5
hurricane durian is a storm like no
other
what started as a category two on Friday
became one of the strongest storms of
all time by Sunday a category 5 with
winds over 200 miles per hour
it devastated the Bahamas and is on
track to swamp the East Coast these mega
storms are increasing in frequency
intensity and size all the signs point
to a major cause climate change
hurricanes are fueled by warm water a
hotter planet means hotter oceans and
the oceans have been storing 93 percent
of the heat caused by global warming
that means more category 4 & 5 storms a
lot of them since 1980 the number of
category 5 storms has tripled in the
past four years we've had five storms
matthew burma maria
michael and now dorian all reaching
category by that's never happened before
and warm waters are a big part of the
reason why when the waters are unusually
warm hurricanes are able to suck up more
heat energy and quickly grow stronger as
dorian approached the bahamas the waters
in its path were up to 3.6 degrees
Fahrenheit above that helped dorian
become one of the most rapidly
intensifying hurricanes ever recorded
but then this monster storm did
something unusual
it's stalled hurricanes are moving more
slowly than in the past and there's
evidence linking it to climate change
durian moved as slow as 1 mile per hour
over the Bahamas at nearly full strength
for over 36 hours 36 hours that's how
long the Bahamas were in the eyewall of
one of the strongest hurricanes ever
normally a hurricane that is stationary
eventually weakens once it runs out of
warm water but the warm waters ran so
deep the storm never ran out of fuel
durian brought a storm surge of 18 to 23
feet above normal
stranding residents in their homes some
residents were warned that they may need
to break through their own rooms to
survive the flooding durian also dumped
over 30 inches of rain on top of the
surge and that too was made worse by
climate change as air warms it holds
more moisture which eventually falls as
torrential rain if climate change
continues at today's pace within this
century we could see an 87% increase of
category 4 and 5 hurricanes
like durian
continental Europe is baking from an
early summer heat wave that is expected
to last through the weekend government
authorities are warning about health
risks and as william brangham reports
record temperatures are making for
sweltering conditions in many cities
where air-conditioning is not common it
has never been hotter here in the month
of June the historic city of meme much
of it built by the Romans burning under
a combination of Mediterranean Sun and
siharan winds 43 degrees Celsius at
midday enough for the French government
to upgrade their severe weather warning
to its highest level in the city of Lyon
all older cars have been banned to keep
pollution down many of the city streets
and cafes deserted the public pools that
lie alongside the river own so full that
hundreds more families are left queuing
outside waiting and sweating until it's
their turn second official student
volunteers in Nima phoning every old or
housebound person in the city to check
their okay sixteen years ago a heat wave
in France killed 15,000 mostly the
elderly in Germany the biggest threat is
from forest fires much of the
firefighting effort coming from the air
with tens of thousands of gallons of
water damping down parched woodlands in
Northeast Spain - fires a raging south
of Barcelona temperatures there are
forecast to hit 45 degrees Celsius
tomorrow even as far north as the Polish
coast another country recording its
highest-ever June temperatures of 38
degrees the normally chilly waters of
the Baltic are the only refuge from the
heat back in France yet another blast of
extreme heat is raising familiar
questions the citizens and the tourists
who would normally be thronging this
historic city center have all retreated
somewhere cooler as the severe weather
warning reaches its highest level Code
Red
any individual event like this is of
course down to the weather but with
these extreme events happening more and
more often people are increasingly
asking is what's happening here
big-picture weather or climate the
children seem to be enjoying splashing
and fountains in Spain today but
underneath the bustle of summertime fun
our family's desperate to cool down
people like to stay in the swing pool
River there are no other solutions some
even go to shopping malls to stay away
from the heat temperatures here surged
to a record 104 degrees Fahrenheit
people are struggling to escape the
unprecedented heat day and night the
most annoying thing is not being able to
rest you can't sleep well at night
because you'd always feel hot and wake
up in France classrooms are empty after
officials closed or restricted some
4,000 schools as a safety precaution
today was France's hottest day on record
temperatures there reached over 114
degrees a heat wave from sub-saharan
Africa has spread across large parts of
Europe all week the system spans from
the UK to Italy to the Czech Republic
in Berlin police deployed water cannons
to salvage dying grass and trees in
Catalonia firefighters struggled to
control a wild fire under scorching
temperatures tonight
Paris was baking as the u.s. women's
soccer team defeated France at the World
Cup while it's difficult to attribute
any particular weather event to climate
change there's growing evidence that
climate change is changing the way the
jet stream flows and that can make these
events worse Michael Mann is an
atmospheric scientist at Penn State
University this extreme heat is is due
to the fact that we're seeing these
really large Wiggles in the jet stream
the jet streams slowing down so these
high and low pressure systems get stuck
in place and where you get one of these
high-pressure systems stuck in place
like we saw last year in California you
get extreme heat extreme drought and
wildfire for days or even weeks on end
we're seeing the same thing happen this
summer and in particular right now in
Europe these unprecedented temperatures
this early in the summer are a direct
threat to human life Spanish authorities
say the heat has already contributed to
at least two deaths experts warn that
toll is likely to increase cos we live
in Barracuda if temperatures increase
today the rates of mortality will start
to increase tomorrow so if a heat wave
lasts for three or four days you will
see an accumulated impact of the
increase in mortality for three or four
days after it's gone many Europeans know
that risk all too well in 2003 as many
as 70,000 people died across the
continent due to what were then
record-breaking temperatures but those
deadly records were broken again this
week and experts warned this heat wave
could be
evidence of a move into uncharted waters
can you do sex on a heat wave of this
amplitude in June is exceptional we've
experienced this in the past already but
it wasn't this intense we should expect
more intense and frequent heat waves
with climate change because it will
accentuate the extremes climate is
something that's measured over three
decades or all more that's the kind of
unit of climate measurement but the kind
of heat wave that we're getting here is
the kind of thing that we're going to
start to see more often as we go later
on in this century and there's the co2
emissions continue to rise and
increasingly that is what European
governments are having to plan and
prepare for decades ahead in which the
record highs and lows of extreme weather
have become the new normal
I'd like to say that what we're seeing
is a new normal but it's worse than that
because a new normal implies that we
sort of have arrived in a new regime and
we just have to figure out how to deal
with that new regime that's not what's
happening here we will continue to see
these sorts of conditions more often
they will become more pronounced if we
continue to warm the planet if we
continue to melt the Arctic what is the
hottest June in recorded history what
would you say if you guessed this past
June in the year 2019 you would be right
hottest June we've ever had in recorded
history a heat wave across Europe is
right now setting record temperatures
France recorded its hottest day in
history on Friday 113 degrees 113
degrees Fahrenheit in one town in
particular there have been wildfires in
Spain and Germany with heat records in
Poland the Czech Republic in Switzerland
as well reservoirs and lakes in India
captured by satellite imagery are
literally shrinking including this
reservoir shown here in images from
February and June of this year alone
that's like five months and that is the
main supply of drinking water for
India's sixth largest city Chennai home
than four million people in Guadalajara
Mexico a freak storm dumped up to three
feet of hail
while Greenland ice sheets are melting
so fast and bringing with them so much
sand as melting glaciers do there is now
serious consideration being given to
mining the sand from the glaciers as a
business opportunity because the world
is low on sand which is used in concrete
increasingly the world is low on ice but
I guess that's another matter oh and
there's a giant heat dome covering
Alaska risking record-breaking
temperatures this week so that's the bad
news this is Greenland
though you will find very little
greenery here home to some of the most
stunning wildlife on the planet
the world's largest island is more than
80% made up of pure ice it looks as
though time has stood still for
thousands of years but this environment
reflects the big changes in our world's
atmosphere as the planet gets warmer the
Arctic is heating up at double the rate
and Greenland in particular is warming
even faster
Jason box is an American climate
scientist who has been coming to this
remote corner of the world for more than
20 years the amount of water that's
produced all across this landscape has
increased like doubled in the last 50
years doubles in the last 50 years
everywhere you go in Greenland you can
see and hear the ice sheet melting
sometimes adrift
sometimes a roar its surface is etched
with fast flowing rivers that carry the
meltwater deep down to the bed this
water cascades down thousands of feet
and eventually makes its way to the
badge and it it's heating the bed of the
ice sheet everything's kind of stacking
up that the ice is going faster than
forecast and no sign of slowing down the
the melt is winning this this game
and the more Greenland melts the more it
speeds up the melting process take the
large melt lakes that are forming on top
of the ice sheet stunning to look at but
bad news for the ice these lakes are
deceptively beautiful because whereas
the white of the ice actually reflects
the sunlight the piercing blue of the
lakes actively absorbs it heating them
up and then accelerating the rate of
melt perhaps the clearest example of
this vicious melt cycle can be seen in
Greenland's many glaciers a glacier is a
mass of thick ice that moves under the
force of its own weight like a slow
river into the sea but as melt water
moves through the ice it softens it
draining to the bed where it then
lubricates the movement of the glacier
we got a rare close-up view of one of
Greenland's fastest moving glaciers
named Helheim after the Viking realm of
the Dead it is vast and unforgiving
this is one of the most productive
glaciers in Greenland it's about three
Golden Gate bridges wide and it drains
and the order of like forty billion
metric tons per year it's like an almost
astronomical amount of water that this
is delivering from high on the inland
ice sheets down into the sea between
August of last year in August of this
year New York University scientists say
Helheim retreated a whopping two miles
the furthest retreat inland they have
seen in a decade you can see vast chunks
of it crashing into the water a process
called calving and what does that mean
for the sea there's hundreds of glaciers
like this in Greenland and many of them
have like doubled in speed so the rate
that Greenland is decanting into the
ocean has really gone up in in ways that
surprised the science community
but despite the overall trend of rising
temperatures it's by no means a
straightforward path embedded within the
warming trend is the complicated
tapestry of phenomena like El Nino and
La Nina that can dampen or supercharge
the strength of the warming signal even
if you take the warming back to the
basic principles of physics if you add
more heat into the global climate system
as a source of energy it'll definitely
impact upon the weather that we
experience potentially making it more
severe it's already been accepted that
climate change is altering the odds of
severe weather occurring as global
temperatures increase we're going to see
increased chance of severe weather
events which are particularly damaging
we're signa see increased chance of heat
waves which for example in some regions
like Australia are going to see more
bush fires we're expecting to see more
droughts in some areas such as the
Mediterranean which will impact people's
livelihoods as they struggle to grow
crops in such a dry environment here's a
brief summary of what we know so far
about our changing climate global
atmospheric concentrations of carbon
dioxide have reached 410 parts per
million for the first time in about 3
million years
for comparison just fifty years ago
co2 levels stood at 325 parts per
million carbon dioxide prevents solar
energy from radiating back to space
effectively warming the atmosphere the
five warmest years on record were the
last five the twenty warmest occurred in
the last 22 years since the year 1900
the average global temperature has risen
one degree Celsius or one point eight
Fahrenheit with two-thirds of this
increase in the last 44 years without
major reductions in co2 emissions
temperatures could reach five degrees
centigrade or nine degrees Fahrenheit
over pre-industrial levels by the year
2100 the perspective on how radical that
is a 2.8 degree centigrade drop was
enough to bury a portion of North
America under a towering mass of ice
20,000 years ago
wildfire season across the globe is 20%
longer than it was in 1980 as a direct
result of a warmer drier climate in the
western United States between 1986 and
2003 wildfires burn nearly four times as
often covered six times the land area
and lasted five times longer compared to
the years 1970 to 1986 at the same time
heavy rainfall is increasing in
intensity and frequency the peak rate of
rainfall during storms has increased by
30 percent over the past 60 years
remarkably the speed of hurricanes and
tropical storms has slowed by about 10%
in the last 70 years with land falling
Atlantic hurricanes slowing by 20% a
slower storm means that inland areas
will experience increased flooding the
rise of extreme weather events like
hurricanes has already taken a heavy
toll since 1980
they've cost the United States alone
over 1.1 trillion dollars average sea
levels have risen by 18 to 20
centimeters or 7 to 8 inches over the
last century in the United States the
incidence of daily tidal flooding is
accelerating in more than 25 Atlantic
and Gulf Coast cities
a sea-level rise of as much as 2.4
meters by the end of the century cannot
be ruled out if that happens a range of
coastal cities including New York Tokyo
London Mumbai Bangkok Amsterdam and the
entire nation of Bangladesh will be
underwater
recent studies projected by 2050 over a
hundred and forty three million people
could be forced to migrate directly due
to climate related events in Latin
America sub-saharan Africa and South
Asia the consequences of human-induced
climate change are altering the world as
we've known it's so quickly we may not
be able to prepare an A
though many still choose to avoid
thinking about climate change or treated
as an unproven possibility its effects
are blatant at escalating there is no
denying that it's here Josh go ahead
Josh mr. president there was a
significant talk at the summit about
climate change I know in the past you've
heard some skepticism of a science and
climate change what do you think the
world should be doing about convocation
do you still Harbor that skepticism I
feel that the United States has
tremendous wealth the wealth is under
its feet I've made that well come alive
we will soon being one of the we will
soon be explore in fact we're actually
doing it now exporting but we are now
the number one energy producer in the
world and soon it will be by far with a
couple of pipelines that have not been
able to get approved for many many years
it'll have a huge impact I was able to
get an waar in Alaska could be the
largest site in the world for oil and
gas I was able to get anywhere approved
Ronald Reagan wasn't able to do it
nobody was able to do it they've been
trying to do it since before Ronald
Reagan I got it approved with the number
one energy producer in the world
soon it will be by far the number one
it's tremendous wealth
and LNG is being sought after all over
Europe and all over the world and we
have more of it than anybody else and
I'm not gonna lose that wealth I'm not
gonna lose it on on dreams on windows
which frankly aren't working too well
I'm not gonna lose it so Josh in in a
nutshell I want the cleanest water on
earth I want the cleanest air on earth
and that's what we're doing and I'm an
environmentalist you a lot of people
don't understand that I have done more
environmental impact statements probably
than anybody that's I guess I can say
definitely because I've done many many
many of them more than anybody that's
ever been president or vice president or
anything even close to president and I
think I know more about the environment
than most people I want clean air I want
clean water
I want a wealthy country I want a
spectacular country with jobs with
pensions with so many things and that's
what we're getting
become as a surprise to many two of the
more respected believers and climate
change our evangelical Christians with
conservative leanings a popular pastor
and his wife
a scientist time named one of the
hundred most influential people in the
world and Katharine Hayhoe influences
growing here in Washington and with
audiences both secular and religious
across the world because this particular
Christians job adds weight to her
contention there's overwhelming evidence
of climate change there's twenty six and
a half thousand indicators of a warming
planet all around us many of them in our
own backyards heigh-ho heads up the
climate science center at Texas Tech we
see our plants and our flowers and our
bushes flowering earlier in the year we
see birds and animals and insects much
further north and they've ever been
before we see that sea level is rising
glaciers are melting our weather
patterns are changing CBN News talked to
hey-ho and her husband pastor Andrew
Farley in his home state of Virginia
growing up there he considered global
warming and environmental fad whether
it's saved the whales or hugged the
trees or eat granola you know where hemp
barley and his Brides fought over
climate science for about two years and
I would even go to climate denier
websites and find all the ammunition
that I could find and come back to her
and say but honey what about this and
what about that the evidence hey-ho and
others had of a definite radical spike
in temperatures and carbon dioxide
finally got to Farley her determination
to show me the facts and then quite
frankly going to NASA's website and
looking at global temperature over the
last 200 years and just saying look
what's happened here's this spike it's
undeniable either all of NASA is duped
or you know maybe there's some validity
to this thing my question is do
Christians have a special responsibility
to respond to human induced climate
change John Dickson let's start with you
yes
but most Christians accept the science
this is I think I hope one of the themes
of tonight's Q&A it's Christians get all
the science Lawrence is talking about
plus all the other wonderful stuff so
it's not just that wonderful staff or
some of them so yes we have a deep
responsibility I mean there are some
very deep ideas driving a Christian
response to climate change it's the
science we're schooled by the scientists
and then the Christian sits there
thinking this creation is actually a
creation and intended beautiful work of
art and humanity is here to care for it
and more than that that we are here to
care for our neighbors especially the
neighbors that are going to feel the
effects of climate change more than most
poorer communities so there is I would
just say a deeper or added dimension to
the Christian care of the earth whether
that's showing itself in church action
is another question but theoretically
Christianity should drive a very deep
commitment but not a special one I
really object to this notion of somehow
look I applaud that you get faith in
minier life from from your faith that
that's fine III get faith I get meaning
in my life from my lack of faith okay I
mean the fact that I I see that the
meaning in my life is the meaning I make
and the meeting for all of us we're so
lucky to be here on this planet at this
and have brains and being able to to
understand the universe back to the
earliest moments of the Big Bang and be
able to impact on our future and we
should use those brains and and whether
or not and we shouldn't rely on someone
else guiding us well nobody if I get
along with that but I get all of that
but the whole das Jesus
special we are all humans so you may get
your meaning from your life from
Christianity but to argue a science but
it's trying that you have something that
gives you a more meaning in your life
and more reason to take care of the
earth is crazy we all have the
responsibility to take care of the earth
whether Christians are not for frequent
public appearances reasonable arguments
down to earth style have led some to say
hey hose the best communicator about
climate change in the world she is at
the intersection of science and faith
she's bringing her expertise in the
science field and she's bringing her
faith in Jesus Christ and she's saying
hey Christians this thing this time is
actually real and we need to be doing
something about it
hey-ho works to rule out natural
suspects that could warm the earth like
the Sun has done in the past for the
last 40 or 50 years or so the sun's
energy has been going down well our
earth temperature has been going up
about the natural cycles that happen
over centuries the next thing that
should be happening on that time scale
is another Ice Age but we're getting
warmer and warmer as she points to her
number-one suspect you see the
evangelical in this scientist and child
of missionaries come alive when we burn
coal and oil and natural gas it releases
that carbon trapped in those fuels into
the atmosphere and in the atmosphere we
already have this amazing natural
blanket that God has designed for our
planet that keeps us almost 60 degrees
warmer than we would be otherwise when
putting all that extra carbon dioxide
into the atmosphere we're adding to that
blanket we're overheating that's what
we're doing to our planet pastor Farley
says Christians are scripturally bound
as God's stewards of the earth to take
action if two things are true is this
happening and are we contributing to it
and those answers are yes and yes hey-ho
suggests fighting globally for practices
and methods that reduce carbon emissions
and then reducing your own carbon
footprint you can start simply if every
home in the entire United States
replaced just one light bulb with a new
LED that would be like taking a million
cards
the road and we would each save $30 in
electricity over the lifetime of the
bulb even taking into account the fact
that the bulb costs more than a regular
one then just keep encouraging yourself
and others to reduce carbon output like
we've commuting mix it up sometimes work
from home carpool take public transport
or bike I've been commuting like this
happily for 42 years now and by
locally-grown are made insulate recycle
compost
even if Farley and heigh-ho are wrong
about global warming you'll at least
make for a cleaner healthier planet and
so for myself as a Christian I mean part
of the reason why I do what I do is
because climate change exacerbates
humanitarian issues it is just
absolutely not fair when you look at the
impact it's having on the poorest and
most disenfranchised people in the world
I have a slight handicap I faint at the
sight of blood so a medical career was
out of the question I figured climate
change the next best thing right so
people often say well you know how do
you talk to two you know people at
church well I don't start by like
pulling out the IPCC reports and
whacking people upside the head with
them if we are theological evangelicals
which are people who take the Bible
seriously evangelicals a very difficult
term to define so I actually asked the
head of the National Association of
Evangelicals a couple years ago what is
your definition and he said people who
take the Bible seriously I said good
definition so if you take the Bible
seriously you know that at the very
beginning of the Bible it talks about
how humans have been given
responsibility over every living thing
on this earth which includes our
brothers and sisters who are less
fortunate than us then all through the
Bible it talks about God's love and care
for creation for nature and then it
talks a lot about caring for others who
are less fortunate than us the poor the
widow's the orphans sharing what we have
with people in need and then right at
the end of the Bible there is a zinger
that very few people have read and it
specifically says God will destroy those
who destroy the earth that's the book of
Revelation so there's a lot that you can
talk about in today's world though the
word evangelical is used in a very
different
it's used for political evangelicals and
my definition of a political evangelical
is someone whose statement of faith is
written first by their political
ideology only a distant second by the
Bible and if the two come into conflict
as they frequently do they will go with
their political ideology over what it
says in the Bible so that's why it's so
important to distinguish between the two
the good news I guess is that all of
this that we're seeing is actually
penetrating the consciousness of
Americans despite the juvenile and
destructive lies the president in the
fossil fuel industry latest data from
yells climate polling project which is
the gold standard on these things does
it more than half of Americans think
global warming is harming their local
community fifty-seven percent think
fossil fuel companies bear either a
moderate amount or a great deal of
responsibility for it climate is right
now climbing up the priority list of
Democratic primary voters and tellingly
the President himself is somewhat
preposterous lis going to give a speech
on Monday about quote America's
environmental leadership that is
obviously a ridiculous undertaking fresh
from the G chunni in which the US once
again refused to sign on to the climate
portion of the joint communique but
what's fascinating about it is that he
even feels the need to make the effort
at a speech at all public opinion on
this question is on the right side and
is moving inexorably in an even better
direction and the more pressure
politicians feel to act with historic
urgency required the better so if you
care about this and don't let up
now to the global protests that is
underway right now students and workers
all around the world of flooding the
streets demanding action on climate
change Maggie rulli is at a
demonstration in London with the latest
Michael we're with thousands of
protesters right underneath Parliament
and what's so striking besides us the
sheer size of protesters here are the
age of people who are demonstrating
almost all of them are students as here
behind me just nine years old we spoke
to a group of 17 year olds who said
they're here today to fight for their
future now the goal of this strike and
really all these strikes around the
world is to send a clear message to
world leaders ahead of the UN climate
summit happening this week in New York
and one of their many demands it to say
they want to phase out all fossil fuels
by 2030 and replace them with renewable
energy I think this is the most
important issue that we need to be
talking about
this has been a fringe movement this
isn't a greeny issue this is an LSD
issue this is a human issue
when a change is real and it's coming
for us and it doesn't matter who you are
whether you are rich or poor this thing
is great
is political leadership on the streets
of London today but I am haven't seen in
the Palace of Westminster don't ever let
anyone tell you that you are not making
a difference you are making history
anything
we're telling adults to step up and back
us up with our strikes because we need
everyone to tell world leaders that they
need to take climate action now history
shows that when young people act and
come together our voices are loud and
our actions are powerful we know that
when you strike we win so today we
strike because today we win now another
name that we've been hearing time and
time again here in London this afternoon
is they're talking about reddit's
hundred that famous swedish activist
that just 16 years old has already
become the face of this movement she
famously stepped out of hot / - area in
Sweden for the first kind of solo
climate strike and now look at what her
movement has become we don't know exact
numbers yet guys but it's looking good
to be the largest climate protest in our
planets history
