Texas Students Join Global Climate Strike

by Eric Galatas

COLLEGE STATION, Texas – Inspired by 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg of Sweden, Texas students are joining a global strike today calling for immediate action on climate change.

Jacob Slaughter, organizer with the group Aggies for Climate Justice, says students’ aims include creating a glide path for workers to transition out of the fossil-fuel industry. He says he hopes state and university leaders will listen to their constituencies, who want officials to act now.

“We’re specifically calling for the university to decarbonize the campus, and divest from fossil fuels, meaning cut their financial ties with the fossil-fuel industry,” says Slaughter.

The latest report by an international panel of climate scientists warns that just 11 years remain to reverse course on climate pollution before the path toward catastrophic impacts becomes irreversible. Critics of the strike say students are being manipulated by environmental groups, a claim flatly denied by Thunberg.

Events are scheduled in nineteen major Texas cities, including Fort Worth, Granbury, Lubbock, Midland, Tyler and Waco.

Kira Traylor with Zero Hour Dallas is organizing the strike in Dallas. She says students are not taking their cues from celebrities or environmental groups.

“A majority of the people who are a part of this movement have spent a lot of time researching and forming their own opinions,” says Traylor. “Most people I know haven’t just been followers; they actually try to look at the bigger picture and look at the facts.”

Traylor says her group is asking for all Democratic presidential candidates to start advocating for a Green New Deal, for city officials to expand the Dallas Climate Action Plan and install a new recycling plan, and for the Dallas Independent School District to develop more green initiatives.