Halifax rally organizer says protesters will yell at politicians until ‘sufficient climate action’ is taken

As hurricane Lee prepares to strike Atlantic Canada another blow, School Strike 4 Climate Halifax and their allies are getting ready to rally for climate crisis action.

That co-occurrence is not lost on Sadie Quinn, a fourth-year history of science student at the University of King’s College in Halifax who is organizing the climate crisis rally for Friday afternoon in downtown Halifax.

“In fact, last year hurricane Fiona was the day that the September climate strike was meant to be, so last year, climate change cancelled our strike and the irony of that was not lost,” Quinn said.

Quinn has been involved in climate change activities since moving to Halifax in the fall of 2020 from her Vancouver home.

“People were trying to figure out how we could keep the message alive on social media and doing things that didn’t involve gathering in big groups,” Quinn said of climate change activism during the COVID pandemic. 

“It’s been really wonderful to see some of the return of being able to have those big gatherings because I think they are very powerful.”

COVID influence

Quinn said the pandemic showed people that when governments around the world and across Canada believe that something is a real emergency, they can and will do everything in their power to make sure people are safe and healthy and that society is functioning properly.

“I would hope that some of that lesson can get translated to climate change because we are seeing leaders take this more and more seriously,” Quinn said. “Maybe you could say they are still not taking it seriously enough but I think it’s becoming more recognized as a real emergency. I think COVID, as much damage as it did, may have helped with that.”

The Halifax march is part of a global climate strike with participants demanding an end to fossil fuel financing, a divestiture from new and current fossil fuel projects.

At 21, Quinn said she sees a lot of pessimism among younger people about the planet’s future and the quality of life that can be sustained.

“My brother is a person, for example, who is very pessimistic and thinks that this is down to the people in power, it’s down to governments and big corporations and for them change happens so slowly that it is impossible,” Quinn said.

Power of community

“I also see people despite the sometimes bleak outlook of things still finding moments of joy and humour and community and I think that’s why these gatherings are so important. It can be a space for us to acknowledge that all of these terrible things are happening but also to remember that it is all happening to us together. The power of the community is what’s going to help us.”

The Halifax rally will begin with short opening remarks at Grand Parade in front of City Hall at 12:30 p.m., and the rally route will take climate protesters past Province House and the Nova Scotia Power building on Lower Water Street before returning to Grand Parade.

Amelia Penney-Crocker, a 17-year-old climate activist from Halifax who is part of the local school strike group, said in an opinion piece submitted to The Chronicle Herald that the past year in Nova Scotia has reinforced the argument environmentalist have been making for years. 

“We’ve had fires of mass destruction, deadly flooding, strange weather all over the place, and clear signs that this will happen again in 2024,” Penney-Crocker wrote. “Nova Scotia isn’t the only place experiencing this, either. A deadly hurricane swept Newfoundland, fires have decimated Hawaii, northern Canada is being evacuated, and many more tragedies have occurred all over the world. I’ve had to turn off the news because everything that I’ve been imagining and fearing since I was 14, is happening right in front of me. 

“These things did not happen by accident. This is human-caused climate change. This is the result of inadequate action on the part of corporations and governments for the last several decades.”

10,000 rallied

Friday’s march will be part of the fifth global climate strike since the youth climate justice movement gained momentum in 2019, a year when 10,000 climate activists marched through the streets of Halifax.

“We may never reach the numbers we had in 2019 but that doesn’t mean people don’t still care,” Quinn said. “I’m also apprehensive about the weather on Friday. It’s currently looking like we can go ahead, that hurricane Lee is not going to hit us in earnest until Saturday, but we are expecting some rain. I could imagine a smaller turnout because of that but I think a small but committed group could still make a big impact.”

The intended impact Quinn is aiming for is “to remind leaders at the municipal level and at the provincial level that the youth are watching and we will continue to depend on them and yell at them until we feel that sufficient climate action has been taken.”