September 20th, 2019, will always be remembered as the day millions of people came together to voice their displeasure with official responses to climate change. They were lead, primarily, by children, those whose future will be most affected by the choices made in the present, and supported by adults from all walks of life.

From Europe to the Americas, to Asia and the Pacific, students left their schools, and workers their jobs, making a statement purposefully evocative of industrial action. While estimates vary, over 300 cities around the world participated, and three to four million people were involved, one of the largest mobilizations of democratic expression in history. The “Climate Strike” grew out of the protests of Swedish teen Greta Thunberg just one year ago, and has acquired especial force as the initiative is taken by those who will live into the era of gravest climatic consequences.

A placard I saw at my local rally, in Adelaide, South Australia, read “You will die of old age, we will die of climate change.” A grim outlook for a young person, perhaps comparable to the nuclear terror of the 1950s, when children in school performed survival drills. Yet today it is not the sudden flash of a warhead young people can look forward to. It is the relentless grind of heat, extreme weather, rising sea level and their attendant extinctions from habitat destruction, ocean acidification, changed patterns of oceanic and atmospheric circulation, and doubtless other aspects of which we are not yet aware.

Adelaide is a small city in Australia, at the edges of the map of human habitation—the next land to the south is Antarctica—but the message could not be louder or clearer. Ten thousand people were expected, actual figures more than likely exceeded this, and every one of them knows clearly what was at stake, and what needs to be done to reverse the warming trend, at both personal and national levels. A placard read “This sign is waste card, we came on the bus and have a nine-bin recycling system.” Ordinary people are already doing a great deal and are asking their governments to match them.

Many speakers addressed the assembly both before and after the march. In Victoria Square, in the heart of the city, speakers included student activists, indigenous residents and the chairman of the trades union organization. The issue of profitability at any expense cuts to the heart of life for most of the community. Native Title, the sovereign control of traditional lands by their traditional owners—which in Australia implies 60,000 years+ of continuous habitation—runs contrary to the interests of mining, gas fracking and agricultural expansion.

Conflict is ongoing between those who cherish the land and its spiritual value in their pristine condition, and those who see value only in the conversion of natural assets to mass market produce—mineral extraction or farming. Consequently, the industries driving anthropogenic climate change are those which automatically crosscut indigenous interests. Recently, the Queensland government “extinguished” Native Title over the Galilee Basin to remove a primary legal objection to the proposed Adani-Carmichael coal mine, essentially dispossessing the Wangan and Jagalingu peoples of their own sovereignty. It is precisely this disconnect between people and industry the Climate Strike addresses.

The atmosphere on the day was positive, hopeful, yet angry, with great passion. People were actively considering the future, looking ahead as much as a century, for young children today may reasonably expect to live a hundred years, even more should longevity curves continue to extend in response to medical progress. It is therefore entirely appropriate to wonder what sort of world they will live into and through.

Deniers claim no serious effects whatever will occur, while worst case scenarios project the extinguishing of most life, human and animal, during the current century. History teaches us that reality almost invariably falls “between the extremes,” but that is cool comfort when the stable climate that older generations remember is fading quickly. In some parts of the world it seems each summer is longer and more extreme, temperatures are higher, the wildfire season longer, rainfall less—certainly in Australia. Young people have every right to be afraid, and doubly so when their elders, the politicians who make the decisions, seem oblivious of these issues, indeed to dismiss them, and all informed advice, out of hand.

When the protests were done, the crowds dispersed, taking their pithy and heart-felt slogans with them. They did not, as right-wing trolls suggested, leave oceans of garbage behind them, but what filled the space was an echoing silence, for there has been no official governmental reply. Australia’s Prime Minister chose to absent himself from the UN climate conference falling the next day, surely a clear adversarial message to everyone who expressed their concern and frustration in the streets.

But perhaps the single most telling placard was a small one carried by a student, which I observed at the end of the march, on the steps of Parliament House itself. It said “We are the voters of tomorrow, and we’re not voting for you.” Telling, because large numbers of the students striking that day will be eligible to vote at the next Australian federal election, due in 2022, a situation developing all over the world. The democratic tool of election cycles is the only one people have to bring about meaningful change, and the years of conservative control have taught the young what they need to do to stand any chance of ameliorating the disastrous future which now hangs over them like the sword of Damocles.

Some (‘online commentators,’ shall we call them) were quick to criticize the young strikers as not understanding the issues and being manipulated by adults to a left-wing political agenda. However, my experience of moving among these students was very much the opposite. They know their world is on fire, and they know propaganda when they hear it.

The ray of hope I took home from the event was that the future seems to be in safe hands, if these kids shape it as they intend to.

Mike Adamson holds a PhD in archaeology from Flinders University of South Australia. After early aspirations in art and writing, Mike returned to study and secured degrees in both marine biology and archaeology. Mike has been a university educator since 2006, is a passionate photographer, a master-level hobbyist and journalist for international magazines. As a writer of short fiction, he has appeared on over eighty occasions.

Please check out his website for more information: The View from the Keyboard.

The Day the Earth Stood as One by Mike Adamson