Students are invited to march for climate change awareness at a Youth Climate March that will be held at noon in Hartford on Friday.The event will start at Hartford’s Legislative Office Building, according to Tyler Blovat, an eighth-semester mathematics major assisting with planning the event. Participants will be marching and there will be speakers. (Photo via Wikimedia Commons)
Students are invited to march for climate change awareness at a Youth Climate March that will be held at noon in Hartford on Friday.The event will start at Hartford’s Legislative Office Building, according to Tyler Blovat, an eighth-semester mathematics major assisting with planning the event. Participants will be marching and there will be speakers.
The march is affiliated with the Sunrise Movement, which is an organization aiming to bring climate change awareness of into the political sphere, Blovat said.
The Sunrise Movement website defines the organization as “a movement to stop climate change and create millions of good jobs in the process.”
The speakers are Sena Wazer from Sunrise Movement CT, UConn junior Wawa Gatheru, high school activist Kira Cassandra and Taylor Robertson, a representative from Latino climate action organizing program Chispa Connecticut, according to event co-organizer and UConn sophomore Ariana Rojas.
“We want politicians to know that the generation coming of age now cares about these issues,” Blovat said. “I personally support it because I think a changing climate has the potential to upend and critically alter the way we’re currently living, and nobody is truly preparing for it in meaningful ways. Also, this is a problem that is having an effect today, so it isn’t as though we can simply ignore the problem and let the next generation deal with it.”
Blovat said he got involved with the Sunrise Movement through a class project.
“There were a number of options to choose from in terms of involvement with organizations, and Sunrise immediately caught my attention,” Blovat said. “I’m interested in hopefully helping to draw attention to the climate issues we’re facing in the world today, as I know those issues will only become greater with the passing of time.”
Blovat said he hopes people attend the march because he believes it’s important to show that there is a collective interest in addressing climate change. He that said to him, the act of speaking up matters as much as the end result, which he hopes will be a shift in the way politicians handle the changing climate.
“Climate change is not unsolvable, but if nobody does anything, then we will simply continue down this path as we are currently,” Blovat said. “Personally, even if nothing comes of it I see it as my responsibility to stand up and say something, to show my displeasure at the way things are currently being handled. Otherwise, what right do I have to complain?”
Gabriella DeBenedictis is a senior staff writer for The Daily Campus. She can be reached via email at gabriella.debenedictis@uconn.edu.
