All round the world, on Friday 20 September 2019, Climate Strikes were held, in support of the Youth Climate Strike. Settle held its very own strike on the cobbles outside a former bank, next to the plaque saying "Edward Elgar often stayed here".
Email me if you would like some higher resolution pictures.. and visit this post tomorrow (21Sept in case I have added more.)
I arrived early (11am) to set up the table and posters and "prayer flag" making equipment. I invited passers by to make a flag, answering the question "How to you feel about climate change and loss of forests and biodiversity?" (See poster top right)
Being a Friday morning in September, Settle was very quiet. But it was great to have individual conversations with people who stopped and to hear their views.
At 1pm, the official time for the strike, twenty people arrived with lots of banners.
We had lost two or three activists who might have come because they had gone to the big climate march at Leeds. But we gained a pair of "green" cyclists on holiday from Leeds, and we gained a couple who had read about our strike on 350.org and come all the way from near Clitheroe
I stood on a chair and explained about the flags, and asked people to make themselves known.
Sarah Wiltshire stood up and told people about ACE Settle (Action on Climate Emergency Settle)
Andy Brown a Green Councillor for Craven District Council and Green Parliamentary Candidate stood up and told us about the need for a climate strike, and about all the activity that had been taking place in Skipton earlier that morning. Lots of school children there including the Montessori school had been there, and some children singing and others making speeches.
After the Settle "big crowd" left at 2pm I stayed on with the help of two people, encouraging more people to write flags. It was really good hearing individual peoples ideas as they filled in the flags. One friend arrived who had been at the Leeds Strike earlier that day. She said there were thousands of people.
Eventually at 3.30pm the schools came out, and I had some contributions from the youth of Settle. Some knew nothing of the strike, but others did. One girl told me how a teacher had not been allowed to strike but had worn a green band on her arm all day. She learned about the strike in her Spanish Class.
Our minister Tim Broughton intends to use the flag idea in the Service at St Johns Methodist Church on Sunday 22nd, enabling people to write down their prayers on them. We will be having a christening - so will be thinking about the next 90 years (+) for the life if this child.
