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Thunberg at Klimademo in New York: “Our house is on fire”

Status: 09/25/2019 9:12 a.m.



Greta Thunberg’s speech at the climate strike in New York sent tens of thousands into euphoria. It wasn’t just the young generation who wanted to translate their words into deeds.

From Antje Passenheim,
ARD-Studio New York


“Our house is on fire,” warns Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg. Visibly overwhelmed by the support of the tens of thousands of demonstrators that the 16-year-old mobilized. There she is again. A few hundred meters from the place where Greta arrived in a sailing boat three weeks ago. At Battery Park, on the southern tip of Manhattan. Across from Lady Liberty.



Antje Passenheim
ARD-Studio New York




“And the house that is on fire isn’t just that of young people,” says Greta. “We all live here. And it concerns us all.”

Thousands demonstrate in New York for climate protection

Christiane Meier, ARD New York, daily news 10.15 a.m., 21.9.2019

Financial district in the hands of the protesters

Many students and older people think so too. According to the organizers, 250,000 of them came, and 60,000 according to the mayor’s office. You have New York’s financial district in hand for an afternoon. And they have lost patience, for example Khalia:

I am a 12 year old girl who wants a change in the world.

And this girl from One World Middle School from the Bronx doesn’t want to be silent anymore:

I have the right to speak up. I think we should stop using fossil fuels and using single-use plastic. Or the world will be destroyed sooner or later. So come and protest with us.

1700 schools released students

1,700 public schools in the city had opened for their students to attend. And to move across Manhattan with the other environmental activists.

“We have around 200 people from our school here,” says New Yorker Pepe Lang. It is important to finally take the matter of environmental protection in hand – “because the government does nothing. The more people we have here, the greater the influence.”

“It just feels good”

Her teachers are behind it too, affirms Charlotte Kabelac. The 16-year-old from Wiesbaden has been going to school in New York for a year.

My school also has a lot of programs – how can you live sustainably, how can you eat and shop sustainably? And value is also placed on it.

Charlotte and her classmates were often present at Fridays for Future demonstrations. But none was as big as this one: “It’s actually very impressive and it’s just good to see that so many people are interested,” he says.

“Respect your mother,” demand the climate protesters in New York.

Image: AFP


Young and old demonstrate together

“Time is running out”, their signs warn, “Respect your mother earth”, “There is no planet B”. A reason to get up early for Jone Davis of the Gray Panthers. She proudly steps up to the microphone: “Do you want to know how old I am? I’m 88.”

Jone has decided to go through the midday heat to the end. Because it is a burden to them how representatives of their generation have treated the environment – “and I apologize for the fact that we could not stop it. That it has come to this.”

Tens of thousands demonstrate with Greta in New York

Antje Passenheim, ARD New York, September 21, 2019 10:12 am

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