‘Panic like your house is on fire’: Why we should support the Global Climate Strike on 20 September

I have been an activist since I was 15. I’m now 55. Then it was a fight against apartheid, now it’s anti-corruption and the climate crisis. I don’t think that I ever stopped being an activist; it’s part of my DNA.

I have always been concerned about the environment. But over the last decade I’ve taken it more seriously because of the existential risk we now face because of the climate crisis.

In 2014 I joined a small army of 500 activists from across Africa being trained by former US vice-president Al Gore and his NGO the Climate Reality Project. To date there are over 15,000 Climate Reality Leaders like me that can give the Climate Reality presentation.

After our training we are required to share the climate presentation with as many groups, businesses and leaders that we can. We are expected to assist other leaders or organisations in their work, we must join or organise protest marches, or write to our public representatives, give interviews or write and publish articles. We do this as vounteers. In one way or another, I have done all of this numerous times, yet it is not enough.

I need to do more and I aim to do something to fight the climate crisis every single day.

Last week I addressed Grade 11 pupils at Gauteng schools on how renewable energy, particularly solar, can play a role in tackling the crisis. I do this school activity with the Gauteng Department of Agriculture and Rural Development as part of its climate awareness programme. To date, I have presented my talk on solar energy and climate change to almost 5,000 learners.

A week ago I joined a few friends from the African Climate Reality Project (@AfricaCRP) and protested outside the Rosebank office of Standard Bank. We used their recently installed BE KIND sign as a rallying point.  How can Standard Bank ask us to “be kind” when they retrenched 800 workers the same month the sign went up? How can they ask us to “be kind” when they are being unkind towards the environment, when the majority of their shareholders block company AGM resolutions that seek clarity on climate risk, or when they continue to fund and invest in dirty fossil fuel assets?

At a recent Japan-African Business Summit, President Cyril Ramaphosa admitted that climate change will affect business in Africa and we must all do something to address it. I agree with him, but my question to him is this: How can we fight the climate crisis when our people know so little about it?

The August 2019 Afrobarometer Survey showed that barely 17% of South Africans are “climate change literate” – meaning they know what climate change is, understand it has negative effects on long-term weather patterns and that it anthropogenic in nature, i.e. it is caused by human activity. A full 59% either haven’t heard of climate change or don’t know anything about it.

The report acknowledged South Africa as one of the most important African economies and one of the most highly educated countries on the continent, but we fared very poorly in the survey. Of the 34 countries surveyed, SA was in the bottom five.

The climate crisis may be the single most important issue of our time, so I find the figure of 59% frightening.

We should be on the streets in protest at the lack of a sustainable climate response from government. We must demand government declare a climate emergency now. We barely averted Day Zero in Cape Town but we didn’t in other parts of the country. South Africa is not prepared to cope with climate shocks like Cyclones Idai or Kenneth that devasted parts of Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi in March and April this year. These storms caused damage of almost $3-billion.

The global North is guilty of causing the most damage, but it will be the global South that suffers the most; we will not be immune nor insulated from the most devasting effects of the climate crisis.

South Africa is not ready to deal with the coming climate shocks – and as usual the poor will pay the price. Big business seems oblivious to the climate risk that is already on our doorstep.

What is to be done?

We need to work together in the fight for our futures and those of our children and grandchildren. To say we need to fight for the future of humanity is not pointing too fine a point on it. There can be no simpler, yet more powerful, act than saying: “I’m in. This is my fight, too. I want to do something about it.”

Make your voices heard, on the streets, in the halls of power, in government, at work, in school and at home. Join the Golbal Climate Strike on 20 September and send a clear message to the fossil fuel sector, to the banks, to our leaders, to the media, to our children, that we have heard the clarion call to action and will play our part in fixing the problems.

But don’t only get involved on the 20^th; join the climate movement and support the organisations like Copac, Earthlife Africa, Greenpeace, African Climate Reality Project, 350Africa and Extinction Rebellion.

Or start your own initiative. Plant trees, donate money, curb your air travel, lobby for policy changes and vote effectively.

Take this advice from Greta Thunberg, teenage climate activist: “Panic like your house is on fire, because it is!” DM

Maverick Citizen supports the Global Climate Strike and citizen action to mitigate the climate crisis. Where will you be on 20 September 2019? What will you tell your children and grandchildren you did to save the planet? There are no if or buts about this.

Sunny Morgan is a climate activist and founder of Enerlogy Solar. [email protected]