Take Aways From The Climate March 2019

It was great to see Pakistan join the global movement for awareness about climate change. Marches were taken out in several cities across Pakistan and people from all walks of life collaborated to bring the event at the forefront. Climate change affects everyone despite their age or profession or their social status. And the marches were reflective of that sentiment. Several schools had ensured the participation of their students and that brought on a lot of younger crowd.

Witty placards and posters have become the life of social movements. It is a creative expression of the concern of the people and this time around, the placards were right on point!

Social movements, lacking political affiliation, find it hard to mobilize people. This is why most of the energies are spent towards organization and mobilization. The same problem was pointed by several people who attended the marches in different parts of Pakistan.

While the organizers were able to mobilize a great chunk of people, the speeches and performances at the end not only lacked structure but also lacked the information required to ensure that mobilization turns into tangible action and those who are not familiar with climate change can identify it and modify their own surrounding. The speeches and performances sure were written and performed out of concern but a lot more thought was needed to make them more effective. In several parts, many people also started to leave as soon as the speeches started and that reflected on the thought put behind the last segment of the march.

The good thing, however, is that these organizers do have a manifesto available online, which unfortunately was not discussed at great lengths at the march.

It is now important that these organizers get together with the people who participated in the march to convert this movement into tangible action. It is important to collaborate with media houses to get the information running and emphasize on the need to protect the environment. Pakistan’s own carbon footprint might not be problematic, but Pakistan is certainly on the list of countries to be adversely affected by climate change and we do not want that to be the reality of our future generations.

For anyone who organized the march and anyone who attended the march, it is important to not lose momentum.

Reach to anyone involved and ensure coordination and work together keeping the movement alive. It is important to engage environmental scientists in the process so that technical education regarding climate change can be made common. That bridges the information gap and people will have a concrete understanding of the process and steps to curb it.