Hill Heat

Youth leaders from around the world have called for a climate strike and global week of action from September 20th-27th. They have been taking the lead so far, but now they are calling on all of us to take action. In Washington, DC we will be answering the call and building on the momentum of the youth climate strikes in a major way:

On September 23rd, we are going to shut down DC.

We will block key infrastructure to stop business-as-usual, bringing the whole city to a gridlocked standstill. Parents, workers, college students, and everyone who is concerned about the climate crisis will skip work and school and put off their other responsibilities to take action on the climate crisis.

We won’t tolerate delay and inaction any longer. We are ready to take the fight for climate justice to the next level. Sign the pledge and join us.

Sign the Climate Strike DC Pledge of Resistance here.

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In August of 2018, Greta Thunberg began striking from school every Friday, choosing instead to sit in front of the Swedish parliament in protest. Within months, the movement had gone global, with hundreds of thousands of students across the globe refusing to go to school on Fridays. Now, we must all follow the example set by the brave youth and do everything in our power to preserve a habitable planet.

There’s no time left for business-as-usual. The climate crisis is here. People around the world are experiencing superstorms, floods, droughts, and wildfires at unprecedented rates. Millions of people are seeing their lives and livelihoods transformed by environmental changes and hundreds of thousands have been pushed from their homes, forced to make long and dangerous journeys across borders in search of safety and security.

If we do not build up the political power to force the government to take substantive action on climate within the next 18 months, it could very well be too late for us to stop the worst effects of climate breakdown. We must rise up in this moment, take bold action, shut down the nation’s capital, and make it impossible for our leaders to continue to ignore us.

To achieve something as monumental as shutting down DC, we are going to need everyone to step up. We need everyone’s creativity, everyone’s energy, everyone’s insights, and everyone’s ideas. Every single person has skills and experience to contribute to the strike.

We do not take this action lightly. We know that this shutdown will cause massive disruption to people who bear no responsibility for the climate catastrophe we are facing. But we will also cause massive disruption for politicians, huge corporations, and the lobbyists who control our government. We need to fundamentally change the power structure of the United States if we want to stop the climate crisis. Shutting down DC is a huge step in the right direction.

This is the mass uprising that everyone with climate anxiety has been waiting for. This is an uprising for life itself, fighting back against the forces of destruction. This is your chance to take action to save the people, plants, and animals you love. Let’s rise to the challenge and shut down DC!

The Interfaith Climate Strike Procession starts from Luther Place Memorial Church and moving west on K street (more details to come). We will gather at 9:30 am with an official send off at 10:00am.