Fridays for the Future holds another climate strike action by the Capitol

Video-Speaker from Our Rights DC on colonization, fossil fuel extraction, and Indigenous rights 3 min 58 sec

On the 23ed of September, the "Fridays for the Future" youth climate strike returned to the area around the US Capitol. In addition to demands directly concerning fossil fuels, demands were made by speakers for recognition of Indigenous concerns related to fossil fuel extraction, and for cancelling debts in the Global South in return for the cancellation of fossil fuel projects whose outputs would otherwise go to repayment of those "debts."

Indigenous activists have been opposing mining, drilling, fracking etc on or near recognized Indigenous lands for decades, often having to work alone unless or until white activist suddenly become interested. Indigenous activists fought the Keystone XL for years before anyone else outside TransCanada even knew what it was. ALL of Turtle Island is either formally recognized Indigenous land or forciby occupied Indigenous land, so Indigneous objections to destructive extraction projects apply to this entire continental landmass, North, Central, and South.

It is notable that colonization historically has had capturing raw materials and resources as a major objective. This is still going on today.

These four overall demands were made by the rally as a whole:

We demand that the US provide funding to countries and communities most affected by the climate crisis at the upcoming international climate summit in Egypt called COP27. We need to support the creation of “loss and damage” financing under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) (this is the debt cancellation demand)

We demand that President Biden acknowledge the full scale of this crisis by declaring a climate emergency.

We demand that President Biden and Congress NOT permit any more fossil fuel projects or subsidies, including agreeing to Senator Manchin's dirty side deal!(MVP and pipeline fast-tracking etc)

We demand that all permitting processes and climate investments, including the ones in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, prioritize environmental justice!

Photo by Alex Murphy

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