“Greee-ta, greee-ta, greee-ta” reverberated throughout a crowd of hundreds as the 16-year-old Swedish climate activist and recent worldwide celebrity Greta Thunberg spoke in Denver on Friday, Oct. 11. Eager protesters packed into the Greek Amphitheatre at Denver’s Civic Center Park to hear Thunberg and participate in Denver’s fourth official Fridays for Future event, the worldwide strike movement pioneered by Thunberg. Students from all levels and schools in the greater Denver and Colorado area attended the event, including a strong presence of DU students. 

The strike gathered together youth activists, speakers and sign-bearing, beanie-clad citizens chanting “green new deal” on a brisk and sunny fall day. After taking in her uproar of applause, Thunberg spoke at the end of the rally to an enthusiastic Denver crowd waving signs of her picture and quotes. 

Alluding to her own groundbreaking speech at the United Nations, Thunberg asserted, “The people in power continue to ignore us, to ignore the current best available science. How dare they? How dare they leave this mess for their own children to clean up? How dare they pretend that they are doing enough when the politics needed are still nowhere in sight? How dare they ignore the countless of people all around the world who are suffering and dying today because of the climate and ecological crisis and the ecosystems that are being destroyed?”

School strike week 60. Denver, Colorado.#FridaysForFuture #ClimateStrike #schoolstrike4climate pic.twitter.com/Hfo0H0PPkN

— Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) October 11, 2019

Thunberg’s mission went viral when it began over a year ago. As a 15-year-old, she began skipping school for three weeks to protest for climate legislation in front of the Swedish Parliament. She has now been striking for 60 weeks and is touring around the world. 

Preceding Thunberg’s speech, a panel of devoted young activists answered questions from other youths regarding the climate in Colorado specifically to localize the global issue. 

“Three things that are the most immediate threat to the Colorado community are 1. Plastic pollution 2. Glyphosate contamination and 3. PFAS and PFOS pollution to our drinking water supply and soil,” said eight-year-old Mahdvi Chittoor. “I want everyone to develop a phobia for these.” 

Elerie, a student representative from Sunrise Movement Colorado, also spoke on fracking in Colorado, stating, “Often we think about the environmental effects of fracking as something that will affect future generations, but it is affecting our frontline communities in Colorado right now. Right now, our communities, our indigenous communities and people of color are being affected the most by fracking in Colorado.”

The demonstrations and speeches aimed not only to call attention to the climate crisis in the world and Colorado specifically, but spanned across the intersectional issues of social justice, climate racism and violence against women and marginalized peoples in America. 

Indigenous Ute songs, chants and smudging ceremonies were performed by demonstrators sporting painted handprints on their faces as a symbol of awareness for the missing and murdered black and migrant women in the U.S. A display of red and black dresses decorated the stage as a prelude to their upcoming exhibitions across Denver streets that will hold a name of a missing or murdered woman. 

But how do DU students feel about the climate movement and the university’s role in it? 

Third-year student William Cálix who attended the rally expressed frustration with the event, stating, “It’s just interesting to me how they [the demonstrators] have no course of action on how to get to where they want to go. It’s all just like ‘this needs to stop.’ Well we can’t just stop it – we need a substitute, so what’s the substitute?  I appreciate the spirit and the vigor in which they speak but there’s just not a lot of ‘how do we get there?’ It’s just ‘let’s get there.’ It doesn’t make sense to me.” 

Cálix continued, speaking about Thunberg’s speech saying, “I thought it was great. I didn’t think there was a lot of substance but I thought it was great and motivating. I just think it’s funny that it took a girl from Europe to wake up America.” 

Third-year student Eli Leppla expressed a more optimistic opinion, saying “Peaceful protesting is one of the most powerful things that we as Americans have in our arsenal, and so I definitely think that it is incredibly powerful and can do a lot if the right people get involved and the right people listen.”

DU often prides itself on its progressive efforts in sustainability. However, interviewed DU students have expressed that their school can do more. 

“The University of Denver is doing a bad job with sustainability because of all the money we have and how much of it’s actually being allocated to the correct thing, which is saving the planet,” stated fourth-year student Ethan Michael. 

Sustainability is a common theme among events and fliers posted around DU’s campus. Students, however, want to see bigger changes even past the solar panel installation project the university just began this year. 

Cálix offered his opinion on DU’s sustainability endeavors, saying, “I think they’re doing what basically every big institution is doing, which is just having recycling bins next to trash cans, implementing solar panels, [and] they have a sustainability department. But I think they should do more because they’re a pretty liberal college campus and students demand it and it usually saves money in the long run anyway; it’s just expensive to start. I think they’re just prioritizing their money by just building massive buildings so if anything they’re really just contributing to pollution.”

However, despite negative feedback, some students are hopeful in the university’s efforts. 

Third-year student Carl Berner expressed his optimism in DU’s sustainability endeavors, stating, “I always see events on campus that are promoting sustainability so I think it’s pretty great. I think they could always do more but it doesn’t seem to me like they aren’t trying.” 

Yet, in keeping with the attitude of the climate movement, DU students continue to arrive to Civic Center Park on Fridays to do what Thunberg says “the adults are not.” 

“We must prepare ourselves to go on for a very long time, unfortunately,” said Thunberg in Denver. “But that will not stop us. We are rising and we will not back down.”