Northern Vermont University Organizes Sept. 20 Climate Strike

Atmospheric sciences students at Northern Vermont University’s Lyndon campus have organized the Lyndonville Climate Strike for Sept. 20 to raise awareness about climate change, as part of a global, youth-led movement that day.

About 100 NVU students and faculty will leave the Academic and Student Activity Center on campus at 11:30 a.m. and walk along College Road to Lyndonville, where students will speak and lead singing on the green beside the Freighthouse Market & Cafe before returning to campus. The public is invited to join the group on campus, along the way or on the green.

Students from Thaddeus Stevens and Riverside schools also will participate.

The NVU strike aims to educate the public about climate change “and really demand that we take action now to try to stop it,” says Jon Hutchinson, a senior from Columbia, Maryland, who is an atmospheric sciences major.
 
“It’s important to me because it’s my future,” he says. “This event is to try to make people aware of where we’re going to be in the future and why it’s so important to talk about it and see change and be successful in mitigating our carbon output.”
 
Hutchinson is student leader of the Climate Consensus, a group of NVU-Lyndon students, faculty and staff in the atmospheric sciences department, which has organized the event. The Climate Consensus is a project to spread awareness about the science behind climate change.
    
“Our students are doing the climate strike purely from a scientific perspective. Climate change has become politicized, and it shouldn’t be a political issue,” atmospheric sciences department chair Janel Hanrahan says. “Hopefully, it gets people talking about it more and gives our students a sense of being able to do something because sometimes they really feel helpless…The best way for the public to get the truth is to hear it from us as scientists.”
 
NVU’s climate strike is part of a week-long series of international events, supported by numerous environmental organizations. More than 500 climate strikes are planned in the U.S.
 
NVU’s new climate change science bachelor’s degree, in the nationally known atmospheric sciences department, is one of the first such programs in the country.

For more information about the NVU event, contact Janel.Hanrahan@NorthernVermont.edu.