Climate change activists swapped credit cards for homemade signs, using Black Friday to call attention to the climate change “crisis,” with some activists holding a “Black Friday Funeral for the Future” in Washington, DC.
The youth climate change activist organization Zero Hour tweeted in anticipation of Friday’s protests.
“Today on #thanksgiving , we eat and convince our family members to join us in the fight for climate justice,” the organization wrote on Thursday. “Tomorrow, we don’t go #blackfriday shopping, instead WE STRIKE for climate action! ”:
The group, as a whole, is demanding a Green New Deal, “environmental justice,” and “respect of indigenous land and sovereignty,” per its website.
Activists in Washington, DC, also planned to hold a “Black Friday Funeral For Future,” on Capitol grounds. The event also promised a funeral procession in order to “draw attention to the crisis and show that business, as usual, can not continue”:
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg also tweeted in support of the planned protests:
As promised, protests popped up across the globe.
“We will be disrupting business as usual to make sure shoppers cannot ignore the climate emergency,” Lillie Schneyer, who reportedly helped coordinate Friday’s climate protest at the Water Tower Place mall in Chicago, Illinois, said.
She added:
Water Tower Place is an ideal setting for us to draw attention to the culpability of large corporations and fast fashion who have put profits for a greedy few ahead of the needs of many, contributing to catastrophic impacts on our climate and the rising inequality and poor working conditions that we see as twin crises in our country today.
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