Austin Climate Strike: Crowds Descend On Texas Capitol

AUSTIN, TX — A massive crowd of students and supporters descended to the state Capitol on Friday as part of the International "Climate Strike" demonstrations taking place in multiple locations throughout the world calling attention to environmental concerns.

The local gathering was one of multiple such events taking place concurrently across the U.S. and other parts of the world. Participants joined in solidarity to call attention to climate change while demanding environmentally conscious action from lawmakers to protect the planet.

In Austin, a raucous gathering comprising mainly young people carried signs and chanted protest slogans in calling attention to a climate crisis they see as ominous for their generation and those in the future. A previously issued press advisory alerting to the event described the event as one comprising "students of Austin and the Greater Austin area" poised to strike from school in demanding the state acknowledge "the immediate and pressing threat of the climate crisis."

Participants began gathering at 10 a.m. before a noon rally. A program consisting of performers, public figures, speakers and various activities was planned through 4 p.m.

Don't mess with Mother Nature, this young demonstrator expressed with her handmade sign in updated nomenclature. Photo by Tony Cantú/Patch staff

Ahead of the scheduled speakers, participants shouted chants meant to convey the urgency of their cause. The climate crisis issue resonates particularly powerfully in Texas — long a hotbed of oil and gas activity often anathema to the tactics of conservation and environmental safeguards.

A historically progressive city amid a conservative state largely built by the oil and gas industry, Austin had a good turnout for its "climate strike" on Friday, Sept. 20, 2019.

As if on cue ahead of the local demonstration not too far from the capital, Tropical Storm Imelda made her devastating appearance this week in ravaging a wide swath of Southeast Texas with severe flooding — a natural disaster environmental advocates have pointed to as evidence of changed climate patterns. The landscape was beset by what's termed a 500-year flood — with more than 40 inches of rainfall at some regions in recent days across some areas — coming just two years after Hurricane Harvey devastated the Gulf Coast with equally historic flooding.

Photo by Tony Cantú/Patch staff

"It's time to act!" the crowd chanted as they waited to hear speakers' comments in one of their signature cries. "Don't deny the facts!" Other chants weren't as specific to climate, but well-known rallying cries: "Tell me what democracy looks like," a leader would shout into a megaphone as the crowd responded: "This is what democracy looks like!"

Then, the crowd broke out with a phrase that left no room for vagueness or abstraction as to their pet cause: "Save our planet! Save our planet! Save our planet!" the crowd shouted repeatedly, in mantra-like fashion — but decidedly louder and en masse rather than in the quite solitude of meditation.

Not all those attending were younger people. On playback, it was hard to hear an older participant express why she made the effort to attend the rally given the roar of the crowd. But her presence at the rally where three generations of family represented — included her daughter and two grandsons accompanying her — spoke volumes. The woman told Patch she first became aware of environmental issues as a young woman of 18, and now has more urgency in raising awareness on behalf of her progeny and their future.

After the interview, her daughter proudly told Patch her mom was something of a pioneer in her native country as one of the first female practicing journalists as she shared copies of vintage photos stored in her cell phone of the elder woman interviewing several dignitaries and public figures as a young scribe.

Yet the gathering was largely people by the young. According to organizers, students from more than 20 Austin-area high schools were scheduled to participate in the rally as well as younger elementary school pupils accompanied by their parents. Given the importance of the cause, organizers noted, many of those young participants secured excused absences from school administrators to participate.

This young man attending the Austin "Climate Strike" declined to reveal his identity, but happily obliged to be photographed with the dramatic backdrop of the state Capitol behind him. Photo by Tony Cantú/Patch staff.

The international protest comes days before the United Nations Climate Action Summit taking place on Sept. 23 in New York City, where leaders from government and business officials are scheduled to address environmental concerns. To participate in their local demonstrations, untold millions of people walked out of their schools, workplaces and homes in solidarity at hundreds of "climate strike" events across the U.S. and other parts of the world.

This young lady — a proud vegan six years running, she noted with palpable pride — said she walked to the rally in order to call for environmental awareness and be a voice to the voiceless Mother Earth as she described in the video below. Photo by Tony Cantú/Patch staff.

The local event was scheduled to conclude at 4 p.m. with a number of activities planned on the Capitol grounds. Several environmental and politically minded groups set up tables to distribute their literature, including Buddhist Action Now, Earth Day Austin, Extinction Rebellion Austin, Austin Climate Coalition, Indivisible Austin and Jolt among others.

The crowd started to thin by early afternoon, with the once thunderous chants growing fainter. In exiting the square, one negotiates around remaining demonstrators now milling about the grounds in post-rally camaraderie, heading south to 10th Street and Congress Avenue. But before crossing the street to head downtown on foot, one first waits for the red light to temporarily halt the passing Austin traffic — an otherwise inexorable procession of gasoline-propelled vehicles invariably containing a single occupant, in a sparkling, ever-expanding city where construction cranes dot the landscape of a continually metamorphosing skyline.

Finally reaching the coffee shop on the next block for writing and reflection, one reaches into the backpack in scavenging for the re-usable metal straw among the contained provisions. Finding it at last, one inserts the tube into the non-biodegradable plastic cup, plugs in the laptop and dutifully and methodically sips as people pass outside along the bustling street.

Photo by Tony Cantú/Patch staff.