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LIVE BLOG: Thousands join Greta Thunberg for climate strike in Vancouver

Other speakers at the event include David Suzuki and Tiny House Warrior activist Kanahus Manuel
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UPDATE: 12:20 p.m.:

Roughly 8,000 protesters are making their way through the streets of downtown Vancouver as part of a climate change rally.

The protest, organized by high school students in the Lower Mainland, heard several Indigenous speakers take the mic before marching the streets. Speakers included David Suzuki and Tiny House Warrior activist Kanahus Manuel as well as a number of First Nation youth.

Manuel devoted her speech to the youth in the crowd.

“You take that courage. You keep on fighting, because the old people are going to be gone,” she said.

Vancouver Police warned the public on social media to expect “major delays in the downtown core throughout the morning” due to the rally. As of noon, streets were being fully blocked off surrounding the Vancouver Art Gallery.

10:30 a.m.:

Climate activist Greta Thunberg will be joined by hundreds of fellow environmentalists for a climate strike in downtown Vancouver Friday.

The event, organized by youth-leg group the Sustainabiliteens, said the protest was a “post-election event,” in hopes of keeping the conversation on combatting climate change front of mind for political leaders.

A few hundred protesters have already began gathering outside the Vancouver Art Gallery. The event, which falls on a Pro-D Day for most Metro Vancouver schools, is expected to begin at 11 a.m. and continue through the afternoon.

ALSO READ: Students skip school, join climate strikes across B.C.

Thunberg stopped in Kamloops early Thursday on her way to the Lower Mainland.

This marks the third climate change rally in Vancouver in recent weeks. Earlier this month, a smaller rally of roughly 200 people shutdown the Burrard Street Bridge for nearly 10 hours – that protest organized by environmental group Extinction Rebellion.

READ MORE: Greta Thunberg calls for climate action in Alberta, but doesn’t talk oilsands

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Let's join Greta Thunberg this Friday at The Vancouver Art Gallery to fight for climate justice.🌎 ⠀ Join us at Kind Cafe Friday, October 25th from 9am - 10:30am for some zero-waste climate strike sign making. Kind Cafe will provide repurposed cardboard and space for sign making. Bring your friends, family, roommate or coworker! We will spend the morning making all of our zero-waste signs, and then walk down together to join Greta at the strike.✌🏼 ⠀ Get Fuelled Before the March!⠀ As a zero-waste and vegan cafe, we work everyday to help individuals lower their carbon footprint - both through reducing waste and providing plant-based food.⠀ ⠀ This Friday, if you show us you are going to the strike, or that you are coming from the strike, we will offer you ✨10%✨off your food order. We are proud to support climate activists however we can.⠀ ⠀ Activism works, and it matters! Photo by @paulinathiessen

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Thunberg has been making her way through Western Canada, stopping in Alberta last week, garnering a mixed reaction from those for and against the oilsands.

Her activism has notably attracted youth in Canada and beyond to become more vocal about their views on climate change. On Friday, 16 Canadian teens launched a legal suit against Ottawa claiming the federal government has failed to tackle climate change, thus robbing them and other young people of the same quality of life as generations before have enjoyed.

Meanwhile, London’s Natural History Museum announced it would be naming a newly discovered insect that’s part of the beetle species “Nelloptodes gretae” in honour of the 16-year-old Swede.

The beetle is less than one millimetre long and has no eyes or wings.

– wiith a file from the Associated Press


@ashwadhwani
ashley.wadhwani@bpdigital.ca

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About the Author: Ashley Wadhwani-Smith

I began my journalistic journey at Black Press Media as a community reporter in my hometown of Maple Ridge, B.C.
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