Teens Lead ​“Wake Up New Haven!” Climate March

"Covid gives us a terrifying glimpse of what can happen when you do not listen to scientists and fail to take action." Yet they gather in large groups. Did anyone monitor the protestors to ensure the gathering was capped at 100 people per latest state guidance?

If this type of activity is continually encouraged and celebrated in our city and across the country, it's time for the kids to be back in school and small businesses back at 100% capacity. It's time for the party of science to be consistent.

@Mike D: The demonstrators think that action is so necessary they are willing to run the risk (although do note the masks every where) of a gathering, just as BLM and other groups have and without any adverse effects.There is a difference between indoor and outdoor gatherings and very low risk in sunshine and fresh air.
So what about the point of their constitutionally protected First Amendment right to make their case to business and government to take steps now to deal with the damage still being done to the planet?
It's the young people who will have to live in a post-Covid 19 world with mass migrations, rising waters, forest fires, food supply disruptions and other ecologically generated problems, including unemployment.
The people in a position to make the decisions to invest in alternate sources of energy have chosen instead to continue subsidies to fossil fuel industries. Obama was okay with drilling in the Arctic. This is not a matter of one party's politics but a system that hidden the truth of industrial pollution - just as the harm from cigarettes was denied and the science hidden - so some industrialists can squeeze another billion out of in profits.
Listen to the demonstrators and don't try to divert attention to a non-issue.

California Is Banning Polluting Cars. Electric-Vehicle Stocks Will Need More Than That.
By Al Root
Sept. 24, 2020 3:06 pm ET
Ok poor cut and paste job but you get my point that Ct. needs to follow.


California took a big step toward a green transportation future, mandating that only zero-emission cars can be sold in the state beginning in 2035.

@ Patricia Kane, just so I'm clear on how things work - it's fine to go against recommend science and be "willing to run the risk" when the cause aligns with what you believe in? That line of reasoning can be problematic.

State guidance limits outdoor private gatherings to 100 people and organized gatherings to 500 people (with space restrictions) irrespective of wearing masks. By your logic, there shouldn't be anything wrong with local small business owners deciding to "run the risk" of ignoring the indoor guidance in order to keep their businesses afloat. Yet our predominantly liberal city continues to flood SeeClickFlix with businesses that do just that? I'm still looking for the consistency.

These young people may survive COVID-19 but the human race will face catastrophe if drastic measures aren't taken immediately to reduce human activity influenced global warming. This year was one of the hottest years on record since they started recording weather, as have been the last 5 years. The West Coast and the Amazon Rain Forest are burning vast unprecedented acreage along with other fires around the globe and we are seeing increasing number of storms and increasing severity of storms around the globe. And yet, very little in the way of substance has been done to combat the changes that humans are responsible for. If something isn't done soon, these young people will have a very bleak future indeed.

The problem with science is it has become politicized. Too many "scientists" are not really scientists, but political activists. It's hard to take people like Greg Goncalves and his colleagues at Yale seriously when they cherry-pick data to support a pre-determined conclusion, rather than allow the data to lead them to a conclusion. For example Greg supported the release of criminals into the community even though the death rate in the jails was lower than that in the general population. He also wrote an NYT piece about how CoViD fears mean we should condemn demonstrations he disapproves of but should not deter people from marching in favor of causes he supports.

@Mike D: I completely understand your point. I strongly feel for people who are struggling now, financially, to keep their kids on track for school, life is incredibly strained.
I can understand why you would want a consistent policy that meant everyone was held to the same standard.
I can say that all participants wore masks and were asked to keep a distance, there also weren't too many people there, although of course that was not intentional.
Protests and action intend, however, to disrupt policy, and to grab attention in other ways. They are not the same as businesses or schools, their purpose is to activate others and put pressure on government by working outside the ordinary paths for change, like appealing to lawmakers with phone calls and letters. These organizations also do that, but it hasn't led to any true change, it's slow and tiresome. These kids are going up against huge businesses, oil tycoons and billions of dollars pushed toward climate change denial. They have to use whatever resources they can. They have to sleep every night knowing their world may go up in flames within their lifetimes. There may not be breathable air or drinkable water. The BLM protesters have to contend with fearing for their family members lives every time they go outside.
Fighting for your very life is not the same thing as reopening a business. My friends were allowed to void hospital rules to visit their dying parents in the midst of COVID. Incredibly high stakes like these can and must expand outside regularly applied rules. It isn't about belief. These kids aren't there because they have a different belief system from you. They are sure, based on all the science that has been collected in good faith for the last hundred odd years, that if they don't fight, there will be nothing left for them. That the rich will find a way to survive, but not our families, friends, people on the street. COVID is a terrible threat to millions, climate crisis will affect 7.5 billion.

@Lua, thank you for reinforcing my point.

By the way, based on all the science that has been collected, New Haven and CT schools should have been opened but weren't. Time to take the politics out of science to avoid situations like what @1644 described.

@1644
I think you should review the science, if you have time! My work has ended due to COVID and I've had a lot of time to read. It is only natural that scientists who study the greatest existential threat to humanity are also motivated to become activists, just like I am compelled, for my young cousins and siblings. For many months after learning about the scope of this issue I cried at the sight of babies.
Have you ever considered who might be the beneficiary of a "false climate change agenda"? There's no money in it, certainly, and there's very little glory either. It's a mass movement with few clear names attached. No one worships Al Gore or anything. Climate activism is something you feel compelled to do once the true horror of the situation becomes harder and harder to deny. The data leads them to their conclusions, every time. I don't know what papers or studies you've been reading, but unless they have ties to oil, they enter every new project with peer-reviewed sources behind them, and healthy skepticism. Nobody wants this to be our reality. It makes your stomach drop and you stop worrying about yourself for once, you're so worried about everyone else.
Gregg Gonsalves is an epidemiologist and not a climate scientist, so his credibility is not in question here, but he makes a great point.
What he says in the Atlantic article is that he hears you, that public health experts don't want everyone to have to opt out of businesses, weddings, but these things are unfortunate losses we have to take in order to keep the public healthy. He also says that other areas of our health are threatened.
When my grandfather got cancer, he also had kidney disease, and there was a big problem with the chemo affecting his kidney, and him having to stop taking kidney medication that was also life saving. But the doctors had to choose what parts to prioritize, to help the body survive. There is no simple cure for society's ails. We need to fight all fights, the best we can.

@Mike D:

Sorry, I don't really understand what you mean! "Politics in science" is one of those phrases that people seem to parrot without really understanding what it means. My husband is a scientist, I am studying science. I can vouch for the emphasis in scientific research to be on publications and data. In order to study such specialized things so rigorously, your head needs to be pretty deep in the scientific sand.
To scientists -- particularly climate scientists, the external politics of science emerge when they peek out of their labs or venture online and realize that there are large groups of people who work actively to manufacture doubt for their science. This is often the horror that leads scientists to activism. We haven't seen our friends or family in months. I was a part time house cleaner while in school and the company I worked for was shut down. Yet we show up for climate marches, because climate activism is the last thread connecting humanity to life on earth. I can't go to church anymore, and I won't work, we spend less and we donate more.
There are a lot of very very smart people -- much smarter than you or I -- who are working on solutions for how to manage masses of children being in the same rooms, how to enforce mask rules for children who don't always understand consequences. Schools are the most dangerous thing to reopen. If they are, we have to be incredibly careful about how we proceed. There is no comparison between a school building full of kids and an open field with teens and adults who don't take off their masks for a moment, or even get close to one another. There is no way to keep bubbles in schools, where students have siblings and transmit from class to class, where students can be silent carriers, and spend time with friends without masks, at lunch, after school. Businesses are also harder to control, it is at the discretion of the business owner to enforce mask rules. Protests have been extremely safe by comparison.

@Lua, "businesses are harder to control" but organized and/or unorganized protests and demonstrations are not?

To make my point clearer - you show up to climate change protests because you believe the benefits of that activism outweigh your personal risk of contracting or spreading COVID, yet business owners or concerned parents who also share a similar risk/reward tolerance are demonized as threats to public health. Why is that?

I am not a COVID alarmist, but merely pointing out the obvious lack of objectivity among us.

FYI, the videos included in this very article show people standing close to each other so it seems controlling such gatherings is harder than what you imagine.

@Mike D:
I appreciate that perspective!
The protests I've witnessed have been organized, with city officials in tow, and attention explicitly drawn to the protesters. In this way, public health programs can be enforced by the organizers, and by the city. The only flagrant disregard of mask law I've ever seen were at anti-mask protests. You're absolutely right that protests are difficult to control, and I was foolish to ignore that point! I think there would be a lot more backlash (from myself included!) against protests during this time if more protest organizers were anti-mask, or didn't believe in the threat of COVID. Fortunately what we've seen is a lot of respect for mask wearing, and an openness of organizers to hear the concerns of participants. Masks are enforced at all rallies and protests, I've seen people be escorted out of the march for not wearing a mask. It's the kind of democracy we want, people enforcing laws intended and designed to protect the public.

Businesses are varied, and all present different issues. Bars and restaurants mean people congregated indoors, without wearing a mask. The additional risks presented by people sitting in stagnant air together make it a big step that we should be cautious taking. Yet in CT, we've decided to move ahead with that.

In fact, we've been going back and forth so long I forgot to even note that most businesses actually have reopened, even bars and restaurants. This climate protest is the first one to be held since COVID hit, and came quite a while after the reopening of businesses. Even in this time of crisis, these teens have imposed on themselves the same rules as business owners.

The greatest risk to public health remains opening schools. Schools remain the most difficult place to control. I'm sure you know as a parent that kids are difficult to control, even without an additional mask!

Lua: Restaurants are and reduced capacity and with 6 foot distancing. Bars still are closed, period. Restaurants tend to have people sitting a few feet from each other and speaking in normal voices. Restaurants have little mixing between tables. Bars tend to be elbow to elbow, shoulder to shoulder, with drunk and sober people shouting into each others' ears to be heard over a band or general noise, often with strangers flirting or opining on urgent matters like Tom Brady in Tampa.