Princeton Students, Faculty Join Community in Climate Strike

Hundreds of students, faculty, and community members gathered for the Princeton Climate Strike on Sept. 20. Their overarching message was clear: We must act now.

Speakers energized the crowd at their starting point at Hinds Plaza near the public library with stories and statistics on the impact of climate change.

“We are here today to make these issues heard,” said Pranav Iyer ’22. “To refuse to settle. To disrupt the status quo. Today, it is no longer acceptable to say climate change is not an issue because it is.”

Other speakers included Jessica Lambert ’22, professors Anne McClintock and Rob Nixon, and students from local high schools. Princeton’s poetry slam team, Ellipses, read a poem related to the topic of climate justice.

Protesters chanted, cheered, and held up brightly colored signs as they marched down Witherspoon Street to Nassau Street before making their way through the campus to the Frist Campus Center. This march was just one of the thousands of protests happening globally to demand climate justice.

Once gathered at Frist, Naomi Cohen-Shields ’20, president of the Princeton Environmental Activism Coalition, urged the crowd not to lose their energy, but continue to fight until they achieve climate justice. The protest ended with chants including, “No more coal. No more oil. Keep your carbon in the soil.”

Prior to the march, about 80 Princeton faculty members released a statement in support of the strike. It said in part, “We recognize that our residency in one of the most powerful nations in the world, and one that disproportionately contributes to this problem, leaves us — as a nation, as a state, as a University, and as individuals — responsible to take immediate and robust action.”