Climate strike event unifies UI and Moscow High students

Nicole Xiao, sophomore at Moscow High School, emphasized the importance of small changes making a big difference at the Climate Crisis Walkout Friday.

Climate Crisis Walkouts happened all over the world Friday and Moscow was no different as students from Moscow High School and the University of Idaho walked out of class to make a statement on climate change.

“It does not matter how big or small, what you do,” Xiao said in a speech at East City Park. “But it matters that you do something.”

Small towns are “trendsetters” to this movement, said Logan Heflin, UI’s co-organizer. If small towns like Moscow make it known they want all renewable energy sources, bigger cities will have to follow suit, Heflin said.

Heflin knew something had to be done when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its October 2018 special report, ‘Global Warming of 1.5 ºC.’ 

Citing the 2018 report, Heflin said if the world doesn’t reduce carbon emissions by 50% by 2030 than the effects of Climate Change would irreversible as the temperature would rise by 1.5 degrees.

“When you look at that, the only way to approach that is that we have to change,” Heflin said. “And it’s that mindset of we have to do this — there’s no other alternative — is what I think motivates me the most.”

Gracie Foutch, a senior at Moscow High School, knows these issues are still important, despite her inability to vote in this next electoral cycle but. Foutch is taking an environmental science class this year and wants to make sure to still be part of the conversation.

Foutch knows she and her generation will be the ones left to deal with the “irreversiable changes” the older generation and bigger corporations have left behind.

“I’m sacrificing something I care about, school’s very important to me,” Foutch said. “But this is a more important cause.”

While the majority of the Climate Crisis Walkouts participants were younger students, older members of the Moscow community were still there to support.

“I think we’ve really screwed up,” said Ann Storrar, a Moscow community member. “And I’m really sorry that our world is in such a state.”

Storrar said she is fed-up with the state of the Earth and has always tried to do her part. But with three kids and five grandchildren, she knows things have to change and she is doing what she can to support the younger generation and thinks they will save the Earth.

Moscow High School senior Bryson Armstrong is a part of that younger generation. 

Armstrong said he knows his generation will be running the planet one day and knows this event is a step in that direction even if it means walking out of school.

“A lot of people say school’s a job,” Armstrong said. “It’s kind of like leaving our jobs because they’re not doing theirs.”

Jana Veleva, a Moscow High School senior and co-creator of the event on the high school side, shared Armstrong’s sentiments.

“We’re skipping out lessons to teach you one,” Veleva said referencing a quote.

Veleva and Ilan Carter, a junior at Moscow High School, were the original creators of the event and began planning in late-May and early-June, and once they began working, were connected to  Heflin.

Three years ago, Veleva experienced a large flood she said she believed would take her life, and from that moment knew that no one could tell her that climate change didn’t exist.

Veleva immigrated to Idaho from North Macedonia, a smaller country north of Greece, and knows her impact toward climate change does not make her less responsible just because she was not living in the U.S.

“I can fairly say that (the U.S. is) the most powerful country in the world,” Velva said. “And it’s not doing much. And there’s a big amount of people that don’t believe or don’t care enough to do anything about (it).”

Alex Brizee can be reached at arg-news or on Twitter @alex_brizee