A spirited group of local students and climate activists marched across Tower Bridge Friday to the California State Teachers’ Retirement System offices to compel the teachers pension fund to divest the $15 billion it has invested in fossil fuel companies. These local students join hundreds of thousands of people striking worldwide Sept. 20 as a part of Fridays for Future, a global climate movement started by famed youth climate activist Greta Thunberg in 2018.
A 10-foot sculpture of Thunberg towered over the parade of students as they chanted for climate justice to the rhythm of a drum line composed of Oakland Unified School District sixth-graders. “We’re growing up in an unconventional time when skipping school has become necessary to advocate for a fossil free future, even though we’ve always been taught that going to school is meant to secure that future,” teen organizer Anushka Kalyan said in a speech. “We strike today because we’re showing our education system a powerful message.
” Kalyan worked with the Fresno chapter of Fridays for Future, sixth-grade musicians from Oakland and local climate organizations like Fossil Free California to organize the rally to pressure CalSTRS to divest. The Granite Bay High School senior previously advocated for a bill that would have required CalPERS and CalSTRS to divest from fossil fuels by 2031. The bill has since stalled in the Legislature, and Kalyan was motivated to put the pressure directly on the pension fund to s.