By Eve Sampson

Story updated at 12:39 PM on Sept. 26.

For most, Friday evening means relaxation. For University of Maryland students committed to climate action, Friday evening means activism. 

Chants filled McKeldin Mall.

“Whose water? OUR WATER!”

“Whose air? OUR AIR!”

“Whose future? OUR FUTURE!” 

Dozens of protesters, including UMD students, community members, and local high schoolers rallied around climate action, starting at the local level. Musicians and guest speakers took turns singing and speaking. Protesters held homemade signs and chanted the importance of action. 

This was UMD sophomore Aadhiti Vallatharasu’s first climate action protest. During the protest, she held a homemade sign reading “Fridays for the Future” in green lettering. 

Vallatharasu, a government and politics major, focuses particularly on healthcare equity. In an interview, she emphasized how climate change disproportionately affects marginalized communities. 

She pointed to fenceline communities, poor and marginalized neighborhoods built extremely close to polluting factories or companies. That proximity affects conditions such as air quality, which affect health and lifespan. 

“We see [climate change] impacting underprivileged communities the most and first,” said Vallatharasu.

Greta Thunberg, a Swedish student-turned-climate activist, inspired the international Fridays for Future movement by striking outside the Swedish parliament every Friday, demanding that Sweden meet Paris Agreement standards. Among other things, the Paris Agreement limits global temperature warming to a rise of 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial temperatures. 

Youth and adults across the world heard Thunberg’s call. Since 2018, Fridays for Future has reported strikes in at least 215 countries.

Protest organizer Julia Hananel, a sophomore public policy and music double major, started participating in Fridays for Future protests in high school.

“I just got really inspired,” she said. “I joined some organizations, did some lobbying, and then earlier this year I started getting involved with the group Climate X Change.”

Climate X Change, a nonprofit dedicated to assisting local leaders pass climate change legislation, supported Friday’s protest. Its Rebuild Maryland Coalition is working with state legislators to re-introduce a bill similar to the Climate Crisis and Education Act that died in the house legislature last session. 

The CCEA would have placed fees on carbon emissions, provided resources for frontline communities and funded state infrastructure affected by climate change. The Rebuild Maryland Coalition emphasizes the need to address local communities and those affected most by climate change.

In 2019, the UMD Philip Merrill College of Journalism’s Howard Investigative Center reporting showed the poorest people often lived in the hottest parts of Baltimore with few trees and high ambient temperatures. People in these areas lived in homes that were not outfitted for regulation of high temperatures. They had to choose between paying high electricity bills for cooling, or sweltering in unprecedented temperatures. 

Hope Clark, a Climate X Change organizer, said unequal access to eco-friendly products is a big issue surrounding climate change. Low-income residents cannot afford to front the costs, such as the implementation of solar panels, involved in adjusting their homes to climate change. 

“We need programs that go back to make those housing developments… transition to green energy,” Clark said, “they need support.” 

The CCEA would have addressed inequality in climate change issues for Marylanders by utilizing fees to fund community assistance, such as housing renovations and infrastructure improvements that benefit the public. Clark said it could be a model for the whole country. 

“If we can do it at the state level and show that it works,” she said,“Why can’t the whole country?”

Delegate Jared Solomon, echoed Clark’s sentiments in an interview before his speech at the protest. Solomon was a sponsor of the FUTURE Act, state legislation that would have catapulted Maryland universities to carbon neutrality.

“College Park has been at the vanguard and at the forefront of this work,” Solomon said, “and we want that for the entire [university] system.”

All speakers reinforced the message that change on a large scale begins at the community level, whether that be the university or the state. 

“People get really intimidated to take action,” Vallatharasu said, “but everyone is capable of playing a role in this.”

Featured image: Julia Hananel explained the need for carbon emissions reductions. Photo by Joel Lev-Tov.