I spent Wednesday afternoon with a bunch of (mostly) young people from Norway at the student center in Oslo, and Thursday afternoon with a bunch of (mostly) young people at Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg, South Africa. They were, just about literally, a world apart—from the top of Europe, to the bottom of Africa. But the amazing thing was how much the same they were.
In Norway, representatives from a dozen or more youth organizations, plus plenty of unaffiliated activists, traded ideas for Oct. 24: 350 skiers heading up glaciers, 350 people walking backward through the center of town. In Johannesburg, more of the same: 350 people riding bikes in formation, 350 prayer vigils. I was an accessory—everyone immediately started figuring out what made sense for their communities, their places. And all with the sense of humor and creativity we see emerging everywhere.
What struck me most was how much each group, without knowing it, valued the other. A big part of the attraction of Oct. 24 is everybody doing the same thing on the same day in different places—in being part of something much larger than yourself. For the global south, of being able to say: this is killing us. For the global north, of being able to say: we’re going to help fix it. Of everybody everywhere realizing that in a divided world one number at least is universally applicable.