Impassioned speaker and social media influencer Jack Harries took a stand this week. As an outspoken climate change fighter, he experienced the protest firsthand, speaking out publicly and encouraging the civil disobedience.

He said, “As a young person growing up in London, I feel scared for the state of my future [and] overwhelmed by the news about climate change, and I feel like our government is simply ignoring the problem.”

With Harries’s powerful words in mind, 6,000 people stood, walked, sat, and even glued themselves to walls to protest the lack of acknowledgment of climate change in the government budget and fight for change in the stigma of the issue. In an amazing display, protesters covered five of the bridges in the area in an overwhelmingly large-scale gathering of common interest. To date, it was one of the biggest acts of mass civil disobedience in the UK in decades, succeeding in causing a standstill in the bustling region, almost as if someone hit “pause” on the city. The message behind putting it all together? The ideal that ecocide and climate change are issues not to be overlooked by the world, leaders, and constituents.

Now, realistically, is that achievable? Based on the research of many teachers and senior environmental scientists, the answer is no. In such a short time frame, one of the demands to be met like making the UK carbon neutral by 2025 is near impossible. On the contrary, the demands to have politicians “tell the truth” about the crisis and to arrange a People’s Assembly of citizens to help prioritize issues is much more reasonable, although the transition may be difficult. However, regardless of any narrative or time frame, this debated global upset is a glaring mistake of current and past generations that is set to disrupt the future generations.

While some say that climate change is an occurrence too far in the future for current society to worry about, ignoring the cause and effect of it would be cataclysmic. Climate change, formerly known as global warming, is the gradual warming of the Earth, and its cause is debated as to what it is. Some environmentalist and other science departments believe human activities that release carbon emission are the cause, while disbelievers think that people are exaggerating and that climate change is not an imminent issue (they think that it’s a natural part of life on Earth with cycles of warm and cold periods ie. Ice Age).

So in the end, we must choose what we will believe in as this topic becomes more prevalent: should climate change begin and end with us, or will nature take its course in an unstoppable fashion? Regardless, Harries will be the one to lead the way toward activism and prevention.

“It’s worth noting I don’t want to be here, but I feel that it’s my duty as a young person to make our voices heard and to force our governments to listen because, ultimately, it’s our future that’s at stake.”