Government leaders across the globe are reckoning with the climate crisis, and because of the efforts of a band of teenagers, so are leaders in Iowa City.
Taking a cue from international teenager climate activist Greta Thunberg, the Climate Strikers have held Friday strikes for months. Many of the protesters can’t drive yet, but, together with the help of community allies and parents who can drive them to protests, they have pressured local school administrators and politicians to do more to address our local carbon footprint.
Along the way, they enlisted the help of 16-year-old Thunberg, fresh off her scathing condemnation of world leaders at the United Nations.
The strikes have ranged in attendance, from one to thousands, but the common denominator has been City High student Massimo Paciotto-Biggers, 14.
Inspired by Thunberg, Paciotto-Biggers started the strikes with the help of friends last spring and is the Press-Citizen’s person of the year. Through the year, the teenager has worked with peers and community partners to apply a steady pressure on elected officials
“We kind of realized adults need to step up, and start acting, not talking,” Paciotto-Biggers said. “That still is our biggest demand. We need to start acting.”
Climate activism is also familiar in Paciotto-Biggers’ family. The teen’s dad, Jeff Biggers, is an author and climate activist, who around the time the protests started, penned a column calling for Mayor Jim Throgmorton to bolster the city’s climate goals or resign.
The climate strikes have seen results, though protesters have not gotten everything they asked for.
The strikes started with a handful of students walking out of classes to downtown Iowa City in April of 2019, but soon moved to the hill outside the ICCSD administration building. The group demanded solar panels at every campus and that environmental sustainability lessons are built into the curriculum.
At Iowa City school board meetings, they stressed state and international indicators of climate change: Flooding in Iowa, news of worsening heatwaves, a UN report of unprecedented extinctions and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s reports of carbon dioxide levels reaching an 800,000-year high.
Paciotto-Biggers told board members he was frustrated administrators did not meet with students on the hill, despite media coverage and declarations of climate emergencies across the nation.
“You have three choices tonight: You can do nothing and dismiss us as if we don’t matter, you can do something symbolic that doesn’t really amount to much,” said a nervous Paciotto-Biggers at a May school board meeting, nine weeks into the weekly protests. “Or you can make a climate resolution that really means something, that is something that will last.”
Former Hawkeye, NFL and City High star Tim Dwight speaks to students during a weekly walkout demanding solar panels on school buildings, Friday, April 19, 2019, outside the Iowa City Community School District offices along North Dodge Street in Iowa City, Iowa. Joseph Cress/Iowa City Press-Citizen
Alex Howe, a South East Junior High eight-grader, speaks during a weekly walkout demanding solar panels on school buildings, Friday, April 19, 2019, outside the Iowa City Community School District offices along North Dodge Street in Iowa City, Iowa. Joseph Cress/Iowa City Press-Citizen
The school board acted — though not quite meeting the group’s ask. The board agreed to create more curriculum around climate change and to increase recycling efforts, but it did not agree to the group’s target for reducing district greenhouse gas emissions to that of the rates that are forecast to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
The IPCC estimates human-caused carbon dioxide emissions need to drop by 45% from 2010 levels by 2030 and drop to net zero by 2050. This goal has become a standard for the Climate Strikers.
But where the strikers called for a 45% reduction of carbon dioxide emissions by 2030, the school board resolved to only hire a consultant to calculate current carbon dioxide emissions and work to reduce emissions.
Around this time, the protesters started striking at the City of Iowa City offices. They met with city officials, traded a testy Twitter interaction with mayor Jim Throgmorton and on Aug. 6, the council declared a climate emergency.
With the declaration, the city council amended the Climate Action and Adaptation Plan passed less than a year ago. Prior to the changes, the city’s plan called for the city to reduce carbon dioxide emission by 26% to 28% by 2025 and by 80% by 2050.
Now the city aims to reduce emissions in line with the IPCC’s reduction levels. This December, the City of Iowa City released its plan to reach this new accelerated goal.
City officials tasked with meeting the new goals say doing so will require the city to garner community buy-in and to incentivize carbon emission reductions.
Strikers have since then turned their sights to the University of Iowa, which, along with MidAmerican Energy, accounts for 57% of carbon emissions in Iowa City, according to the city.
Fresh off August’s global Climate Strike, which garnered hundreds of participants in Iowa City, the student climate strikers posted an open letter to UI President Bruce Harreld in September.
In it, the group called for UI to immediately stop burning coal and to commit to 100% renewable energy sources by 2030. 100 Grannies, State Sen. Joe Bolkcom and a dozen former UI students signed onto the open letter, which also criticized UI’s impending public-private partnership to run utilities.
Greta Thunberg comes to Iowa City
The group’s biggest validation came from Greta Thunberg’s visit to Iowa City to strike with students. Paciotto-Biggers recalls the shock of seeing on Twitter that Thunberg would be joining their strike the Tuesday before the Friday strike.
“It was insane. It was crazy. We never thought she would actually come,” Paciotto-Biggers said. “I was really just blown away, it was like ‘wow, we’re really being listened to by the rest of the world.’”
Also, recognized by Rod Sullivan in his Salvo Salutes for 2019:
IC Climate Strikers: When it comes to the most critical issue of our time, high school students have led the charge. The Iowa City Climate Strikers have made real change in their community. There is much work left to do – and I like our chances, given the presence of the IC Climate Strikers!
