Delft support for the climate strikes

More than 350 students and scientists support their call to strike on Thursday 25 April for the climate.

“Our letter clearly shows that it is not only school pupils that are taking to the streets for the climate, but university students too,” says the protest organisation in a press release. More than 350 people from 44 higher secondary institutions, universities of applied sciences and universities have signed the letter. At TU Delft, 23 students, two researchers and the Delft Sustainable Energy Student Association have signed the letter.

The signatories say that the Government needs to quickly ‘do much restoration work to make up for its failures’, hold the biggest polluters responsible and limit global warming to 1.5 degrees.

Unacceptable
The activists also hold higher education responsible for the climate crisis. ‘Many universities and universities of applied sciences still enter into lucrative financial ties with polluting companies. It is unacceptable that educational institutes teach young people to indirectly profit from making our planet unliveable,’ they write in the open letter.

The national student strike for the climate starts on Thursday 25 April at 13:00 at the Dam in Amsterdam.

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Last Friday, students symbolically ‘died’ on the grounds in front of the Aula. (Photo: Extinction Rebellion Delft)

Symbolic death
On Thursday 18 April, a few dozen students symbolically ‘died’ at universities throughout the country to draw attention to the fatal consequences of climate change. The action, organised by Extinction Rebellion Nederland, took place simultaneously at Nijmegen, Groningen, Amsterdam, Leiden, The Hague, Maastricht, Utrecht and Delft and was part of the International Rebellion Week.

“The die-in is a sobering but poignant form of protest that symbolically remembers all the human and animal victims of climate change,” explains Daan of Extinction Rebellion Delft in a press release.

HOP, Melanie Zierse / Delta, Marjolein van der Veldt