Louise Perret Michaux - Climate Activist
By Fiona Breucker
Louise Perret Michaux is a seventeen year old climate activist from Nantes, France. She organizes climate strikes and different kinds of actions with her friends including art in the streets, debates, sit ins and much more to fight the climate crisis.
Fiona: What made you decide to get involved with climate activism?
Louise: Since I was a child, I've always been sensitive to nature and wildlife, and I wanted to protect it, but when I grew up, I realised that people around me didn't care as much as I did. I tried to change their minds, but before I changed my own behaviour, I studied the causes, consequences and solutions of climate change in order to have arguments against those who didn't respect life on Earth.
Last year, when I heard about Greta Thunberg and her climate strikes, I immediately agreed with her and I wanted to organize strikes in my hometown. As she says, “You are never too small to make a difference”!
Fiona: What drives you to continue your efforts with the youth climate movement? What is your goal? Is there a point that you would see as the end goal, so if x happens you would stop your activism?
Louise: Fridays for Future's goal is to put moral pressure on policymakers, to make them listen to the scientists, and then to take forceful action to limit global warming by keeping the global temperature rise below 1.5 °C compared to pre-industrial levels, to follow the Paris Agreement, and to ensure climate justice and equity. Even if I don't see the change we're all waiting for, I'm still involved in Fridays for Future because it became more than just striking : during organizational meetings and during the protests, I have the opportunity to talk and debate with people of all ages and all social backgrounds, to learn how our democracy works (and how it doesn't, sometimes), and seeing that there are many of us who think in the same way and that my generation is involved in the political debate and in community life gives me a lot of hope.
If we achieve our goals, I won't stop my activism: even if climate change stops, social inequalities disappear and life on Earth is respected (which is already a big bucket list), I think that it won't be possible for us, climate activists, to stop every single activity we've been doing during the last years. For example, I think that we will keep on educating the next generations, to be sure that humanity will never abuse wildlife again.
Fiona: How has the current global pandemic influenced your activism and also your view of the climate crisis? Do you see it as an opportunity or a risk?
Louise: Being an activist when you have to stay at home is not an easy task, but all the local groups managed to stay active during this hard time. Most of us used social media to stay in touch with the climate strikers. We continued to post, we organised Instagram lives and online meetings... We found other ways to be successful, and now we are trying to be back on scene with new kinds of activism that can be efficient and at the same time that can respect the hygiene rules.
I see the world in another way since the pandemic. We've experienced a huge restriction of civil and social liberties, and even if this crisis is a social, economical and health disaster, we minimized the damages and all together we saved so many lives by respecting hygiene rules. Now that we know that it's possible to make sacrifices to save what we love the most, we have to ask our governments for strong and efficient policies regarding climate change, because the consequences of the climate crisis will be even more dramatic. And even though political actions are really important, we can't wait for our politicians to protect wildlife and to slow down the climate crisis: us, the civil society, we also have to be actors of change.
Regarding all the damages, I can't say that this pandemic is an opportunity, first of all, it's a huge tragedy. But maybe people will start to question our activities more and I hope that we will all realise how dangerous our behaviours are, for the environment but also for us: we know that the COVID-19 may have passed from an animal to a human because we are in contact with species we should not approach. This is due to the pressure of human activities on animals, and if people understand this, they'll certainly change their behaviour. Also, the way the virus spread so quickly is linked to our mobility, which is totally unrestrained today.
This is the time to return to the essentials and abandon the destructive system in which we live. If we go back to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was complicated to comply with strict rules at the beginning, but now the new rules have become commonplace and integrated into everyday life, and it will be the same for all the ‘sacrifices’ we have to make to stop climate change and the collapse of biodiversity.
Fiona: How has your life changed since you started to get involved with the youth climate movement?
Louise: I'm way more happy! It feels really good to be part of a movement, because you don't feel alone in your fight anymore. Also, I think that I gained self-confidence and I manage stress better. As well as a lot of other young climate activists, I also have the chance to meet politicians, scientists and activists from lots of social movements. It's very interesting to confront their points of view and sometimes I think that I learn so much more by organising protests than by going to school.
Fiona: If the world leaders decided to consult you on which 3 specific measures should be taken to fight climate change, what would you tell them?
Louise: As an activist, I'm not supposed to give the solutions to fight climate change. Firstly, because I'm seventeen, I don't know the whole process of creation and application of laws, I don't have all the necessary scientific, sociological or technical knowledge to suggest changes to the functioning of the whole of society. The Fridays for Future movement is composed of young people, most of the time we don't have any kind of diploma. Moreover, it is not our duty to find these solutions, but that of politicians. By being elected, they have to face their responsibilities, they have to make choices, and they have to solve crisis situations by consulting competent professionals. As climate activists, the role we choose to assume is to highlight problems and inconsistencies in society. However, climate activists from more than 37 countries have decided to meet for a one week meeting, the Summer Meeting in Lausanne Europe (SMILE). This summit gave birth to a declaration and a couple of revendications, suggestions and ideas of actions, available on this website. It's the common vision we share among every Fridays For Future group in the world.
Fiona: Considering the current events in the US and the new wave of anti-racism movements, climate justice, which is also one of the climate youth movement’s demands, is more often discussed in relation to environmental racism. How is environmental racism discussed within the youth movement? How is environmental justice linked to environmental racism in your eyes?
Louise: Fridays for Future supports and fights hand in hand with the BLM protests. We ask for a better future, but it will not be reached if systemic oppression is perpetuated. We note that climate struggles, as well as anti-racism, feminism and all the other movements fighting some form of oppression share the same problem: an ecocidal, colonialist, racist, patriarchal and sexist capitalist system. The cause of our problem is common, which is why a convergence of struggles is necessary. It's now urgent to destroy this system that does not give everyone a chance to develop, grow and enjoy life, and which exploits millions of people with impunity, and whose consequences are visible both in Europe and on the other side of the planet. Environmental justice, which applies the theories of justice to the environment and ecology areas, can be a tool to denounce systemic racism.
Today, despite the existence of equality laws, economic and social inequalities are often inherited from a racist system whose effects persist and target racialized people (= non white plp). We know that racism causes unemployment, psychological and physical violence that too often ends up with death, but that's not all: inside the same town, standards of living can be really impacted depending on where you live. Neighborhoods where the majority of inhabitants are people of colour, which were built years ago without any consideration of the wellbeing of these areas. Those neighborhoods are located near unhealthy places: factories, highways, few green spaces... ecological racism manifests itself in this way, endangering the lives of these people. In some regions, we can see an over-representation of cancer, premature death and lung problems in areas where most people are not white.
If we take an overall view, we note that a form of oppression is also carried out by rich countries on the poorest countries: the lifestyle and the consumption of the richest has a considerable impact. For example, when you buy a pair of pants in Europe, you take part in a global destructive machine: the expansion of intensive agriculture (such as cotton growing), but also the exploitation of workers in Asian countries (sewing trousers), the pollution of waterways (chemical dyeing process) and the increase in maritime traffic (transport of all components of the trousers from factory to factory, up to you).
Our actions have an impact on others lives, we are destabilizing the climate, and the most violent and imminent consequences will take place in the countries that are least responsible for this disaster. It is now urgent to establish real environmental justice, both at the national and international level, and put in place measures to protect those affected by climate change and the deteriorating environments in which they live.
Fiona: What is your wish for the future?
Louise: I would like to see more respect for all life on Earth, whether it be for other animal species, terrestrial and marine environments, but also to respect our fellow human beings more, because the fight against climate change is bounded with the fight against social inequalities.