APPENDIX
‘Emperor is naked’
![](https://www.greanvillepost.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Saoi-O’Connor-ClimateActivists-From-left-Caoimhe-Cotter-Saoi-OConnor-and-Darragh-Cotter-outside-Cork-City-Council-Photo-Shamim-Malekmian-900x600-600x400.jpg)
From left Caoimhe Cotter, Saoi O’Connor and Darragh Cotter outside Cork City Council Photo (c) Shamim Malekmian
Saoi O’Connor (16) from Skibbereen Community College has led weekly protests outside Cork City Hall since early January. In response to those who accused her of mitching off school, she tweeted: “City hall is a two-hour bus ride from my house, I get up three hours earlier than I usually would for school to get into the city for 9am. I sit outside City Hall for 7hrs, sometimes with others, sometimes alone.”
She told the Evening Echo: “I prioritise this, because if we don’t fix global climate change, there is no point in us going to school. Greta Thunberg says there is no point in us learning off facts if our governments are ignoring those facts. It’s stupid. There’s a very distinct cognitive dissonance there.”
O’Connor envisages, given the scale of climate action needed, she will be protesting every Friday for the foreseeable future.
Thunberg is deeply appreciative of such solidarity. “There has been a number of real heroes on school strike, for instance in Scotland and Ireland, for some time now…and the ones in Cork with the epic sign saying ‘the emperor is naked’,” she told the Guardian.
Environmentalist Bill McKibben has hailed Thunberg’s role, which is widely regarded as helping to defuse pessimism around climate change. “The movement that Greta launched is one of the most hopeful things in my 30 years of working on the climate question.”
SOURCE: ecowatch
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