They’re back: Today’s Fridays for Future strike — the first in 18 months — will see youth activists taking to the streets again to push progress on solutions to climate change.
Here’s what you can do to raise awareness and seek solutions where you are.
@EarthHeiress Asher Jay: ‘Wild is who we come from’
By Bethany Ao, GSS correspondent
PARIS — Asher Jay’s Twitter profile @AsherJayNYC defines her goal and her process — “Asher Jay creates to comment, conserve and contribute” as “a designer, artist, writer and activist” through art, design installations, film, and advertising.
But the profile for a second Twitter account, @EarthHeiress, reveals a strong desire by Jay, 31, to challenge the status quo: “Nat Geo Emerging Explorer, Creative Conservationist, party animal & wild child.”
A National Geographic Young Explorer, Jay creates graphic representations of the environmental excesses and atrocities she sees in the world. Among the issues she’s tackled are oil and mining, wildlife trafficking, and dolphin slaughter.
Though other environmental artists have addressed these topics, Jay’s works are unique, unusual and unexpected.
For example, her “iStorm” Faberge egg used waste paper plus a satellite image of Hurricane Sandy, overlaid “with the eyes of various species” in order to highlight man’s “separation sickness” from nature and the destruction “caused by our ignorance and apathy.”
Similarly, a large animated billboard in New York’s Times Square drew attention to “blood ivory,” the illegal practice of poaching tusks that threatens to wipe out the world’s endangered elephants:
Read on for Bethany Ao’s live tweets of Asher’s address to the COY11 climate change event in Paris today.
—the editors
Live tweeting Asher Jay’s talk right now from #COY11! #GSS_COY11
— GSS (@GSSVoices) November 27, 2015
“Art has this incredible quality to transcend borders and reach everybody. There is true power behind an image.” @EarthHeiress #GSS_COY11 — GSS (@GSSVoices) November 27, 2015
“I’m trying to put content out there that people will feel the need to share.” @EarthHeiress #GSS_COY11
— GSS (@GSSVoices) November 27, 2015
“I’m trying to put content out there that people will feel the need to share.” @EarthHeiress #GSS_COY11 — GSS (@GSSVoices) November 27, 2015
“I’m trying to encourage people to be an active part of the solution to all these biodiversity problems.” @EarthHeiress #GSS_COY11
— GSS (@GSSVoices) November 27, 2015
“Wild is where we come from, wild is who we are. We’ve forgotten that.” @EarthHeiress #GSS_COY11 — GSS (@GSSVoices) November 27, 2015
“Know what your problem is, mind your language, state what’s obvious, embed emotional triggers.” @EarthHeiress #GSS_COY11
— GSS (@GSSVoices) November 27, 2015
“There is something intoxicating about knowing that every cell is somehow connected in the world.” @EarthHeiress #GSS_COY11 — GSS (@GSSVoices) November 27, 2015
“That’s why it’s important to preserve both humans and animals. We can’t pit one against another.” @EarthHeiress #GSS_COY11
— GSS (@GSSVoices) November 27, 2015
“Every activity you do with your life, every minute of your day counts. Think wisely about how you spend your time.” @EarthHeiress #GSS_COY — GSS (@GSSVoices) November 27, 2015
.@EarthHeiress is now showing image of elephants/rhinos except as pandas, artwork that connected w/ Chinese (consumers of ivory). #GSS_COY11
— GSS (@GSSVoices) November 27, 2015
“We need to turn over the failings of previous generations regarding conservation of biodiversity.” @EarthHeiress #GSS_COY11 — GSS (@GSSVoices) November 27, 2015
—Photos by Bethany Ao. Ao is GSS News Editor for Europe and a junior at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. See more of her on-the-ground reports from COY11 on Twitter @GSSVoices, #GSS_COY11 and on Facebook. Follow Ao @BethanyAo and email her atbethanyao2017@u.northwestern.edu.
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