The Trieste climate demonstration

With such a high concentration of scientists in the city, and on the weekend of the Italian general election, perhaps we should not have been surprised to see the people of Trieste expressing their views on some of the most pressing issues of the day. Team member James Tytko ended up in a demonstration on his way to the central piazza…

James - I've literally just left my hotel ready for a morning of interviews and to join the science festival. And as you can probably hear, it feels like the festival has come to me. I don't think this is related to the event that we've actually come to witness, but there's quite the commotion here on the streets of Trieste.

Carlos - My name is Carlos.

Giada - Giada.

Francesca - My name is Francesca.

James - What's going on here today? Why is there so many people? Why is there so much noise?

Carlos - Protesting for climate change.

James - So Trieste - City of Science, or so I've heard, that's why I'm here. Is this, would you say this is a good turnout or...?

Carlos - Personally, I expected more people to come.

Giada - Me too. Yeah.

Francesca - I would've expected more, to be honest. In two days time we have the political elections and it would've been a good occasion, a good chance for us to, somehow make our voice heard. Just one or two programs of the political parties somehow mention this problem. And we've had a big problem with flooding in one of our regions, and a lot of people have died. Two weeks ago. We had so much rain, like all of Trieste. It was just so much water, you couldn't even cross the street.

Carlos - There's an international strike to defend the climate. They ask us, the working people, the youth, to make sacrifices because there's not enough energy. We have to build a hub in the south. We have to build nuclear plants and so on while the industry of the energetic sector in Italy is in massive profits and they are asking us to cut our consumption. So the point is not that we don't have the means to overcome these problems. The problem is that this means our energy is privatized basically,

James - I know this is mainly a large contingent of young people doing the march, not so many old people.

Carlos - This is a good point. What we saw in Italy, but I think all over the world, like in England, I think you know very well that the youth is the most active and political active layer of society that wants to change. And they want a change I think, in a revolutionary way.