‘Imagine what we could do’— the school strikes for climate and reclaiming citizen empowerment

Abstract

This essay argues that the School Strike for Climate movement, and with it the whole climate movement as well as other resistance mobilizations, is in danger of being immobilized by the logic of the spectacle, the coronavirus pandemic, and government lockdowns. It ranges over issues of political performance, media spectacle, climate inaction and the challenges of protest in the contemporary era of environmental collapse, hyperspeed media cycles, and the coronavirus pandemic.