Dear GDA participants,
Thank you so much for registering your interest in the Student Law Clinics Global Day of Action for Climate Justice (GDA 3). I am writing on behalf of students and clinic teachers from the GDA 3 team at the University of York Law School in England to warmly invite you to participate in this year’s campaign.
The Global Day of Action is an opportunity for student law clinics across the world, from Miami to Melbourne to Delhi, to join together for one day and help raise awareness on one issue arising from the climate emergency. On 17th November we are proposing that you and your clinic do something to this end, whether that’s action in your local community, hosting an event, carrying out research into the law on this year’s issue or whatever works best for your clinic. We at York will then promote and celebrate your work across our networks.
We are excited to announce this year’s theme is PLASTICS. Consumption of plastics is a major contributing factor to global warming and the climate crisis. Since 1950, the amount of plastic produced globally is estimated to be around 9.2 billion tons. By 2050 it is estimated that there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish. Microplastics in our water are damaging marine life and the fumes released by factory plants have been linked to cancers and other illnesses. The overwhelming consumption of plastic disproportionately damages marginalised communities and so it is clear that, as a social justice issue, the issue of plastics and their impact on the climate emergency deserves a central place in our clinical work.
The theme of the GDA has been left quite broad in order to give you the freedom to take it in whichever way most empowers and excites you, whether that’s looking at single-use plastics in the food industry, plastics in the ocean or microplastics in the air. The decision is yours. All we ask you to do is tell us what you are doing so we can tell other clinics around the world. By taking many small actions together we can have a big impact.
We also warmly encourage you to sign our Climate Justice pledge (see attached), and to return a photo to us at law-gda@york.ac.uk. This pledge is purely symbolic, but it is a nice way of showing a commitment to addressing the climate issue through clinical practice.
We are aware that for some of you in the Southern Hemisphere, 17th November may fall in your exam period. If this is the case, or for any other reason this date does not work for you, why not hold an event before 17 Nov and send us a report about it? We would be happy to share it more widely on Nov 17. Please do get in touch if you would like to discuss this further.
Please follow our facebook page – https://www.facebook.com/studentlawclinicsforclimatejustice – for more information, updates and to see the outcome of the previous GDAs. We will be sharing resources that may be useful there over the coming weeks.
Thank you for your support. Please do spread the word and get in touch if you have any further questions or enquiries.
Best Wishes,
Ellie Parnham and the GDA team
University of York Law School