UPJŠ leadership and members of the UPJŠ Extended Rector’s College, in response to Fridays For Future Slovakia’s call for involvement in the Climate Strike, call on employees and students to support this activity. We believe that there is no need for organized leave to support the Climate Strike, but that students and staff, if actively involved, will replace the lessons during the semester at the expense of their own time off. We expect an active dialogue between students and teachers on the subjects taught on 20.9.2019 to 11.00, whether the activities will take place and when the lessons will be replaced. In close cooperation with experts from the Institute of Biological and Ecological Sciences of the Faculty of Science, we issue the following opinion:
The issue of climate change and its impact on nature and human society is increasingly resonating. With increasing weather fluctuations and their accompanying phenomena (fires, dehydration of forests, water loss in wells, soil degradation …) we are also immediately in our territory. Many scientific findings from around the world point to the ongoing global climate change. At the same time, they suggest that natural climate change is strongly accelerated by human activities. In addition, global climate change has an increasingly intensive impact on human-disturbed environments and has lost the ability to compensate for short-term extreme climatic fluctuations (high temperatures, brief intense rainfall alternated with long periods of drought). The phenomenon of climate change affects us all directly. This is a significant debt left by today’s and past generations to young people as well as to future generations.
For these reasons, the University of Pavol Jozef Šafárik in Košice supports the participation of university staff and students in the Climate Strike, which will take place on Friday, September 20, 2019 from 11 am. UPJŠ in Košice will thus support not only the Slovak but also the global climate strike, during which millions of young people around the world will go to the streets.
More information can be found in the document “UPJŠ in Košice as a future green university in the next green city“ and in the invitation.
