More than a million young people are expected to walk the streets this week in an international protest demanding action on climate change. The latest climate strike is live, with hundreds of thousands of students already having walked out of school in places such as New Zealand, India, South Africa, Nigeria and throughout Europe, reports CNN.
This is the most recent Fridays for Future, a movement Swedish teen activist (and badarse) Greta Thunberg started last year. A student-led climate strike in March spurred some 400 events around the world. This time, more than 2000 protests are expected to take place.
For these young people, it’s simple. Adults need to act on climate change. Like yesterday. They’re doing what they can to raise the alarm — and that means walking out of school.
After all, what good will their education be once the planet becomes uninhabitable? Extinction has hit a mass level, and we have about 10 years before the world hits a point of no return.
Thunberg has been sharing images on Twitter all day long of strikes happening across the globe, from Syria to South Korea.
#ClimateStrike in Seoul, South Korea. Our inspiring youth are leading this urgent movement to take their future seriously. @GretaThunberg. #FridaysforFuture pic.twitter.com/fClbPy9NnH
— Solutions for Our Climate (기후솔루션) (@forourclimate) May 24, 2019
The teens have been getting it, and I am all the way here for it. From global climate strikes to propelling forward the Green New Deal, young people aren’t sitting around waiting for the rest of us to get our crap together. They’re doing the damn thing.
And leaders are following suit; the UK became the first government to declare a climate emergency earlier this month.
The next major strike is planned for September 20, and prominent activists such as Naomi Klein and Mark Ruffalo are already onboard. The work to save the planet never ends. Not until the job is done.