Children are leading a global revolution to save our planet

Kid with climate strike banner


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On 15 March, children around the world marched out of school to demand their voices are heard about the growing climate chaos that we all face. Under the banner of #ClimateStrike and Strike4Climate, these young people are a powerful force.

“Let’s change history”

Swedish 16-year-old Greta Thunberg has inspired children around the world. She’s been on strike, leaving school every Friday, since August 2018, to “urge leaders to do more to tackle climate change”. Now, the movement has grown globally, and on 15 March, children around the world marched out of school to share their rage and demand that governments and leaders take urgent action.

So as Thunberg said, “Let’s change history”:

A map showed just how huge this movement has grown in less than a year:

Adults, governments and leaders around the world need to listen. Because as Thunberg noted, kids marched out of school in “2052 places in 123 countries on all continents”:

UK calling

This action is the second in the UK, following a strike on 15 February.

In London, early reports indicated that the Metropolitan police tried to shut down the protest:

But, children took a “spontaneous route” and took “police by surprise” as they marched towards Buckingham Palace. As the Guardian reported:

Officers scrambled to prevent the youngsters, who were chanting “we want change”, reaching the Queen’s residence but the crowd was too big.

Later, they “blocked all the roads leading onto Trafalgar Square, bringing widespread disruption to central London”.

Children left school around the UK, from West Cornwall:

To Brighton, where they chanted “Oh, Jeremy Corbyn”:

They also marched in Scotland:

And in Wales:

Hands around the world

What is so incredible about this movement is the unity and solidarity shown by young people globally. On one day and across different time zones, they marched with a powerful message:

Are you listening?

In the UK opposition leaders and MPs showed solidarity with these young people.

Jeremy Corbyn gave a full statement in support of the strike and also pledged that a Labour government will take action:

Meanwhile, Green MP Caroline Lucas urged the children to continue:

And congressperson Ilhan Omar offered similar support in the US:

The UK government and leaders around the world can’t ignore the powerful force of these children. Their voices and actions are growing stronger day by day. As they must. Because time is running out.

Featured image via Flickr/Julian Meehan

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  • Show Comments

    1. “For climate change, there are many scientific organizations that study the climate. These alphabet soup of organizations include NASA, NOAA, JMA, WMO, NSIDC, IPCC, UK Met Office, and others. Click on the names for links to their climate-related sites. There are also climate research organizations associated with universities. These are all legitimate scientific sources.

      If you have to dismiss all of these scientific organizations to reach your opinion, then you are by definition denying the science. If you have to believe that all of these organizations, and all of the climate scientists around the world, and all of the hundred thousand published research papers, and physics, are all somehow part of a global, multigenerational conspiracy to defraud the people, then you are, again, a denier by definition. 

      So if you deny all the above scientific organizations there are a lot of un-scientific web sites out there that pretend to be science. Many of these are run by lobbyists (e.g.., Climate Depot, run by a libertarian political lobbyist, CFACT), or supported by lobbyists (e.g., JoannaNova, WUWT, both of whom have received funding and otherwise substantial support by lobbying organizations like the Heartland Institute), or are actually paid by lobbyists to write Op-Eds and other blog posts that intentionally misrepresent the science.”
      https://thedakepage.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/how-to-assess-climate-change.html

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    2. While ‘children’ are bunking off school to ‘change the world’ their schools should at the same time be at the very forefront of an assiduous and detailed recycling ethic that the rest of urban, rural and workaday society can’t be bothered with other than with just chucking the odd bit of waste paper into a bin marked ‘waste paper’. But, they aren’t. That is ‘the children that want to save the world’ are as lazy as the rest of us when simple domestic and other recycling requires a bit of extra obsessional bother.

      It’s an absolute scandal that most schools do not recycle waste stuff in anything like the detail that they should. I know as a former teacher now retired who has seen first hand the abysmal laziness of schools to take recycling seriously.

      A recycling regime has to be in place in every school that impacts school heads and premises managers (‘janitors’ or ‘school caretakers’ as was) such that Ofsted should list effective recycling in schools as an absolute requirement as important as the ‘3 r’s’. Correction: now 4 ‘r’s’ has to be every school’s mantra. And, woe betide any school that fails in this new suggested Ofsted ‘recycling requirement’ in order to gain ‘outstanding’ or ‘good’ in a schools’ Ofsted inspection.

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