Students in more than 1 000 cities worldwide are planning to skip class in protest over their governments’ failure to act against global warming.
They’re angry at their elders, and they’re not taking it sitting down.
Students worldwide are planning to skip class Friday and take to the streets to protest their governments’ failure to take sufficient action against global warming.
The coordinated ‘school strike’ was inspired by 16-year-old Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, who began holding solitary demonstrations outside the Swedish parliament last year.
Since then, the weekly protests have snowballed from a handful of cities to hundreds, driven by social media-savvy students and dramatic headlines about the impact of climate change.
Thunberg, who was recently nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, was cheered for her blunt message to leaders at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland this year, when she told them: « I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. »
Friday’s rallies are expected to be one of the biggest international actions yet. A website coordinating the protests lists events in more than 100 countries, from New Zealand to the United States.
Some politicians have criticised the students, suggesting they should be spending their time in school, not on the streets.
« One can’t expect children and young people to see all of the global connections, what’s technically reasonable and economically possible, » said the head of Germany’s pro-business Free Democratic Party, Christian Lindner.
