All over the planet on Friday, millions of children and young adults walked out of their classrooms in an unprecedented collective action to demand a radical and urgent shift in society's energy and economic systems in order to avert the worst impacts of human-caused global warming and climate change.
With demonstrations in more than 100 countries and tens of thousands of schools, the worldwide Climate Strike is the largest since 16-year-old Greta Thunberg sparked a wave of increasingly huge marches and walkouts with her one-person strike outside the Swedish Parliament last year.
Since then, Thunberg has admonished and appealed to world leaders at COP24 and Davos, successfully securing a commitment from the European Union to fight the climate crisis while inspiring strikes all over the world. European students began holding weekly walkouts in Brussels in December, while Australian, and German young people are among those who have organized strikes as well.
"We have been born into this world and we have to live with this crisis, and our children and our grandchildren," Thunberg told a crowd of her peers in Stockholm in Friday. "We are facing the greatest existential crisis humanity has ever faced. And yet it has been ignored. You who have ignored it know who you are."
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On social media, supporters posted images and videos of students chanting, marching, and waving signs demanding action from their elected officials as well as rebuking some leaders who have criticized the students for skipping school. As one sign in London read, "I'll do my work when you do yours."
Uganda:
Brussels:
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Bangladesh:
