United youth

A school strike for climate is an intenational movement of school students who are deciding not to attend classes and instead take part in demonstrations to demand action to prevent further global warming and climate change. It began when the climate activist Greta Thunberg staged an action in August 2018 outside the Swedish Parliament, holding a sign that read "Skolstrejk för klimatet". One of her demands was for the Swedish government to reduce carbon emissions per the Paris Agreement.

The main postulates of these strikes are:

- Climate education at schools

- Recycling at schools

- Reducing the emission of carbon dioxide

- Opening people's eyes about this topic

 - Discontiuance of burning fossil fuels

Many people think it's pointless, because by not attending school we're only harming ourselves, and the politicians won't listen to us either way. But for example the UK Parliament, also thanks to the climate strikes, declared a Climate Emergency almost a month ago. It may be a small step, but small steps lead to bigger changes!

In Scotland, city councils of Glasgow, Edinburgh, Highland and Fife gave permission for children to attend the strikes. In Finland parental consent letters were sent to schools and in the Finnish city of Turku the school board proclaimed that children had a constitutional right to take part in the strikes.

On 15th March 2019, school strikes, urging adults to take responsibility and stop the climate change, began taking place in over 2000 cities worldwide. A second wave of global climate strikes took place on 24th May 2019. Hundreds of thousands of school students around the world struck in more than 1664 towns in at least 125 countries. Greta Thunberg, one of the organizers, said that the date of the event was chosen to affect the Elections to the European Parliament which took place between 23rd and 26th May.

A new strike has been called for 20th September 2019, which is to expand beyond school children and is to be followed by a global week of action.

Climate change is real and is a huge problem that affects and will affect our future, if we have any. We need to show the authorities strength and unity. We need to use our voices, because that's our future we're fighting for, not theirs, so why do they keep destroying it? Why do we have to pay for what they've done? It's not too late, we can still change something, but we need to act fast. Because what we stand for is what we stand on and there's no Planet B. 

Everyone is needed. Everyone is welcome. Please spread the word.

Ula