On the 15th of March, children across the world are sending a clear message! This is how to join them…
Sweden – Greta Ernman Thunberg is a 16-year-old Swedish political activist working to stop global warming and climate change, and her incredible initiative is asking kids around the world to skip school on the 15th March!
Her journey started on the 20 August 2018 when Thunberg, then in ninth grade, decided to not attend school until the 2018 Sweden general election on 9 September after heat waves and wildfires in Sweden. Her demands were that the Swedish government reduce carbon emissions following the Paris Agreement, and she protested by sitting outside the Riksdag every day during school hours with the sign Skolstrejk för klimatet (school strike for the climate). After the general elections, she continued to strike only on Fridays, gaining worldwide attention.
Thunberg has since inspired school students across the globe to take part in student strikes, and as of December 2018, more than 20,000 students had held strikes in at least 270 cities.
Thunberg credits the teen activists at Parkland school in Florida, who organised the March for our lives, as the inspiration to begin her school climate strike. Her movement is now called Fridays For Future.
Thunberg has spoken at climate rallies in Stockholm, Helsinki, Brussels and London. In December she attended the United Nations COP24 in Katowice, Poland, where she addressed the Secretary-General and made a plenary speech that went viral and was shared many million times around the globe. In January 2019 she was invited to the World Economic Forum in Davos where her statements again made a worldwide impact.
Thunberg also tries to live a low-carbon life; therefore she is vegan, and she doesn’t fly. The incredible young activist has also been named as one of the worlds most influential teens by TIME magazine.
“The climate crisis has already been solved. We already have all the facts and solutions, all we have to do is to wake up and change.”
The movement she started has morphed and grown around the world, and, at times, linked up with older groups, including Extinction Rebellion, 350.org and Greenpeace.
And the activist is now calling for every young citizen of the world to join her global mobilisation planned for the 15th of March.
“I think enough people have realised just how absurd the situation is. We are in the middle of the biggest crisis in human history and basically nothing is being done to prevent it. I think what we are seeing is the beginning of great changes and that is very hopeful,” she wrote.
Thunberg is hopeful the student climate strike on Friday can bring about positive change and ‘The Daily Goalcast’ packaged a video to help her cause explaining why all kids across the globe should skip school on the 15th of March 2019: