[:en]The school for strike movement (aka; Fridays for Future, Youth for Climate, Youth Strike 4 Climate) is an international campaign with the aim to raise awareness for the prevention of both climate change and global warming. To raise awareness, students take part in demonstrations instead of going to school that day. Environmental activist, Greta Thunberg, was at the forefront of this movement and has been a huge influence on the mass-publicity surrounding this campaign. This started in August 2018 when Greta stood outside the Swedish parliament holding a sign saying, ‘School strike for the climate’ after being inspired by U.S. teen activists of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Parkland, Florida.
Earlier cases, were the youth had begun to do their part in raising awareness regarding the current environmental crisis, started to appear in 2015. An independent group of young students invited other students to join them in skipping school on the first day of COP21, the UNFCCC climate conference. On the first day of the Paris based negotiations on the 30th November 2015, a climate strike was organised over 100 countries and over 50,000 individuals participated. The movement aims to achieve these three goals; keeping fossil fuels in the ground, helping climate refugees and using 100% clean energy.
Due to the publicity that Greta Thunburg had gained, she in turn inspired thousands of students to get involved with striking on Fridays. In the December of 2018 strikes continued in at least 270 cities world-wide including; Belgium, Austria, Japan, Australia, Finland, Denmark, Switzerland, the U.S. and the United Kingdom. In 2019 the above countries and others such as; New Zealand, Uganda and Colombia joined in, organizing strikes and demonstrations in support of this movement. These strikes were huge, roughly 45,000 students protested in Switzerland and Germany alone against the inadequate government policies surrounding global warming.
On the 13th February 2019 in England a total of 224 academics signed an open letter to express their full support of students skipping school in order to strike for climate change. This was following the 2018 socio-political ‘Extinction Rebellion’ movement. Recently on the 15th February 2019 there was more than 60 actions in towns and cities that took place around the United Kingdom, estimating that 15,000 strikers participated.
On the 15th March 2019, these school strikers urged adults to take responsibility for this crisis and to stop climate change. –
“We, the young are deeply concerned about our future… We are deeply concerned about our future… We are the voiceless future of humanity. We will no longer accept this injustice… We finally need to treat the climate crisis as a crisis. It is the biggest threat in human history and we will not accept the world’s decision-makers inaction that threatens our entire civilization… Climate change is already happening. People did die, are dying and will die because of it, but we can and will stop this madness… United we will rise until we see climate justice. We demand the world’s decision-makers take responsibility and solve this crisis. You have failed us in the past. If you continue failing us in the future, we, the young people, will make change happen by ourselves. The youth of this world has started to move and we will not rest again.”
It has become apparent that there is a market within the youth. They want to be heard and are willing to do all they can to help with the current environmental crisis, with or without the help from adults. My campaign, therefore, will be based on empowering the youth and giving them a voice and the tools to spread their message of saving our planet before it is to late.[:]
