GRETA THUNDBERG AND THE MOVEMENT SHE CREATED

Young people, mostly middle school and high school students around the world, are going on a strike, because they are unhappy and disappointed about the fact that their governments are not trying enough to fight climate change. The international movement called School Strike for Climate has been growing fast. Students around the globe have been skipping school to take part in street protests and demonstrations. They are gathering around government buildings to get more attention from the authorities and they are demanding an active move to fight climate change.

August 2018 marks the date when the movement began thanks to a Swedish schoolgirl, Greta Thunberg, who went to stand in protest outside Sweden’s government building every Friday. She carried a sign that read “School Strike for Climate”. When the photos of her went viral on social media all around the world, students started to organize themselves and copied her actions.

The movement has been growing unstoppably since then. Since the beginning of the year 2019 only, strikes have been taking place across Europe, North America and Australia. On one day in Switzerland, over 50,000 students protested the ineffective or insincere approach of the governments in the struggle with climate change. The signs they carried read “why learn without a future”, "if you do not act as adults, we will" and "like the sea level, we rise."

Many influential people like scientists, politicians, teachers, environmentalists and activists congratulated the students for their activism. Still, not everyone is on the students' side. Some politicians in Australia called for "more learning in schools and less activism". A journalist in the U.K. wrote: "If children really must wag their fingers at older generations for some imaginary sin, I wish they'd do it at the weekend."