Kids Around the World Are Bunking School This Friday for Largest Ever Protest on Climate Change
The kids are definitely not all right. After seeing their elders fail to effectively deal with global pollution levels and the subsequent climate change again and again, children around the world have decided to take matters into their own hands.
That's why, on March 15, tens of thousands of students worldwide will be cutting class and taking to the streets to demand that elected officials act. The global climate strike on March 15 is an offshoot of the #FridaysForFuture movement, which has been active around the world for months.
That's right, Indian kids too.
It began with Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old environmental activist, who in August 2018 started skipping school on Fridays to protest outside Sweden's parliament.
She ccame under the world's spotlight after she roasted the global elite at the World Economic Forum by telling them they were to blame for the climate crisis. Before that, she delivered a damning speech at the United Nations' climate conference COP24, telling climate negotiators they weren't "mature enough to tell it like it is."
Thunberg has said she won't stop her sit-ins until Sweden is in line with the Paris Agreement, an accord that aims to limit a global temperature rise this century to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Her protests have inspired millions of young people around the world. Students in countries including Australia, Thailand, Uganda and the United Kingdom have already skipped school to demand that their governments act against climate change.
Students in more than 90 countries and more than 1,200 cities around the world plan to join the strike in what could be one of the largest environmental protests in history.
In India, there are multiple cities participating in the movement, with schools and student groups from metropolitans like Bengaluru, Mumbai, Hyderabad, and Gurugram, to smaller cities like Bhavnagar in Gujarat, Ambikapur in Chhattisgarh, and Udaipur in Rajasthan. You can find the other cities and schools participating
here.