A year ago Greta Thunberg, then a 15-year-old, from Sweden, began a weekly strike from school to raise awareness of the climate crisis. She would sit on the steps outside the Swedish parliament by herself handing out fliers and holding a sign saying “School Strike for The Climate” in Swedish. Her action caught international attention when pictures and accounts of her efforts were posted on social media and went viral.
As attention to her efforts has grown, Thunberg has gone on to become a more and more prominent international climate activist and she was the catalyst behind the Global Climate Strike on September 20, just a few days before the UN Climate Action Summit–where she spoke–took place.
Young people across the world left classrooms and took up signs–as Thunberg had–to raise awareness of the world’s current climate crisis.
According to StrikeWithUs.org there were 4,500 different climate actions held worldwide in over 120 countries on September 20.
Thousands packed the streets in New York and closer to home there were smaller events. Students at West Windsor-Plainsboro High School North held an event at their football field to spread awareness about the ongoing climate issues.
In Princeton at Hinds Plaza in front of the public library, a group gathered that included 50 Princeton High School students who helped lead the strike.
Nick Christie, a Student from New York’s School of Visual Art who attended the New York event said, “Battery Park here [was] filled to the brim with around 250,000 people attending. It’s extremely inspiring seeing all these people showing support about this issue.”
The United States places second on the list of countries with the highest Carbon Emissions according to ucsusa.org, but Donald Trump withdrew the country from the Paris Climate Agreement of 2016 which was a global call to strengthen the response to climate change and get nations to work together to help combat it. He did not appear at the UN Climate Action Summit.
The September 20 strikes showed just how seriously young people today take global climate crisis and how much they want a cleaner and environmentally friendly world for us all to live in.
