September 20, 2019

You’ve Got to See These Inspiring Photos to Understand the Scale of Today’s Global Climate Strikes

“We are all connected.”

Protestors fill the streets of Frankfurt, Germany for the World Climate Strike.Andreas Arnold/Zuma

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In a remarkable display of global collective action, hundreds of thousands of people around the world skipped school and work on Friday to protest the lack of meaningful governmental action against climate change.

The Global Climate Strike, a youth-led movement that has partnered with environmental organizations around the world, scheduled the strike to take place three days before the United Nations 2019 Climate Action Summit. The protests began in Australia, where an estimated 100,000 people marched in Melbourne, with 80,000 more marching in Sydney and 30,000 in Brisbane, CNN reports. As Friday dawned in time zones across the world, cities from Mumbai to Nairobi to Berlin joined in what is expected to be the largest day of climate demonstrations in history.

Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish activist who first inspired students to skip school to protest climate change in August 2018, will join protestors in New York City, whose public school students were excused from class Friday and encouraged to join in the march.

In March, Mother Jones environmental reporter Rebecca Leber wrote about what is driving young people like Thunberg to take climate action:

These young people compose the first generation that bears little responsibility for the 410 parts per million concentration of carbon in the atmosphere, but will face most of the consequences from it. They’re coming of age when the window to ward off this nightmare scenario is rapidly shrinking. Many older adults have been warning for decades that “future generations” will suffer for our selfishness and inertia from continued inaction. Now, those so-called future victims are finding their voice to try and shape the agenda.

Friday’s Global Climate Strike, an extension of students’ Fridays for Future strikes around the world, is one result of the “future victims” finding their voice.

We will keep sharing images as the day unfolds: 

New York, NY

 

Washington, DC

Melbourne, Australia

Mumbai, India

Berlin, Germany

Nairobi, Kenya

Dublin, Ireland

Islamabad, Pakistan

Paris, France

 

More Mother Jones reporting on Climate Desk

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Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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