Skipping School For Climate Change Action?

Given that most of our supposedly “grown-up elected officials” are not telling it like it is and dragging their heels when it comes to climate change action, will skipping school finally spark meaningful change?

By: Ringo Bones

I might be getting old when the first thing that comes to mind when it comes to thousands of high-school students skipping schools is going to an Iron Maiden or Metallica concert, but as of late, thousands of mostly high-school students are now skipping school on a weekly basis in order to protest over their elected officials inaction over climate change. The most recent of which happened in Berlin, Germany and is lead by the very high-school girl that started it all, Sweden’s very own Greta Thunberg.

Greta Thunberg is a 16-year-old Swedish political activist seeking to stop climate change and global warming. In August 2018, she quickly rose to prominence for starting the first “school strike for climate” outside the Swedish parliament building. In November 2018, she spoke at TEDxStockholm, in December 2018, she addressed the United Nations Climate Change Conference and in January 2019, she was invited to talk to the World Economic Forum at Davos.

Greta has been walking out of Swedish schools due to the grown-ups inaction when it comes to climate change and according to her: “the grown-ups are not telling it like it is”. And what makes her cause face an uphill struggle is that people like US President Donald J. Trump and prominent people of America’s so-called Christian Right are actively denying the existence of climate change and global warming because they are so beholden to the so-called Big Oil and the rest of the multi-national fossil fuel industry. The School Strike For Climate may be facing an uphill struggle, but the movement has been swiftly spreading across the globe.