The Guardian

Think we should be at school? Today’s climate strike is the biggest lesson of all | Greta Thunberg and others

We are among the young people striking against climate change in every corner of the globe – adults should join us too
‘This movement had to happen, we didn’t have a choice.’ Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

It started in front of the Swedish parliament, on 20 August – a regular school day. Greta Thunberg sat with her painted sign and some homemade flyers. This was the first school climate strike. Fridays wouldn’t be regular schooldays any longer. The rest of us, and many more alongside us, picked it up in Australia, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, New Zealand, Uganda. Today the climate strike will take place all around the world.

This movement had to happen, we didn’t have a choice. We knew there was a climate crisis. Not just because forests in Sweden or in the US had been on fire; because of alternating floods and drought in Germany and Australia; because of the collapse of alpine

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