Fridays for Future Protests

By: S. Tamayo

A worldwide school strike against climate change inaction is currently underway.

The movement, started by 16-year-old Swede Greta Thunberg, has seen unexpected support globally in recent weeks. Already, students, their parents and other supporters have dominated the streets of over 1,500 cities in almost 100 countries.

Looking through pictures of the protest, it was hard not to notice a poster which read “IF YOU DO NOT ACT LIKE ADULTS, WE WILL!”.

This poster perfectly describes what the movement is all about: young teenagers are taking responsibility and taking action while “adults” and governments worldwide don’t.  

People in positions of power have already begun to support the movement, like New Zealand’s Climate Change minister James Shaw. He said, “this is a crisis and we need to start treating it as such.”

However, not everyone accepts the movement, and this is because of the nature of the protests. Apparently, one of the main aspects of the protests and what makes them unique is the fact that students take Friday's off school in order to attend the protests. Australia's Education Minister Dan Tehan has said, “For action on the things they think is important, they should do it after school or on the weekends”. This is a popular opinion as some adults claim that although the motives for some of the students are pure, others are just joining the movement for an excuse to skip class time.

On the other hand, the children themselves claim that this is the only way to call the government's attention and push for action to be taken.

Although it is important that the matter at hand must be discussed and addressed it can't be denied that children from almost 100 different countries missing valuable school time will eventually become an issue in its own matter.

Hopefully, eventually governments will begin to take action and students can return to their classes, but until then the protests will continue…