'Save Our Planet, Save Our Future': Youth Demand Action With Massive Climate Strikes Worldwide

School children march down Queen Street during a climate change protest on May 24, 2019 in Auckland, New Zealand. Thousands of students across New Zealand are demonstrating in the streets again to fight for climate change action. (Photo: Hannah Peters/Getty Images)

Over one million young people marched in cities across the globe on Friday in what organizers expected to be the largest #schoolstrikeforclimate actions yet.

With chants including "Save our planet, save our future," and placards with messages such as "Act like the house is on fire," the youth-led actions represented a unified call for urgent and sweeping measures to address the climate crisis.

Organizers said over 1.8 million people took part in over 2,000 actions in 125 countries—a participant figure that, if confirmed, would surpass the massive turnout for the previous coordinated global strikes in March.

Amanda Rodrigues, a junior who co-organized the day's action at Farmington High School in Connecticut, explained her motivation for the mobilization.

"The world is our home, right?" Rodrigues told the Hartford Courant. "So we have to do the best we can to preserve it. If the adults in our politics aren't making a change, then we have to take a stand."

Doing so, said Swedish teen Greta Thunberg, whose picketing outside the Swedish parliament catalyzed the weekly climate strikes, indeed has an impact.

"Activism works," she tweeted ahead of the marches. "So act. Join us!"

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