Students around the world skip class to demand action on climate

Tens of thousands of students worldwide are skipping class on Friday to take to the streets in protest at their governments' failure to take sufficient action against global warming. The coordinated "school strikes", being held from the South Pacific to the edge of the Arctic Circle, were inspired by 16-year-old Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, who began holding solitary demonstrations outside the Swedish parliament last year. Since then, the weekly protests have snowballed from a handful of cities to hundreds, driven by social media-savvy students and dramatic headlines about the impact of climate change. Thunberg, who was recently nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, was cheered for her blunt message to leaders at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland this year, when she told them: "I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day." Protests were underway or planned in cities in more than 100 countries, including Hong Kong; New Delhi; Wellington, New Zealand; and Oulo, Finland. A website used to coordinate the rallies listed events in over 2,000 cities...MORE