School Strikers and Well-known Climate Activists Issue Unprecedented Call for Action on Climate Crisis

Greta Thurnberg, Isra Hirsi, Alexandria Villasenor, and dozens of young climate strike organizers from across the world have made a powerful call to action for multigenerational, multiracial communities to join together for global climate strikes in September. The youth call for action was met with a response from dozens of prominent leaders, including Bill McKibben, Christiana Figueres, Gina McCarthy, Heather McGee, Manuel Pulgar Vidal, Naomi Klein, Mark Ruffalo, Margaret Atwood, and many more taking on the call.

School Strikers Call to Action

Response Letter from Activists

As school strikers take to the streets in the 100,000's, prominent school strikers and well-known climate activists, writers, comedians, sports personalities, and more have issued an unparalleled call to action. Starting on Friday, September 20th, strikers will kick start a week of climate action with a worldwide strike for the climate.

"We're asking you to step up alongside us. There are many different plans underway in different parts of the world for adults to join alongside us and shake up business as usual for our climate. Let's all step out of our comfort zones; with your neighbours, co-workers, friends, family and go out on to the streets to make our voices heard and make this a turning point in our history," School strikers, Fridays for Future

Isra Hirsi, a Somali-American youth striker from Minneapolis and co-founder of U.S. Youth Climate Strike, said "I've been striking for my communities who are left out of the conversation on the climate crisis. Our generation needs more than empty commitments, we need action. Young people like me deserve a sustainable future with air we can breathe, water we can drink, and a climate that is safe and healthy. We continue to make our voices heard and it's time for all our communities to join us"

"On Friday September 20, at the request of the young people who've been staging school strikes around the world, we are walking out of our workplaces and homes to kick start a week of climate action, and we hope to make it a turning point in history," Bill McKibben, founding member of 350.org.

"The September 20th climate strikes are a pivotal moment for multigenerational, multiracial communities to join together to demand real climate action. We will stand with and follow the lead of the incredible young people who in every state and city in the U.S., and in countries across the world have demonstrated the kind of leadership that our elected officials themselves must show in the midst of a climate crisis that is already impacting the most vulnerable in our communities," Tamara Toles O'Laughlin, 350.org North America Director

Last year's UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's special report on global warming was clear about the unprecedented dangers of going beyond 1.5C of global warming, emissions must drop rapidly. Already across the globe, the climate crisis is impacting the lives of those at the frontlines resulting in the escalation of poverty, violence, forced displacement and state crackdowns that impact the most vulnerable.

"Climate breakdown is about much more than emissions and scientific metrics - it's about fighting for a just and sustainable world that works for all. We have the technologies we need--the price of a solar panel has plunged 90 percent in the last decade. And we know the policies to make them work: all across the planet some version of a Green New Deal has been proposed, laws that would speedily replace fossil fuels with the power of sun and wind, along the way providing good jobs and stabilizing strong local economies and support the long term health of communities that have been largely ignored," said Bill McKibben.