School Students Strike for the Climate at City Hall

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Friends School of Portland Students Strike for Climate at City Hall Today.

About a dozen students of Lee Chisholm at Friends School of Portland went on strike for the climate this afternoon at city hall plaza. As if supporting the mission of the students, the rainy skies cleared into bright sunshine just moments before the two-hour strike began at 1:00 pm.

Friends School of Portland Students Support the Green New Deal Introduced by Rep.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Edward J. Markey Late This Week. Greta
Thunberg, 16, Climate Activist of Sweden, is in the Bow of the Ship.

“We are starting out small and hope to grow,” said Anna Siegel, a student who was distributing flyers to people passing by on behalf of – “YELL” – the Youth Environment Leaders League for Climate Justice. “YELL’s goal is to spread awareness to our community. We want to put climate change on the front burner of everyone’s consciousness. We want people to recognize Climate Change as a problem that we brought upon ourselves, a challenge that we can overcome. There is no ‘someday’ only today to take action. If we don’t recognize climate change as the crisis it is, there will be no ‘somebody’ to speak out,” she said.

Paintings of Wild Animals Affected by Climate Change. They Were Painted by the
Students on Strike today. The Threatened Animal in the Top Line, White, is an Arctic Fox.

The inspiration for this school strike comes from a Swedish climate activist – Greta Thunberg. according to Mr. Chisholm.  Greta, now 16, staged the first school strike for the climate outside the Swedish parliament building.   Her mission was to raise awareness of global warming there.  Soon thousands of young people all over the world  would  walk out of schools on Friday for the strike.   Ben Medd, in seventh grade, said: “We should have action now!” (Ben is in the red in the top photo). 

“I would like to see this event expand in Maine.  I believe my students would  also,” 
said Mr. Chisholm.



March 15, 2019 is scheduled to be an International School Strike.

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