On August 20th, 2018 a ninth grader in Stockholm, Sweden skipped school. Instead of attending classes she chose to sit in front of the parliament building. For three weeks. She held a simple handmade sign: School Strike for the Climate. Her name was Greta Thunberg and her actions to hold her government accountable to the carbon emissions goals of the Paris Agreement have sparked a worldwide youth movement.

Tens of thousands of schoolchildren from Europe to Australia have flooded the streets. In Australia, the Prime Minister railed against the strikes in Parliament.  In Belgium the environment minister was forced to resign in the face of the mass school strikes. The EU has now pledged, on the heels of one of Greta's speeches, to spend billions on mitigating climate catastrophe. To this day a Climate Strike occurs every Friday, all over the world.