Unexpected expansion of youth movement takes off

By V.V. Young

Young climate activists have been making news recently, and the trend does not seem to be abating. In fact, it appears to be picking up steam.

The emergence of Greta Thunberg with her speech at the 2018 Climate Summit in Poland last fall, along with her weekly school walk-out strike, has sparked youth activism in response to the climate crisis worldwide. On March 15^th 1.5 million went on strike in over 110 countries in the Student Climate Strike, inspired by Greta’s leadership.

Three year old youth leader leads a chant in a recent protest

Now, reports are coming in from kindergarten and elementary school teachers and principals, as well as day care centers, reporting that children as young as three are rising up to speak out on the climate issue. “My students heard about the teen protests and they are starting to talk about organizing their own protest,” stated Denver 2^nd grade teacher Frida Kidze.

Second grader Candice Betrewe said “we realized we needed to take matters into our own hands when we saw how ineffective the high schoolers have been, besides, they’ve had their time, it’s our future!”

The manager at a day-care center on the coast in Florida, threatened by sea level rise, suspects that parents are involved behind the scenes in organizing what is being billed by toddler-activist leaders as a “Crawl-out” in protest of inaction on the climate crisis in that state. At the Crawl-out what is being referred to as the Kindergarten Climate Declaration will be unveiled.

Infants photographed crawling out of their day care center in protest of the climate crisis

Philadelphia elementary school Principal Todd Lehr cautioned that “I’m worried that we may be seeing some kind of “Wild in the Streets” scenario emerging and it will spin out of control,” referring to the 1968 film where youth demanded the voting age be lowered to 14.

Over the weekend President Trump weighed in on the matter with a Tweet: “Toddler climate rebellion is FAKE NEWS and a HOAX! Besides, it has been a very Cold Winter, sad!!!” @RealDonaldTrump. In this case, the president is CORRECT!

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