In Luxembourg which is one of the smallest countries in the world, around 10,000 students came together under the slogan "Fridays for Future" to call for climate action as social media was on fire with #FridaysForFuture and #ClimateStrike posts shared by tens of thousands across Europe.
The movement has spread to the United States as Haven Coleman, a 13 year-old from Colorado, brought Thunberg’s movement to the US. She co-founded the US Youth Climate Strike with 13-year-old Alexandria Villaseñor and 16-year-old Isra Hirsi. They arranged the strikes that took place across the country, and The Verge followed along in New York City and San Francisco. Students across the United States walked out of school and into the streets to demand that the adults running the government start fighting back against climate change.
In Berlin, police reported about 20,000 protesters, most of them young students, gathered in a downtown square, waving signs with slogans such as "March now or swim later" and "Climate Protection Report Card: F" before marching through the capital's government quarter with a stop in front of Chancellor Angela Merkel's office.
Thousands marched through Madrid and more than 50 other Spanish cities. Spain is vulnerable to rising sea levels and rapid desertification.
Thousands more marched on the streets and squares in many cities including Stockholm, Copenhagen, Rome, Vienna, Dusseldorf, Amsterdam and Lisbon, among many others. Hundreds of marches took place also in Asia and the Pacific.
Support for the climate strikes
A number of world leaders have invited Greta to sit down and talk. This move may suggest that the student-led climate movement has achieved the first necessary stage toward success — acceptance by its targets. Adults have backed the school strike movement, with several prominent thinkers and activists including Naomi Klein, Bill McKibben and Margaret Atwood supporting the movement’s next event, a global strike on 20 September, saying that “disrupting our normal lives is the only way to secure our future.” Leading scientists and academics had also previously signed an open letter in support of Greta Thunberg and the school strike movement in February.
While Thunberg may have started her strike alone, May 24 proved that people all around the world are in solidarity with her and willing to spread the message. “I’m not planning to stop this movement, and I don’t think anyone else is either,” she told TIME. “We have to start acting now, even if we don’t have all the solutions.”
