“You’re going to die of old age. We’re going to die of climate change,” chanted a group of Whitehorse, Yukon, high school students who gathered on Earth Day to protest the failure of way too many adults to take the climate crisis seriously.
More than 70 students joined a local Fridays for Future rally last week, walking to City Hall with signs urging more investment in clean energy and greater efforts to halt deforestation, reports CBC News.
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Keegan Newnham-Boyd, one of the rally’s three organizers, told CBC it was “a lot of inaction” from governments, as well as the private sector, and ordinary grown-ups that pushed them to take over the streets. “We know we have to make a difference, and since nothing else is happening, it’s come down to us.”
“We think that if we get out there, make all this noise, maybe it doesn’t change everything but a little change goes a long way,” Newnham-Boyd added.
But while the message at the rally was directed at adults in general, the main intended audience was the government. Telling CBC it’s time for policy-makers to protect the Earth, rally co-organizer Ella Bradford said she and her fellow students “would like to see more concrete action. So, things like phasing out fossil fuels, investing in more clean energy, and phasing out deforestation.”
