Students globally protest warming, pleading for their future

Students across a warming globe pleaded for their lives, future and planet Friday, demanding tough action on climate change.

From the South Pacific to the edge of the Arctic Circle, angry students in more than 100 countries walked out of classes to protest what they see as the failures by their governments.

Well more than 150,000 students and adults who were mobilised by word of mouth and social media protested in Europe, according to police estimates.

But the initial turnout in the United States did not look quite as high.

"Borders, languages and religions do not separate us," eight-year-old Havana Chapman-Edwards, who calls herself the tiny diplomat, told hundreds of protesters at the US Capitol.

"Today we are telling the truth and we do not take no for an answer."
Thunberg, who has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, said at a rally in Stockholm that the world faces an "existential crisis, the biggest crisis humanity ever has faced and still it has been ignored for decades."
Dana Fisher, a University of Maryland sociology professor who tracks protest movements and environmental activists, said action could possibly be triggered by "the fact that we're seeing children, some of whom are quite small, talking about the Earth they're going to inherit."
In Washington, protesters spoke in front of a banner saying "We don't want to die."
In St Paul, Minnesota, about 1,000 students gathered before the state Capitol, chanting "Stop denying the earth is dying."
In South Africa's capital, Pretoria, one protester held a sign reading "You'll Miss The Rains Down in Africa."
Hundreds of students took to the streets of downtown Los Angeles chanting "What do we want? Science! When do we want it? After peer review."
Some carried banners that read "Make Love, Not CO2."
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres said he was inspired by the student climate strikers to call a special summit in September to deal with what he called "the climate emergency."
"This is deeply felt by young people. No wonder they are angry."