Boise Students Join a World-Wide Movement

The movement started in August 2018, after 15-year-old Greta Thunberg sat in front of the Swedish parliament every school day for three weeks, to raise awareness about a cause she cares about.  And Boise students are hopping on board.

Greta Thurnberg is 16 now, and she describes herself on her Twitter profile as "16-year-old climate activist with Asperger."  She decided to protest against the lack of action on the climate crisis in her home country of Sweden, and the story went viral when she posted what she was doing on Instagram and Twitter.  The power of one!  Wow.  This is the ripple effect in full swing.

FridaysforFuture.org says the hashtags #FridaysForFuture and #Climatestrike are helping raise awareness with students and adults protesting outside of parliaments and local city halls all over the world.  And a peaceful protest is happening today at the State Capitol in Boise.

Boise high school student Liam Neupert, along with Elise Malterre, organized a Boise Youth Climate Strike, and it's part of the global movement Fridays for Future.  Boise Weekly says that the strike will happen on the Idaho Statehouse steps today (Friday, March 15), from 10 a.m.-noon. The strike is one of more than 1300 Friday events that have been staged across the globe so far.

They'll have several speakers at today's event, and it's free if you want to go.  They're also encouraging students to contact lawmakers afterward to ask them to act on climate change initiatives.

Good for these Boise students for taking action on a cause that's important to them. We'll be watching to see how far this ripple effect travels.