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Students to ‘strike' against climate change inaction this Friday

March 13th, 2019 1:15 PM

By Emma Connolly

Greta Thunberg began striking outside the Swedish Parliament last August.

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WEST Cork students are joining the global School Strike for Climate Action this Friday.

WEST Cork students are joining the global School Strike for Climate Action this Friday, March 15th.

This global strike was called by the 16-year-old schoolgirl Greta Thunberg who began striking outside the Swedish Parliament last August.

Friday’s protest, entitled Fridays for Future, will take place in around 60 countries, including at noon outside City Hall, Cork.

Students will gather in front of the Opera House at 11am and at 11.30am will walk via Patrick Street, Grand Parade and South Mall to the City Hall, where they will protest from 12 noon until 1pm.

As well as marches in Dublin and Cork there will be strike events outside local authority offices in various locations including Clonakilty.

Schull Community College is also organising a whole school march to the foreshore in Schull on Friday to tie in with the Climate Strikes, organised by geography teacher Edward Sheehy.

The rising wave of students striking on Friday follows on from many smaller strikes that have been taking place over the past three months in Ireland, organised by grassroots groups that are emerging organically.

Saoi O’Connor, a 16-year-old TY student at Skibbereen Community School, has been among those protesting for over two months and was on last week’s Late Late Show where she was interviewed on the topic.

Among the student demands are that the Government declares a climate emergency, communicates the severity of the ecological crisis to the general public and reforms the primary and post-primary educations systems to address the need for ecological literacy.  

A map of events around the country is available at: https://www.actionnetwork.org/event_campaigns/climate-strike-map

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