Halton Students to Walkout this Friday For Climate Change On this Friday, May the 3rd at 12pm, students from schools in Halton Hills and students from around the world will protest climate change by either walking out from class or not attending school. There are as of right now (Wednesday, May 1st 2:29am) a total of 3563 (registered) future strikes around the world and 200 strikes in Canada planned, with some happening monthly and/or weekly. According to their website, the movement called “FridaysForFuture”, “began in August 2018, after 15 years old Greta Thunberg sat in front of the Swedish parliament every schoolday for three weeks, to protest against the lack of action on the climate crisis. She posted what she was doing on Instagram and Twitter and it soon went viral. On the 8th of September, Greta decided to continue striking every Friday until the Swedish policies provided a safe pathway well under 2-degree C, i.e. in line with the Paris agreement. “ The Paris Agreement was an agreement signed by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) on April 22nd 2016, as the title might suggest, it focused on climate change. The UNFCC lists some of their key aspects of the Paris Agreement being “Long-term temperature goal, Global peaking and 'climate neutrality’, Mitigation, Sinks and reservoirs, Voluntary cooperation/Market- and non-market-based approaches, Adaptation, Loss and damage, Finance, technology and capacity-building support, Climate change education, training, public awareness, public participation and public access to information, Transparency, implementation and compliance, Global Stocktake”. Councillor Jane Fogal who has been vocal in promoting the protests said “This rally is an important first step in engaging the citizens of Halton Hills in the movement to address Climate Change. It is essential that governments come to understand the immediacy of the issue, the danger Climate Change posses to society and the determination of the people, particularly young people, to demand action. For those worried about the future this rally allows them to join others in the community and clearly show their political leaders exactly how they are feeling.” We also reached out to Mayor Rick Bonnette who will be in attendance as well, he commented "The Mayor of Paris said when it comes to our planet, there is no Planet B. She is right. That is why 15 year old Greta Thonberg has encouraged rally's around the world to fight against climate change. Climate change is science based. Based on facts, not political ideology. We have seen more severe winter, summer storms, flooding , ice caps and animal species disappearing, this is the new reality unless we do something about it. The younger generations will suffer in the future by lack of action today. That is why I encourage those to come out. " The students are set to congregate at Dominion Gardens in Georgetown from 12- 1pm.
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