Thousands of children in the United Kingdom walked out of school today, not to smoke behind the bike sheds or to get an ASBO for loitering outside Poundland, but to protest inaction on climate change.
According to the Guardian, 3,000 students walked out of class in London alone, with thousands more in cities like Leeds and Oxford. Jake Woodier, a spokesperson for the UK Youth Climate Coalition, which is helping organize the strikes, told the paper the protests demonstrate “awareness among young people that we need to fight for a future that simply doesn’t exist because we’ve been betrayed by the inaction of those in positions of power.”
Video posted to Twitter shows the students chanting outside Parliament:
Reports also indicate the teens are extremely cool:
The Theresa these teens are inviting to fuck off is Theresa May, the prime minister of Great Britain, who responded in a predictably teacher-like fashion:
This is the prime ministerial version of a teacher who has clearly lost authority over their class shouting “it’s your time you’re wasting!” before giving up and hiding in the staff room.
Besides, the kids had a pretty good response to that too: