Marching towards Leidseplein around 1 pm, the crowd shouted “What do we want? Climate Justice!” and “We don’t want pollution, we want inter-revolution!”. Mina, 18, skipped school in order to take part in the protest. “The world is our home. And we clean our mess at home so why shouldn’t we do that at a bigger scale?”, she stated.
One of the speakers at the protest, Director of Fossielvrij NL, Lisa Meddens, stresses the importance for students to realize their right to take a stance against climate injustice. “The public and the media keep asking questions about consumer behavior, whereas the problem we have is so much bigger than just one shower or one piece of meat on your plate”, she said. The real issue lies with the financial ties major fossil fuel companies have with the government and public institutions. According to Meddens, the onus is on students to call upon their schools and universities to break these chains that are infiltrating the education system. “At this point, we need an energy revolution and this is not gonna change by showering less”, Meddens concluded.
There will be a third protest organized on the 21 of February. The strikes lead up to March 15, when climate activists plan to mobilize protests in 40 different metropolises all over the world including Dutch cities such as The Hague and Amsterdam. This map offers an overview of the locations of the different strikes.