About 100 students in Rockland County joined high school and college students around the world today in walking out of school to protest global climate change and demand more aggressive policies to protect the environment.

The “climate strike” was part of a global youth movement called Friday for Future, which began last August with a single student in Sweden skipping school to protest before the Swedish parliament building.

In Rockland, students gathered at Veterans Park in Nyack in early afternoon. Among those taking part were students from Nyack high and middle schools, the Blue Rock School in West Nyack, Tappan Zee High School, Clarkstown South High School, the Green Meadow Waldorf School and Rockland Community College.

In the days before the walk-out, several students talked about their motivations for participating.

"Why study for a future that we might not have,” said Léa Spatz, a 17-year-old senior at Nyack High School. The movement is built around students because their futures may be most affected by climate change, she said.

Spatz, like students around the world, joined the movement after being inspired by Friday for Future’s founder: 16-year-old Nobel Peace Prize nominee Greta Thunberg.

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Beginning last August, Thunberg sat in front of Sweden’s Parliament for three weeks to protest her country's lack of action on the climate crisis. The following month, she began dedicating every Friday to her single-student protest, sharing her journey on social media. Her mission went viral and global.

“The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Control) reports that we have 11 years before it’s too late," said Emmy Udry, a freshman at Nyack High School, who has been leading involvement in the movement at her school.

In October 2018, the IPCC released a special report urging policymakers to implement policy changes to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit. The 90-author report concluded that a higher rate of warming would produce catastrophic destruction like mass flooding, the decimation of marine life and extreme weather events.

“Everyone knows this information but no one is talking about it,” Udry said.

The freshman reached out to Nyack Mayor Don Hammond for assistance. Hammond connected her with Lorien Barlow, a filmmaker and educator, who was already encouraging students to participate in the walk-out.

“When I found out about the environmental strike, I was excited,” Barlow said. “I guess it had gained a lot of traction in Europe, but a lot of students in the U.S. hadn’t heard about it.

“I mentor students, teachers, adults, so I connect them with the news of what’s happening in the world," Barlow said. "This is news.”

She also reached out to environmental science majors at her alma mater, Ramapo College in New Jersey. Students there were expected to join the strike.

Udry said that peers tried to spread the word to students in other Rockland school districts.

Lucinda Carroll, 18, co-president of the Nyack High School environmental club, said that the walk-out was the environmental version of March for Our Lives, the student-led walk out to protest gun violence in March 2018.

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“We want to move people to make changes in their personal lives and spread awareness,” Carroll said.

She hoped that 30-40 people from her high school would take part.

“This is youth-led because we have been cheated of our future and have to inherit the mistakes of our predecessors," she said.

Beth Norman, director of development and marketing at the Blue Rock School, was inspired by the student participation she witnessed.

"I'm immensely proud of the youth today, not only for being aware of the issues but for taking the time to come out and having their voices heard," said Norman, also a parent of two students at Blue Rock. "Adults can take some notes here."