ATLANTA—Gath­ered in the court­yard of a his­toric stone Pres­by­ter­ian church in down­town Atlanta on a Fri­day after­noon, stu­dents rang­ing in age from 5 to 21 are ful­ly aware they’re miss­ing class to be here. But fac­ing them is a ques­tion that is arguably more press­ing than any­thing they’d find on a math test: At their feet is a ban­ner that reads, ​“What will cli­mate change steal from you?”

The March 15 Youth Climate Strike was organized by and for the people who have arguably the biggest stake in this issue: Generation Z.

Pick­ing up mark­ers and paint­brush­es scat­tered around the ban­ner, the stu­dents add their respons­es: ​“My future,” one per­son writes. ​“A home,” writes anoth­er. ​“Say good­bye to your lux­u­ry cruis­es,” anoth­er scrawls. Then they hur­ry back across the street to join more than 120 pro­test­ers on the steps of the state Capi­tol build­ing, where chant­i­ng, drum­ming and cheer­ing erupt as the Youth Cli­mate Strike kicks off.

The March 15 Youth Cli­mate Strike was orga­nized by and for the peo­ple who have arguably the biggest stake in this issue: Gen­er­a­tion Z (those born in 1995 or after). The strike is part of an inter­na­tion­al move­ment of stu­dents, par­ents, work­ers and oth­ers orga­niz­ing ral­lies to pres­sure world lead­ers to address the cli­mate cri­sis. Spear­head­ed by Swedish teenag­er Gre­ta Thun­berg, who orga­nized a three-week-long protest out­side the Swedish par­lia­ment build­ing in 2018, reg­u­lar Fri­day protests now hap­pen in com­mu­ni­ties around the globe, con­nect­ed online by hash­tags like #Kli­mat­Stre­jk, #Fri­daysFor­Future and #Cli­mat­eStrike.

The U.S.-based Youth Cli­mate Strike move­ment seeks to declare cli­mate change a nation­al emer­gency, move the coun­try to 100 per­cent renew­able ener­gy by 2030, cre­ate com­pul­so­ry edu­ca­tion about cli­mate change for grade-school chil­dren and pass the Green New Deal, among oth­er demands.

Kendall Greene, 17, an orga­niz­er of the Atlanta strike, makes trips back and forth from the com­mu­ni­ty art project to the chant­i­ng crowd, encour­ag­ing pro­test­ers to take short breaks to add their thoughts to the banner.

“I am deeply moved by the pas­sion­ate kids in Atlanta who care about our plan­et, who are afraid for their futures, of the impacts the cli­mate cri­sis might have on them,” Greene says. ​“I believe in the pow­er of young people.”

In May 2017, the Atlanta City Coun­cil unan­i­mous­ly passed a res­o­lu­tion com­mit­ting to tran­si­tion­ing to 100 per­cent clean ener­gy by 2035 — but Greene wants to see the city move up its goal to 2030, which would put the city in line with recent rec­om­men­da­tions from the Inter­gov­ern­men­tal Pan­el on Cli­mate Change (IPCC) to lim­it glob­al warm­ing to 1.5 degrees Cel­sius (2.7 degrees Fahren­heit) by cut­ting green­house gas emis­sions in half by that year.

Greene also wants the state of Geor­gia to adopt a sim­i­lar com­mit­ment, but she rec­og­nizes there are challenges.

“I think about how most of our [state] rep­re­sen­ta­tives are cli­mate change deniers, which is so upset­ting when you look at all these stu­dents that care deeply about the plan­et,” Greene says, ges­tur­ing to the ani­mat­ed crowd behind her.

The stu­dents rec­og­nize the urgency of the sit­u­a­tion. ​“We have 11 years, accord­ing to the Unit­ed Nations IPCC report, to get emis­sions under con­trol,” Mar­garet Iva Ash­ton, 21, tells the crowd. ​“If we do not do that, this is not just a cli­mate cri­sis, this is a human rights crisis.”

Cars pass by, honk­ing in sup­port, as sev­er­al of the orga­niz­ers dis­cuss the sig­nif­i­cant influ­ence of cor­po­rate lob­by­ists on policymaking.

“When you take mon­ey from big oil, you are fund­ing the geno­cide that’s cur­rent­ly hap­pen­ing in Yemen and you are killing the plan­et, and it’s not worth it,” says Jo Pen­ning­ton, 17.

“When we don’t let young peo­ple engage in these dis­cus­sions, they’re not ready to actu­al­ly par­tic­i­pate in democ­ra­cy when they get old­er,” Pen­ning­ton adds.

For those who live out in the wealth­i­er sub­urbs of Geor­gia, Pen­ning­ton says, ​“There’s no inclu­siv­i­ty there. … They don’t see the actu­al real­i­ties of income inequal­i­ty and how cli­mate change and over-polic­ing are hurt­ing our communities.”

Audrey Nor­ris, 18, the artist behind the ban­ner, says the project is a means toward that end.

“You go home, and you kind of for­get. But this is an arti­fact from today that we’re able to keep, that the com­mu­ni­ty is able to keep, that we all made togeth­er,” Nor­ris tells In These Times.

Look­ing ahead, Greene notes that main­tain­ing momen­tum is key.

“Check out the Green New Deal, call your rep­re­sen­ta­tives, tell them to sup­port it — even though that’s real­ly dif­fi­cult in Geor­gia,” she says. Nev­er­the­less, Greene remains hopeful.

“This is about the plan­et,” she says. ​“This is about us com­ing together.”