Bay Area students walk out of classrooms to demand action on climate change

Students walked out of class on Friday, March 15, 2019 to participate in a nationwide coordinated protest against what they perceive as a lack of action on the part of politicians to address climate change. The students were photographed as they marched along Market Street with an ultimate destination of Nancy Pelosi's San Francisco field office. less Students walked out of class on Friday, March 15, 2019 to participate in a nationwide coordinated protest against what they perceive as a lack of action on the part of politicians to address climate change. The ... more Photo: Brandon Mercer / SFGATE Photo: Brandon Mercer / SFGATE Image 1 of / 8 Caption Close Bay Area students walk out of classrooms to demand action on climate change 1 / 8 Back to Gallery

Students across the Bay Area walked out of classrooms Friday morning as part of an international effort to demand action on climate change.

The walkout temporarily shut down traffic on Market Street in San Francisco as students and supporters of the Youth Climate Strike crowded onto the thoroughfare carrying signs. The crowd was en route to the San Francisco office for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at the federal building, trying to garner her support for the Green New Deal.

"We need action before it's too late, and it's almost too late," said Jazea Smith, an 11th-grade student at Ruth Asawa School for the Arts in San Francisco.

"The politics and economics and everything else that's going on right now — there's no point if our Earth is warming at such accelerated rates that we've never seen before," added Smith.

Students also planned to march past U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein's office on Post Street before a planned rally at Union Square.

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Students in Oakland, Berkeley, Sonoma and other parts of the Bay Area also joined in the walkout. In Palo Alto, Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA) joined a rally, telling the crowd, "What you are doing is part of an extraordinary American tradition, when people rise up and say this is not good and we need to do this," NBC Bay Area reported.

Hundreds of thousands of students participated in the strike worldwide, taking place in more than 100 countries internationally. Students gathered in Paris, New Delhi, Berlin and Madrid, among other cities; in the United States, rallies were also held in the U.S. Capitol in Washington D.C. and New York City.

Bay City News and the Associated Press contributed to this report.