A couple of hundred students in Sackville, N.B., made their voices heard as part of a global climate strike Friday.
They’re worried about the younger and future generations, saying governments have failed us and left us in what many called a “climate crisis.”
“Before this IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report, we were talking about two-degrees Celsius of global warming, but now we are talking about 1.5 degrees as what we need to maintain in order to not reach a turning point in which we can’t save ourselves or this planet,” said Mount Allison University student and co-organizer, Hanna Longard.
While the rally started on campus, students of all ages were on hand to help fight for change in the future.
“We are not willing to let our government squander this opportunity as they have so many others,” Mount A student Aidan Legault said at a podium in front of the students.
“We’re in a state of absolute crisis right now.”
Students are asking the Town of Sackville to update its 2010 sustainability plan and declare a climate emergency, as the City of Edmundston did last month.
READ MORE: Edmundston, N.B., declares climate emergency
Meanwhile, the call to the province is to update the curriculum in schools to have updated information about the state of the climate.
“At any given year, we are at a significant risk of the town flooding,” Longard said.
While many agree action needs to be taken now, the concern for future generations continues to grow.
“When I think about children, if I have them in the future, I don’t want to have to sit down and tell them, ‘This is why we don’t have any food on the table, this is why we don’t have access to clean water… because when I was your age, nobody did anything,'” said fifth-year environmental science student Laura Penney. “Greta (Thunberg) is right.”
READ MORE: Hundreds of Halifax students demand action on climate change
As for the country, Longard says the federal government needs to implement updated climate policy that responds to the “urgency of the climate crisis adequately.”
Organizers say another school strike for climate action is scheduled for May 3.