The Times Dispatch has a nice article on Open High students’ participation in today’s international youth march for climate awareness.

Here’s an excerpt:

About 100 Open students – roughly half of the school’s population – left their studies in the Oregon Hill neighborhood at 9:30 a.m. and marched down Belvidere, Franklin and Broad streets to demand the city and school system take action to stop the effects of climate change.

“This is our future,” said senior Ian McCoy. “The generations before us screwed up our environment and now we have to suffer.”

McCoy helped organize the Richmond protest, one of an estimated 2,000 across the world on Friday. Global students drew inspiration from Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old Swedish activist who has held demonstrations outside the Swedish parliament since last year. Thunberg was recently nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

What I really appreciated was that the article included specific demands from Richmond students to their school administration and City government:

1. Have the city and Richmond School Board recognize the need “to include steps to mitigate climate change with the long term and short term goals.”
2. Use green building standards in school renovations and construction.
3. Have the school district stop using Styrofoam and other non-recyclable, one-time-use plastics in school lunches.
4. Reduce energy usage and improve energy efficiency in schools.
They made those requests known in a meeting Friday with Richmond Public Schools Chief of Staff Michelle Hudacsko and Mayor Levar Stoney’s Senior Policy Advisor for Youth Initiatives, Eva Colen.

Bring on the solar schools!