 Protesters carry banners and signs as they march in the Youth Climate Strike in lower Manhattan in New York on Sept. 20. An estimated quarter of a million people marched in New York City to protest government inaction on the climate crisis. (Peter Foley/EPA-EFE/REX) I was two hours and several miles from the start of New York's climate strike, but it was already evident how big this event would be. The platform was crowded with kids clutching homemade signs: "SAVE OUR EARTH." "THERE IS NO PLANET B." I walked up to 10-year-old Katie Browne, who was attending the march with her mother and aunt. "I'm really excited," Katie told me. "I love the chants — how loud everyone is, how united." The fifth-grader said she knows the world is in "bad shape" right now. She's frightened by news of forests being cut down, or burning, and saddened by reports of species going extinct. And she's worried that by the time she grows up, these problems will only be worse. "But I'm determined," she said. "Some people think that kids can't speak up, but sometimes we're smarter than everybody else who is in charge. … We are the ones who are going to make a change." Her mother, Jennifer Browne, nodded as Katie spoke, chiming in only occasionally to help the girl remember a word. "I think it's more powerful coming from young people," Jennifer said. "That's what I'm trying to instill in Katie: She already has a powerful voice."  Thousands of students walked out of school to take part in a march to demand action on the global climate crisis on Sept. 20 in New York City. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images) Emerging from the subway in Lower Manhattan, I was caught up in the current of people making their way toward Foley Square. It was clear that the crowd wouldn't fit into the small space between high rises. Their competing cheers mingled and swelled into a wall of sound: "Climate change is not a lie, we won't let our planet die." "Our planet is not for profit." Makana Brooks, an 18-year-old from Kansas City who is working at a New York middle school on an AmeriCorps-funded gap year, had shown up early to the rally to help prepare signs. Concern over climate change has already changed the way she lives, she said. "I go to protests. I'm a vegan. I'm trying not to use single-use plastics," she said. "I don't think I'm ever going to have children … because I know they won't have a sustainable future." True climate action, she added, will have to be global — not just individual. Brooks said she supports the demands of the youth climate strike: that the United States drastically cut back its use of fossil fuels and implement the Green New Deal. She hoped that nations would increase their commitment to mitigate warming (at the U.N. climate action summit Monday, at least 65 nations pledged to do so before the end of the year). The terms of the Paris Climate Accord, she said, were not strong enough. "But I'm looking at this crowd and realizing how much it does bring me hope," she said.  Students hold up signs during the Global Climate Strike march at Foley Square in New York on Sept. 20. (Timothy A. Clary/AFP/Getty Images) Grace Goldstein, a high school senior who helped organize the New York event, noted in her speech that kids her age are referred to as "Gen Z" — the last letter of the alphabet for "the last generation," she said. "We are the last generation that can still stop the climate crisis," she said. "We are a generation of activists. It comes with being scared, a natural side effect of being honest." But, she added: "We are hopeful. We don't pull it from thin air. We pull it from the work that we do. We will become the scientists, the artists, the policymakers who make change. We are the justice-seeking generation, the last generation that is going to sit back and watch." Next, the marchers streamed down Broadway and through the heart of New York's financial district, shouting, cheering, holding their cardboard signs high. Organizers said the human chain stretched for a mile. Small kids rode on parents' shoulders and clutched adults' hands. Teenagers had their arms around one another. Music blared from speakers but was barely audible over the yells of "What do we want? Climate justice! When do we want it? Now!" People in blazers out on their lunch breaks stopped to snap cellphone photos. A man leading a tour group paused in front of the oncoming crowd, looking stymied. "Don't get lost," he told his group.  Protesters react as rapper Jaden Smith preforms at the Youth Climate Strike in Battery Park in New York on Sept. 20. An estimated quarter of a million people marched in New York to protest government inaction on the climate crisis. (Peter Foley/EPA-EFE/REX) The sun was high in the cloudless sky, and the unseasonable heat was unrelenting by the time the protesters arrived at the rally in Battery Park. For two hours, a steady stream of activists and performers appeared on the stage: marine biologist Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, musicians Willow and Jaden Smith, and the girl who started the school strike movement, 16-year-old Greta Thunberg. But the crowd's enthusiasm barely waned. Organizers said that 250,000 people were at the New York protest — so many people that they spilled out of Battery Park and into the surrounding streets. "This is a moment that will be remembered for the rest of history," said Xiuhtezcatl Martinez, a 19-year-old plaintiff in the Juliana v. United States lawsuit, which accuses the government of violating children's constitutional right to be protected from climate change. This event would be remembered, he said. "That's true for you, just as much as for me, just as much as for Jaden, just as much as for Greta."  Sixteen-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg walks on stage to speak at the Youth Climate Strike in Battery Park in New York on Sept. 20. (Peter Foley/EPA-EFE/REX) When Thunberg finally took the stage, the crowd erupted. It was the Beatles at Shea Stadium. It was Beyoncé at Coachella. "Greta! Greta! Greta!" people screamed. "We should all be so proud of ourselves because we have done this together. So thank you," Thunberg said. And the crowd yelled back to her: "Thank you." Since beginning her strike in her native Sweden more than a year ago, Thunberg has spoken at rallies and United Nations summits, she's published a book, been nominated for the Nobel Prize, traveled across the Atlantic in a zero emissions boat. "But everywhere I have been the situation is the same … the empty promises are the same, the lies are the same, and the inaction is the same," she said Friday. "Nowhere have I found anyone in power who dares to tell it like it is. Even that burden they leave to us. Us teenagers. Us children." She closed her speech with a challenge: "If you belong to that small group of people who feel threatened by us, we have some very bad news for you: This is only the beginning." The crowd roared. "Change is coming," Greta said. "Whether they like it or not." | 
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