Every sign, a face. Every face, a story. Who are the young people — and not so young — who marched in the name of the Planet during the third global climate strike.
7.6 million people of every age, nationality, religion and social background joined forces and voices and marched under a single banner: that of the Planet. These are the 7.6 million people who, throughout the Climate Action Week — the week of climate mobilisation that concluded on 27 September with the third global strike — filled streets and squares and brought entire cities to a standstill, giving rise to the largest environmental demonstration ever organised in history. With one demand: action for climate justice. Because the environmental and climate emergency we face concerns everyone, beyond borders, walls and barriers.
We refuse to study the past if we have no future. Gaia, 17, and Marta, 18
This movement proves it — a movement that has finally come to life, growing in every corner of the world and becoming unstoppable and disruptive, like a river in full flood that, when forced back, runs even faster.
I'm here to save the world. Dafne, 6
But behind the crowd, the collective shouts, the signs and the banners, there are individuals. Each with their own story, their own motivation that drove them — and will continue to drive them — to pick up their sign and cross a threshold: not of school, not of work, but of action. In Milan, during the strike, we met children, students, teachers and adults, and asked them to pose for us, telling us what brought them here.
For some, this third global climate strike was yet another Friday in the square to demand action from world leaders. But for others it represented the first step in becoming aware of their own desire to act amid the chaos of the current climate crisis, and to make a difference.
I'm a teacher. My students are here on their own initiative and I'm here for them. It's my first strike — it's never too late. Micaela, 45 years old
Each of these people helped make this great planetary mobilisation real, and the motivations behind it — so often questioned — genuine. Every one of them is the face behind the numbers that came as a surprise to some but have, in truth, long been expected.
All of them, without exception, are proof that the path has now been taken, that there is no going back, because as someone once said — the person who started this movement as an individual — "the change is coming, whether you like it or not." And every thought behind every slogan written is the awareness that the real revolution begins the moment the signs are set down.