Largest Student Protest of Global Warming Yet

About 75,000 students watched An Inconvenient Truth and protested global warming this week across North America, from the University of Saskatchewan, to Coral Reef Senior High in Miami, to Collin County Community College in Plano, Texas.

"It's the largest youth mobilization on climate, and one of the biggest coordinated youth actions of any kind in a long time," said Billy Parish, a Yale dropout whom we recently named "Student Activist of the Year."

Some highlights of Climate Week of Action on 500-something campuses:

• Elementary school students in West Virginia delivered letters to Governor Joe Manchin, asking him to build them a new school because their current school sits right next to a coal power plant.
• About 900 people showed up to see An Inconvenient Truth at Johns Hopkins University.
• Billionaires for Coal, dressed in suits and top hats, handed out lumps of coal outside the Merrill Lynch headquarters to protest its investment in 11 coal power plants proposed in Texas.
• Educational forums brought together students, professors, and professional activists, and students urged administrators to enact clean energy policies.
• The week culminates in Northwest Climate Justice Summit in Seattle, attended by hundreds of students. See updates at itsgettinghotinhere.org.

For MoJo coverage of Exxon's suppression of An Inconvenient Truth see here, here, here, and here.