The Port Townsend High School students managed to maintain a brisk pace as they marched from their campus to the downtown, chanting, “What do we want? Action! When do we want it? Now!”

The roughly 30 youths were part of a worldwide Youth Climate Strike on March 15, whose demands included passage of the Green New Deal in Congress, a halt in any and all future fossil fuel infrastructure projects, the declaration of a national emergency on climate change, the preservation of public lands and wildlife, and the prevention of water supply pollution.

PTHS students Annika Carlson and Berit Schultz, co-presidents of the Students for Sustainability Club, made sure to run their planned walk-out from school past the principal, who told them that students wouldn’t lose credits for the classes they missed so long as they obtained excuse notes from their parents.

At the same time, the school made clear it was neither sponsoring nor promoting the walk-out.  On Friday, the club is organ

Carlson is a high school senior who’s in her third year with Students for Sustainability, and she’s feeling like her activism has a larger looming deadline attached to it.

“We have only 11 years to reverse the damage we’ve done to the planet before it is irreversible,” Carlson said.

The Swedish 16-year-old girl who started the youth climate strike, Greta Thunberg, was recently nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, which Carlson finds inspiring.

During Carlson’s time with Students for Sustainability, the club has brought recycling, composting, reusable flatware and utensils, and water stations to PTHS, in addition to working for the past two and a half years to get a “bottle bill” on the state ballot, to require deposits be paid on beverages sold in recyclable bottles and cans.

“Our club is working with other organizations to solidify our bottle bill before the next session,” Carlson said. “We’re also attempting to add even more reusable items to our school’s cafeteria, like napkins, and water and milk cups.”

Carlson expressed the hope that, on a local scale, the students’ march might bring the issue of climate change to the forefront of Port Townsend residents’ minds, enough to persuade them to make choices that benefit the environment rather than harming it.

“On a global scale, I hope climate change becomes something that people can no longer ignore, and that everyone realizes that we don’t have much time to start reversing the damage we’ve done, so the time to do it is now,” Carlson said. “I hope our legislators see this, and understand that they should be taking action and promoting legislation on environmental measures.”

Carlson called upon her fellow citizens not only to use their votes to push the government to take action “toward a healthy planet,” but also to do “little everyday things,” like driving cars only when necessary, and decreasing their meat consumption.  

“This issue might feel so insurmountable that people won’t believe that they can do anything about it, but if we all make small decisions every day that are more sustainable, and we put pressure on our government, it will make a huge difference,” Carlson said.

As the student marchers made their way back to campus, local Port Townsend artist Elizabeth Lind, wielding a camera phone, promised she would share their activism online.

“I look at them, and I see myself,” Lind said. “I was 15 years old when I helped lead anti-war walkouts from my school 50 years ago.

Rather than social media, Lind and her fellow marchers organized by passing out flyers and armbands, so she’s heartened by the resources to which her successors in student protesting have access.

“It is a fascinating time to be alive,” Lind said. “At the same time, it’s like the summer of 1969 all over again.”