Strikers assert that “marginalized communities,” including the impoverished, disabled, LGBT and minorities, and the economically displaced should be foremost on the minds of policymakers.

The game is further given up when the strikers endorse progressive reforms that relate to climate change only as a result of a stretch of the imagination. Among them, the creation of state-owned banks, affordable housing, “local living-wage jobs” and “fully paid quality health care” for affected populations. //

All this fits with the organizer’s prime directive: the “implementation of a Green New Deal,” the bulk of which is only tangentially related to environmentalism. //

“The interesting thing about the Green New Deal is it wasn’t originally a climate thing at all,” confesses Saikat Chakrabarti, former chief of staff to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. “We really think of it as a how-do-you-change-the-entire-economy thing.” He wasn’t kidding. //

Unfortunately for students, the movement is not about education but indoctrination. One of the final demands, “comprehensive climate change education,” is to be aimed at children ages 5 through 14 because “impressionability is high during that developmental stage.”

If the climate threat eventually leads to radical national action, it will only be because the concept is drilled into youngsters “from the beginning.” Of course, it’s unclear why such a long-term strategy is necessary, given that we have only “11 years” left to avert disaster.