A group of students at Mt. Blue High School in Farmington staged a walk out Friday to demand climate action by politicians in the wake of Donald Trump's election win. It was part of a wider day of protests organized nationally by the Sunrise Movement, a youth climate action organization.
Senior Maya Kellett, who organized the protest hopes it will raise awareness and help to build community at her school.
"To bring people together in their frustration and their fear and just remind each other that we have the power to come together again," she said. "And that even though this election happened, that it doesn't mean that it's the end of our future."
President-elect Trump has called climate change a 'hoax', and promised on the campaign trail to roll back many of the climate policies put in place by the Biden administration. He has outlined plans to open publicly owned lands to drilling and has claimed he would stop wind power development 'on day one' in office.
"You are allowed to feel terrified, furious and betrayed as I am right now, but you cannot use those emotions to become apathetic, numb or disempowered," Kellett said in a speech to her cohort. "Our future is not worth losing."
Kellett said that although their first protest was small, she hopes to galvanize students at the school to show up and think more about climate change, and to form an official school club.