Fighting climate change, one quip at a time

For thousands of student protesters around the world, the fate of the planet is a serious business, but some couldn't resist a bit of fun to press home the point to judge from their placards.

"The planet is getting hotter than my imaginary boyfriend," read a poster held by a teenager in Thailand. Another girl in Bangkok seemed to feel guilty about skipping classes to demonstrate. Her placard read: "I'm missing school for this (Better be worth it!)"

As protests spread to London, placards read: "Melt the 1% before they melt us", and "Act now or swim later," while in Vienna, two girls held up a card saying "Make love not Co2". In Australia, messages included: "We'll go to school when the earth is cool" and "No beer on a dead planet".

Rising sea levels inspired a terse warning from a woman in Melbourne, whose sign read: "Learn to change or learn to swim." Raging wildfires meanwhile prompted a pithy message from another Melbourne woman, whose picture of a burning Australia was captioned: "We're cactus mate!"

A group of protesters in Sri Lanka made a stern point: "Politicians who ignore climate change are climate criminals". Its effect was slightly undermined by the fact that they were dressed as cuddly cartoon characters.

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