Hundreds and hundreds of home-made placards, both scrawled and beautifully composed, gave out the message that young people will not tolerate the destruction of the planet by climate change...'Stop denying our earth is dying'... 'Planet before profit'... 'Global warming isn't cool...'
Well over one thousand school kids, students and workers packed St Peter's Square, cheering speaker after speaker who all called for older politicians and business people to get their heads out of the sand, to stop doing tokenistic gestures and to start doing something proper to stop climate change destruction.
Salford University student, Ben Day, who had earlier told the Salford Star that he was trying to prevent "potential societal collapse within my lifetime" was there with a banner reading 'Be on the right side of history – or be at the end of history'.
Meanwhile, Jo, a Salford mum who attended to see how widespread the support for the movement was, added: "I have to say it's absolutely brilliant that so many young people have turned out today to support their planet because at the end of the day it's these people who have to live with the consequences of what our generation have done; so I'm proud of them".
In under two weeks, Greater Manchester Mayor, Andy Burnham, will be holding a summit around a carbon neutrality target of 2038. Judging by today's action, the young people of Greater Manchester want urgent action way before then. As one of the placards stated, this is a 'Planet Emergency...with No Planet B!'