EDMONTON - Just after noon on a Friday in late June, a megaphone echoes across Edmontons Churchill Square.

Lets move out!

About 100 people start to move forward, hoisting signs and banners above their heads.

Four teens walk with a black coffin on their shoulders, the words OUR FUTURE emblazoned on it in white paint.

Escorted by police bicycles, they exit the downtown square and head to a rally on the legislature grounds. Some passersby on lunch breaks raise tentative fists in support, while others turn away awkwardly.

You know your shoes are made of petroleum! a construction worker shouts, prompting laughs from his colleagues.

Love to live in society, yet still want to make it better, 15-year-old Abram Ilcsion quips in return from the middle of the pack.

Ilcsion is one of the lead organizers of Edmonton Youth For Climate, a grassroots group that mobilizes young people in Alberta for climate-related causes. He helped put together this Student March For Climate, as well as one in May that drew over 700 supporters.

In a few months, hell be working on a province-wide general strike on Sept. 20 to bring attention to climate change. Hell also be entering the 11th grade. Having felt the impact of forest fire smoke his whole life, and inspired by Swedish teen climate activist Greta Thunberg , Ilcsion has thrown himself into organizing.

If nothing is done to stop climate change, the future will be completely devoid of hope, Ilcsion said. We need to implore ourselves and others that we will fight. And we will make ourselves a future that we can be proud of.