Teenager Greta Thunberg’s environmentalist activism is taking over the world. She is leading a movement by encouraging young people to get their governments to combat climate change.
The 16-year-old started protesting last summer by herself outside the Swedish government until the country supported the Paris Agreement. And a year later, she’s a rising star whose bold actions encouraged students to strike over climate change.
She once said, “I don’t want your hope. I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. And act as if our house is on fire. Because it is.” She is the voice of a generation as thousands of students in various European cities have taken to the streets to protest against government procrastination over climate change.
Worldwide, students have been gathering weekly to stand up against the grown-ups and stand up for what they believe in by demanding that adults protect their future from climate-change disasters. This movement is expanding globally. When protesting, their signs read, “The ocean is rising and so are we,” “Make our planet great again,” “There is no Planet B.” and “Act now or swim later.”
A group gathered outside of 10 Downing Street recently where the British prime minister lives, and chanted “What do we want? Climate justice. When do we want it? Now.” In late January, some 30,000 students protested in three Belgian cities. The same week, more than 10,000 skipped school in Germany.
At last December’s UN Climate Change Conference in Poland, Thunberg declared to delegates: “You are not mature enough to tell it like it is, even that burden you leave to us children.” And that was the minute the world responded.
Her name is associated with these “Fridays for Future” movements which are spreading across the world. Each Friday since August, the teenager has missed school to sit on the steps outside the parliament in Stockholm in protest. Rather than hoping for change, she is taking action. She has even convinced her parents to stop flying, become vegan, install solar batteries, grow their own vegetables and only use their electric car when necessary.
Thunberg struggles with special needs. She was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and selective mutism, meaning she only speaks when she feels compelled to do so. But she sees her condition as a gift. “We aren’t very good at lying and we don’t normally enjoy participating in the social game that the rest of you seem so fond of,” she drily quipped in her TEDx talk.
The teenager even credits the “black and white” viewpoint of autism with helping her see the reality of climate change. “Either we limit the warming to 1.5°C over pre-industrial levels, or we don’t,” she wrote. “There are no grey areas when it comes to survival.”
“I’ve learnt you are never too small to make a difference,” she told the UN conference last year. “And if a few children can get headlines all over the world just by not going to school, then imagine what we could all do together if we really wanted to.”