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Greta Thunberg

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Inside COP they are just politicians and people in power pretending to take our future seriously... We say no more blah blah blah. No more exploitation of people and the nature and the planets … no more...

Greta Thunberg (born 3 January 2003) is a Swedish climate activist. In August 2018, she initiated the School strike for climate movement and in early-December the same year she spoke at the United Nations Climate Change conference to denounce world leaders for their inaction.

Quotes

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Society must start treating this as a crisis... when it comes to action we are still in a state of denial... The only way forward is for society to start treating the crisis like a crisis... We have to face the climate emergency and change our ways... that is the uncomfortable truth we cannot escape.
For way too long, the politicians and the people in power have gotten away with not doing anything to fight the climate crisis, but we will make sure that they will not get away with it any longer. We are striking because we have done our homework and they have not.
It shouldn’t be up to us children and teenagers to make people wake up around the world. The ones in charge should be ashamed... We need to care about each other more.

2023

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  • Yesterday I was part of a group that peacefully protested the expansion of a coal mine in Germany. We were kettled by police and then detained but were let go later that evening... Climate protection is not a crime.
    • Quoted by: Reuters, Davos 2023: Greta Thunberg to meet IEA chief Birol, By Maha El Dahan, January 19, 2023
Climate protection is not a crime.

2022

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  • yes, please do enlighten me. email me at smalldickenergy@getalife.com
  • We are never going back to normal again, because "normal" was already a crisis. What we refer to as "normal" is an extreme system built on exploitation of people and planet. It is a system defined by colonialism, imperialism, oppression and genocide by the so-called Global North to accumulate wealth that still shapes our current world order. Some people say that the system is now malfunctioning, but that is not true. The system is doing exactly what it is meant to be doing. If economic growth is our only priority, then what we are experiencing now should be exactly what we should be expecting.
    • From her talk at the launch of her book The Climate Book, at 13:18 in the video (30 October 2022)

2021

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  • They invite cherry-picked young people to meetings like this to pretend that they listen to us. But they clearly don’t listen to us. Our emissions are still rising. The science doesn’t lie. We can no longer let the people in power decide what is politically possible. We can no longer let the people in power decide what hope is. Hope is not passive. Hope is not blah, blah, blah. Hope is telling the truth. Hope is taking action. And hope always comes from the people.
  • I’m just a teenager... My opinions on this doesn’t matter​. You should rather look at the science and whether his policies are in line with the Paris agreements and to stay below 1.5 or even 2 degrees Celsius, and then you can clearly see that, no, it’s not nearly enough in line with the science. That’s not me saying, that’s just black and white, looking at the facts​. I would just like you to basically just treat the climate crisis like a crisis. They have said themselves that this is an existential threat... They are just treating the climate crisis​ ​as it was a political topic, among other topics and, yeah, treat it as a crisis, that’s the No. 1 step​. So what we need now is to raise awareness and to create public opinion to treat the crisis like a crisis. Because if people are not aware of the crisis that we face, of course they wouldn’t put pressure on the elected leaders. So I would just tell him to, to tell the situation as it is... how can you expect support and pressure from voters if you are not treating the crisis like a crisis.
  • People need to enhance their knowledge about the environment and demand action against climate change... We need to educate ourselves to understand the global processes linked to the climate crisis, to see what’s happening to our planet. People must learn as much as they can – there’s unlimited amount of information – and spread this information to create a social movement and shift the social norm. Because if we are enough people who demand change and advocate climate action, we will reach a critical mass and will no longer be possible to ignore. It’s not a small task but it’s something that we simply need to do because there’s no other option. Restoring Nature is not only a solution to the climate crisis, but also to the biodiversity crisis and so on.
  • The worst-case scenario I guess I’ll buy second-hand, but I don’t need new clothes. I know people who have clothes, so I would ask them if I could borrow them or if they have something they don’t need any more. I don’t need to fly to Thailand to be happy. I don’t need to buy clothes I don’t need, so I don’t see it as a sacrifice. I’m not telling anyone else what to do, but there is a risk when you are vocal about these things and don’t practise as you preach, then you will become criticised for that and what you are saying won’t be taken seriously.... I don’t think it’s selfish to have children. It is not the people who are the problem, it is our behaviour...


Response to COP26 (November 2021)

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  • You can shove your climate crisis up your arse.
  • Inside COP they are just politicians and people in power pretending to take our future seriously, pretending to take the present seriously of the people who are being affected already today by the climate crisis. Change is not going to come from the inside; that is not leadership. This is leadership.
  • We say no more blah blah blah. No more exploitation of people and the nature and the planets … no more whatever the fuck they are doing inside there.
  • We are sick and tired of it and we are going to make the change whether they like it or not … We are not going to let them get away any more.

An Open Letter to the Global Media by Greta Thunberg and Vanessa Nakate (October 2021)

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  • If you want to truly cover the climate crisis, you must also report on the fundamental issues of time, holistic thinking and justice.
  • First, the notion of time. If your stories do not include the notion of a ticking clock, then the climate crisis is just a political topic among other topics, something we can just buy, build or invest our way out of. Leave out the aspect of time and we can continue pretty much like today and ”solve the problems” later on. 2030, 2050 or 2060.
  • Second, holistic thinking. When considering our remaining carbon budget we need to count all the numbers and include all of our emissions. Currently, you are letting high income nations and big polluters off the hook, allowing them to hide behind the incomplete statistics, loopholes and rhetoric they have fought so hard to create during the last 30 years.
  • Third, and most important of all, justice. The climate crisis isn’t just about extreme weather. It’s about people. Real people. And the very people who have done the least to create the climate crisis are suffering the most. And while the Global South is on the frontlines of the climate crisis, it’s almost never on the front pages of the world’s newspapers.
  • To … minimize the risks of setting off irreversible chain reactions beyond human control, we need immediate, drastic, annual emission reductions unlike anything the world has ever seen. And as we don’t have the technological solutions that alone will do anything close to that in the foreseeable future, it means we have to make fundamental changes in our society. This is the uncomfortable result of our leaders’ failure to address this crisis.
  • The media must hold the people in power accountable for their actions, or inactions.
  • We can still avoid the worst consequences, we can still turn this around. But not if we continue like today. You have the resources and possibilities to change the story overnight.
  • Whether or not you choose to rise to that challenge is up to you. Either way, history will judge you.

2020

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  • We are still speeding in the wrong direction. The five years following the Paris agreement have been the five hottest years ever recorded and, during that time, the world has emitted more than 200bn tonnes of CO2. Distant hypothetical targets are being set, and big speeches are being given. Yet, when it comes to the immediate action we need, we are still in a state of complete denial as we waste our time, creating new loopholes with empty words and creative accounting...
    Leaders should be telling the truth: that we are facing an emergency and we are not doing nearly enough. We need to prioritise the action that needs to be taken right here and right now, because it is right now that the carbon budget is being used up. We need to stop focusing on goals and targets for 2030 or 2050... We need to implement annual binding carbon budgets today.
    There is hope … we are the hope – we, the people... For me, the hope lies in democracy – it is the people who have the power. If enough people stand up together and repeat the same message, then there are no limits to what we can achieve.
They say it’s too hard — it’s too much of a challenge. But that’s what we are doing here. We have not given up because this is a matter of life and death for countless people.... Either we choose to go on as a civilization or we don’t... That is as black or white as it gets. There are no gray areas when it comes to survival.
The EU must lead the way. You have the moral obligation to do so and you have a unique economical and political opportunity to become a real climate leader. You, yourselves, declared that we are in a climate and environment emergency. You said this was an existential threat. Now you must prove that you mean it... a science-based pathway... Anything else is surrender. (4 March 2020)
  • We can have as many meetings as we like, but the will to change is nowhere in sight. Society must start treating this as a crisis...On Thursday 20 August, it will be exactly two years since the first school strike for the climate took place....
    Today, leaders all over the world are speaking of an “existential crisis”. The climate emergency is discussed on countless panels and summits. Commitments are being made, big speeches are given. Yet, when it comes to action we are still in a state of denial. The climate and ecological crisis has never once been treated as a crisis. The gap between what we need to do and what’s actually being done is widening by the minute. Effectively, we have lost another two crucial years to political inaction....
  • Still waiting for the EU and individual democratic nations to officially condemn the police brutality and attacks on the free press escalating the USA. For how long are we going to stand by, watch and say nothing?
  • Devastating to see the development taking place in the USA. Centuries of structural and systematic racism and social injustice won’t go away by itself. We need a global structural change. The injustices must come to an end. #BlackLivesMatter
  • Today is a shameful day for Europe, as we open up a brand new coal power plant. We have signed up to lead the way to avoid a climate disaster - and yet this the signal we send to the rest of the world? How dare you indeed
  • On Saturday @uniper_energy and Finnish state owned @Fortum will open a brand new coal power plant #Datteln4 in Germany. Those in power clearly lied when they said they cared about their children’s future. If you needed proof that their words and promises were empty, this is it.
  • In Sweden @FortumSverige is running a huge “green” campaign saying that “The future is already here”, and that they ”have decided to take care of the future”. This takes #greenwashing to a whole new dimension.
  • Very honoured to receive Human Act Award. The prize money - USD $100’000 - will be donated to @unicef . Human Act will match this donation with an additional USD 100,000. Today we’re launching a funding campaign to support UNICEF in the corona crisis.

Rolling Stone Interview: How one Swedish teenager armed with a homemade sign ignited a crusade and became the leader of a movement, Jack Davison, (March 2020)

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  • It seems like the people in power have given up... They say it’s too hard — it’s too much of a challenge. But that’s what we are doing here. We have not given up because this is a matter of life and death for countless people... Either we choose to go on as a civilization or we don’t... That is as black or white as it gets. There are no gray areas when it comes to survival.
  • I felt very alone that I was the only one who seemed to be worried about this... I was the only one left in this sort of bubble. Everyone else could just continue with their lives as usual, and I couldn’t do that... I thought what the Parkland students did was so brave... Of course, it was not the only thing that got me out of that feeling. I did it because I was tired of sitting and waiting. I tried to get others to join me, but no one was interested and no one wanted to do that. So I said, ‘I’m going to do this alone if no one else wants to do it.’ 
  • Because you grown-ups don’t give a damn about my future, neither do I. My name is Greta, I am in ninth grade, and I am going on strike from school for the climate. (Her twitter bio)
  • I have been on the road and visited numerous places and met people from all over the globe... I can say that it looks nearly the same everywhere I have been: The climate crisis is ignored by people in charge, despite the science being crystal clear. We don’t want to hear one more politician say that this is important but afterward do nothing to change it. We don’t want more empty words from people pretending to take our future seriously... It shouldn’t be up to us children and teenagers to make people wake up around the world. The ones in charge should be ashamed.
  • [In response to Time editor Edward Felsenthal question about how she dealt with all the haters] I would like to say something that I think people need to know more than how I deal with haters.
  • A teenager working on her anger management problem (her Twitter profile after Trump told her to chill out)
  • I’m very weak in a sense... I’m very tiny and I am very emotional, and that is not something people usually associate with strength. I think weakness, in a way, can be also needed because we don’t have to be the loudest, we don’t have to take up the most amount of space, and we don’t have to earn the most money...We don’t need to have the biggest car, and we don’t need to get the most attention... We need to care about each other more.

2019

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December 2019

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  • I see the world in black and white, and I don’t like compromising... If I were like everyone else, I would have continued on and not seen this crisis. (if her brain worked differently, she explained) I wouldn’t be able to sit for hours and read things I’m interested in.
  • One person stops flying doesn’t make much difference. The thing we should look at is the emissions curve—it’s still rising. Of course something is happening, but basically nothing is happening. The change is going to come from the people demanding action, and that is us.
    • Quoted in 2019 Person of the Year Greta Thunberg, by Charlotte Alter, Suyin Haynes, and Justin Worland, Time (December 2019)

September 2019

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I am here to say, our house is on fire... I want you to act as you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if our house is on fire. Because it is.
  • We have lots of unions who are planning to strike, so, I mean, adults striking from their work. And that is so incredibly important to show that this is such an — this is not just for children or teenagers. This is for everyone. And what we are doing, we are not, of course — I mean, we are striking to disrupt the system...
  • We are facing an existential crisis... it will have a massive impact on our lives in the future, but also now, especially in vulnerable communities. And I think that we should wake up, and we should also try to wake the adults up, because they are the ones who — their generation is the ones who are mostly responsible for this crisis, and we need to hold them accountable.
  • I have Asperger's syndrome and that means I'm sometimes a bit different from the norm. And - given the right circumstances - being different is a superpower. It makes you think differently. And especially in such a big crisis like this one we need to think outside the box. We need to think outside our current system, that we need people that think outside the box and who aren't like everyone else.

Guardian interviews (June and August 2019)

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  • It’s insane that a 16-year-old has to cross the Atlantic in order to take a stand, but that’s how it is. It feels like we are at a breaking point. Leaders know that more eyes on them, much more pressure is on them, that they have to do something, they have to come up with some sort of solution. I want a concrete plan, not just nice words.”
School strike for climate, Geneva, Switzerland (6 April 2019)
  • That happens all the time. That’s basically all I hear. The most common criticism I get is that I’m being manipulated and you shouldn’t use children in political ways, because that is abuse, and I can’t think for myself and so on. And I think that is so annoying! I’m also allowed to have a say – why shouldn’t I be able to form my own opinion and try to change people’s minds?
    But I’m sure you hear that a lot, too; that you’re too young and too inexperienced. When I see all the hate you receive for that, I honestly can’t believe how you manage to stay so strong.
  • Many people, especially in the US, see countries like Sweden or Norway or Finland as role models – we have such a clean energy sector, and so on. That may be true, but we are not role models. Sweden is one of the top 10 countries in the world when it comes to the highest ecological footprints, according to the WWF – if you count the consumer index, then we are among the worst per capita.
    In Sweden, the most common argument that we shouldn’t act is that we are such a small country with only 10 million inhabitants – we should focus more on helping other countries. That is so incredibly frustrating, because why should we argue about who or what needs to change first? Why not take the leading role?

"You did not act in time" (April 2019)

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Unite behind the science, that is our demand.
  • You lied to us. You gave us false hope. You told us that the future was something to look forward to. And the saddest thing is that most children are not even aware of the fate that awaits us. We will not understand it until it’s too late. And yet we are the lucky ones. Those who will be affected the hardest are already suffering the consequences. But their voices are not heard.
  • You don’t listen to the science because you are only interested in solutions that will enable you to carry on like before. Like now. And those answers don’t exist any more. Because you did not act in time.

February and March 2019

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  • I often talk to people who say, ‘No, we have to be hopeful and to inspire each other, and we can’t tell [people] too many negative things’ . . .  But, no — we have to tell it like it is. Because if there are no positive things to tell, then what should we do, should we spread false hope? We can’t do that, we have to tell the truth.

European Economic and Social Committee (February 2019)

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  • We need to focus every inch of our being on climate change, because if we fail to do so than all our achievements and progress have been for nothing and all that will remain of our political leaders’ legacy will be the greatest failure of human history. And they will be remembered as the greatest villains of all time, because they have chosen not to listen and not to act.
  • We have been told that the EU intends to improve its emission reduction targets. In the new target, the EU is proposing to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 45 percent below 1990’s level by 2030. Some people say that is good or that is ambitious. But this new target is still not enough to keep global warming below 1.5 °C. This target is not sufficient to protect the future for children growing up today. If the EU is to make its fair contribution to staying within the carbon budget for the 2 °C limit, then it means a minimum of 80 percent reduction by 2030 and that includes aviation and shipping. So it is around twice as ambitious as the current proposal.

World Economic Forum (January 2019)

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Today we use 100 million barrels of oil every single day...There are no rules to keep that oil in the ground... the rules have to be changed.

2018

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  • There are no emergency meetings, no headlines, no breaking news. No one is acting as if we were in a crisis. Even most climate scientists or green politicians keep on flying around the world, eating meat and dairy. … Today we use 100 million barrels of oil every single day. There are no politics to change that. There are no rules to keep that oil in the ground. So we can't save the world by playing by the rules. Because the rules have to be changed. Everything needs to change. And it has to start today.

"You are stealing our future" (December 2018)

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We must hold the older generations accountable for the mess they have created...
  • You only talk about moving forward with the same bad ideas that got us into this mess. Even when the only sensible thing to do is pull the emergency brake. You are not mature enough to tell it like it is. Even that burden you leave to your children.
  • We are about to sacrifice our civilization for the opportunity of a very small number of people to continue to make enormous amounts of money. [...] But it is the sufferings of the many which pay for the luxuries of the few. [...] You say that you love your children above everything else. And yet you are stealing their future.
  • We cannot solve a crisis without treating it as a crisis. [...] And if solutions within the system are so impossible to find, then maybe we should change the system itself?
  • We have not come here to beg world leaders to care. You have ignored us in the past and you will ignore us again. You've run out of excuses and we're running out of time. We've come here to let you know that change is coming, whether you like it or not. The real power belongs to the people.

"School Strike for Climate" (December 2018)

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"Almost Everything is Black and White" (October 2018)

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  • [...] why should I be studying for a future that soon will be no more, when no one is doing anything whatsoever to save that future? And what is the point of learning facts within the school system when the most important facts given by the finest science of that same school system clearly means nothing to our politicians and our society?
  • Today we use 100 million barrels of oil every day. [...] There are no rules to keep that oil in the ground. So we can't save the world by playing by the rules. Because the rules have to be changed. Everything needs to change. And it has to start today.
We cannot solve a crisis without treating it as a crisis... if solutions within the system are so impossible to find, then... we should change the system itself.


Misattributed

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  • We need to change the whole capitalist system
    • Variants suggesting Thunberg had said we needed to overthrow the “whole capitalist system” have been attributed to her, as in this Unherd article which includes the comment 'Only overthrow of "the whole capitalist system" will suffice', and this Telegraph article which comments on 'the “whole capitalist system” Ms Thunberg referred to', and this Washington Examiner article which says Thunberg was 'calling for a total upheaval of the "the whole capitalist system."'. These articles are discussing her speech and talk at the launch of her book The Climate Book which can be seen in this youtube video. In fact the quote came from Samira Ahmed who was interviewing her, who was discussing a section of the book and said at 59:20 "You say, 'humankind has not created this crisis, it was created by those in power to create unimaginable amounts of monies and to maintain a system that benefited them', you say we need to change the whole capitalist system." The last part of the sentence seems to be Ahmed's own summary of her reading of Thunberg's message rather than a direct quote, since Thunberg's comment in section 3.1 of The Climate Book did not refer to "the capitalist system": "Humankind has not created this crisis – it was created by those in power, and they knew exactly what priceless values they were sacrificing in order to make unimaginable amounts of money and to maintain a system that benefitted them. It is – among other things – the social and economic structures which generate such perverse inequalities that are driving us towards the ecological precipice. It is the idea of infinite growth on a finite planet."
    • Samira Ahmed may have been thinking of a Thunberg quote from section 4.1 which did indict "capitalist consumerism", though it also criticized other "current political ideologies": "Leaving capitalist consumerism and market economics as the dominant stewards of the only known civilization in the universe will most likely seem, in retrospect, to have been a terrible idea. But let us keep in mind that when it comes to sustainability, all previous systems have failed too. Just like all current political ideologies – socialism, liberalism, communism, conservatism, centrism, you name it. They have all failed. But, in fairness, some have certainly failed more than others." On 2 Nov 2022 Thunberg referenced this section of the book in a tweet which criticized "climate deniers and delayers" for making up false quotes and attributing them to her.

Quotes about Thunberg

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2022

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  • a new generation of climate activists are emerging all across the globe. The Youth Strike for Climate, also known as Fridays for Future, began in 2018 after Swedish youth activist Greta Thunberg staged a protest in front of the Swedish parliament holding a sign that read "Skolstrejk för klimatet" (School Strike for Climate). Her actions, along with those of several other brave students, resulted in an international movement of students of various ages that demonstrated and walked out of Friday classes to demand climate action, a transition to renewable energy, and a commitment to stopping the climate crisis. By 2019, over one million demonstrators, primarily students, across 150 countries had participated in the protests.
    • Leah Thomas The Intersectional Environmentalist: How to Dismantle Systems of Oppression to Protect People + Planet (2022)

2021

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  • Climate activist Greta Thunberg has joked that she is adopting a "net-zero" approach to cursing, an apparent response to criticism of her use of strong language at a demonstration earlier this week... On Monday, Thunberg joined other "Fridays for Future" activists at a demonstration at Festival Park in Glasgow, near the UN climate summit, where she once again mocked politicians for their inaction on climate. She said the politicians and delegates gathered at the COP talks were "pretending to take our future seriously." Over the weekend, the environmental campaigner received a rock star welcome when she was mobbed by supporters at Glasgow's Central Station... After traveling north from London by train, Thunberg appeared to be in good spirits, giving photographers a thumbs-up as she made her way through the station upon arrival, surrounded by police and fellow climate activists.
  • Climate change activist Greta Thunberg implored President Biden to get serious about tackling environmental issues facing the world and suggested the new administration has not done enough in the arena during his first two months in office.
    • Greta Thunberg presses Biden administration to 'treat climate crisis like a crisis', by Dominick Mastrangelo, The Hill, (09 March 2021)
  • I heard this young girl from Sweden. I really felt: Oh, there is real hope from our younger generation who really thinking this environment and these things... Our generation has created problem of climate change. When I heard Greta speaking on issue climate change I felt there was hope from younger generation. I really admire her. It was really encouraging that a younger member of human community was showing courage to fight for environment. We should let the younger generation help resolve the problem of climate change.
  • Greta Thunberg says she has stopped buying new clothes but does not sit in judgment on others whose lifestyle choices are less environmentally friendly than her own, in an interview to mark her 18th birthday... Asked what she thought of celebrities who talk about the climate emergency while flying around the world, the teenager declined to criticise them, although warned that others might. “I don’t care,” she told the Sunday Times magazine. “I’m not telling anyone else what to do, but there is a risk when you are vocal about these things and don’t practise as you preach, then you will become criticised for that and what you are saying won’t be taken seriously.” Avoiding long flights is one of the most effective ways individuals can reduce their carbon emissions but the biggest impact is from not having children, according to studies. Nevertheless Thunberg was not about to tell people not to procreate. “I don’t think it’s selfish to have children,” she said. “It is not the people who are the problem, it is our behaviour.” While her lifestyle is far removed from that of most western teenagers, Thunberg says she does not feel she is missing out. On clothes, she said: “The worst-case scenario I guess I’ll buy second-hand, but I don’t need new clothes. I know people who have clothes, so I would ask them if I could borrow them or if they have something they don’t need any more. I don’t need to fly to Thailand to be happy. I don’t need to buy clothes I don’t need, so I don’t see it as a sacrifice.”

2020

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  • The world is speeding in the wrong direction in tackling the climate emergency, Greta Thunberg has said, before a UN event at which national leaders have been asked to increase their pledges for emissions cuts. Thunberg, whose solo school strike in 2018 has snowballed into a global youth movement, said there was a state of complete denial when it came to the immediate action needed, with leaders giving only distant promises and empty words.
  • Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg said Wednesday the foundation set up in her name would donate 150,000 euros ($175,000) to charities working to support "people on the frontlines of the climate crisis in Africa." The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, the solar power-focused NGO Solar Sister, as well as advocacy group Oil Change International, would each receive 50,000 euros ($59,000) for their efforts in Africa... In August, the 17-year-old... returned to school after taking a year off to campaign to curb climate change.
    • Greta Thunberg Foundation donates to Africa climate projects, AFP, Yahoo News (23 September 2020)
  • Greta Thunberg and a group of other children have pushed forward their legal complaint at the UN against countries they accuse of endangering children’s wellbeing through the climate crisis, despite attempts to have it thrown out. The 16 children, including the Swedish environmental activist, lodged a legal case with the UN committee on the rights of the child against Argentina, Brazil, France, Germany and Turkey last September. They alleged that the countries – which are legally obliged to protect children under the UN convention on the rights of the child – breached those obligations by failing to protect them from the “direct, imminent and foreseeable risk to their health and wellbeing” posed by the climate crisis.
  • Greta Thunberg, the Swedish climate activist, is partnering with UNICEF on a campaign to help children around the world who have been affected by the coronavirus pandemic. The campaign aims to stop the consequences of the pandemic, by protecting children from food shortages, strained healthcare systems, violence and lost education, according to the statement from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). The campaign will also provide items like soap, masks, gloves, hygiene kits, protective equipment to medical centers in need. Thunberg donated $100,000 to UNICEF to start the campaign along with Human Act, a Danish NGO, that is matching her donation.
  • I find a scrum of reporters interviewing a child in a purple puffer jacket, pink mittens, and a homemade-looking knit hat. It takes me a minute to realize that it’s Greta. She is 17, but could pass for 12. I can’t quite square the fiery speaker with the micro teen in front of me... Of course, this is emphatically wrong. Greta Thunberg has Asperger’s, which, she says, gives her pinpoint focus on climate minutiae while parrying and discarding even the smallest attempt at flattery. We stand near the Swedish Parliament house, where less than two years ago Thunberg started her Skolstrejk för klimatet, School Strike for Climate. Back then, it was just Greta, a sign, and a lunch of bean pasta in a reusable glass jar. Then it was two people, and then a dozen, and then an international movement. I mention the bravery of her speeches, but she waves me away. She wants to talk about the loss of will among the olds.
  • Thunberg stated that, at the current rate, we have eight years to change everything. Thunberg’s face was controlled fury. This was the persona: an adolescent iron-willed truth teller. The Davos one-percenters clapped and rattled their Rolexes. It has become a disconcerting pattern for Thunberg appearances that would be repeated at the European Commission: Greta tells the adults they are fools and their plans are lame and shortsighted. They still give her a standing ovation. A few minutes later, she was gone and the audience dispersed into a fleet of black BMWs and Mercedes, belching diesel into the Alpine sky.
  • “The phrase ‘A little child shall lead them’ has come to mind more than once,” Al Gore tells me in Davos, before sharing his favorite Greta moment. It was at the U.N. summit last fall. “She said to the assembled world leaders, ‘You say you understand the science, but I don’t believe you. Because if you did and then you continue to act as you do, that would mean you’re evil. And I don’t believe that.’” Gore shook his head in wonderment. “Wow.” He then gives a history lesson: “There have been other times in human history when the moment a morally-based social movement reached the tipping point was the moment when the younger generation made it their own. Here we are.”
  • On 20 August 2018, the first day of the school year, 15-year-old autistic school student Greta Thunberg began a solo school strike demanding government action on climate change. Instead of going to class, she printed leaflets declaring "We kids most often don’t do what you tell us to do. We do as you do. And since you grown-ups don’t give a shit about my future, I won’t either. My name is Greta and I’m in ninth grade. And I refuse school for the climate until the Swedish general election." Then she headed to the Swedish parliament building where she protested alone. Within a couple of days a handful of people began to join her, and she gave numerous interviews to journalists, making headlines around the world. Within a few months, hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren in hundreds of towns and cities around the world organised their own walkouts. While Thunberg as inspired many young people, some commentators have pointed out that she received much more favourable media coverage than Indigenous youth who have been using direct action and fighting police to protect biodiversity and fight climate change for years in places like Standing Rock in the United States.

2019

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  • Her image has been celebrated in murals and Halloween costumes, and her name has been attached to everything from bike shares to beetles. Margaret Atwood compared her to Joan of Arc. After noticing a hundredfold increase in its usage, lexicographers at Collins Dictionary named Thunberg’s pioneering idea, climate strike, the word of the year.
  • So many people have made death threats against her family that she is now often protected by police when she travels. But for the most part, she sees the global backlash as evidence that the climate strikers have hit a nerve. “I think that it’s a good sign actually,” she says. “Because that shows we are actually making a difference and they see us as a threat.”
  • The politics of climate action are as entrenched and complex as the phenomenon itself, and Thunberg has no magic solution. But she has succeeded in creating a global attitudinal shift, transforming millions of vague, middle-of-the-night anxieties into a worldwide movement calling for urgent change. She has offered a moral clarion call to those who are willing to act, and hurled shame on those who are not. She has persuaded leaders, from mayors to Presidents, to make commitments where they had previously fumbled: after she spoke to Parliament and demonstrated with the British environmental group Extinction Rebellion, the U.K. passed a law requiring that the country eliminate its carbon footprint. She has focused the world’s attention on environmental injustices that young indigenous activists have been protesting for years. Because of her, hundreds of thousands of teenage “Gretas,” from Lebanon to Liberia, have skipped school to lead their peers in climate strikes around the world.
    • 2019 Person of the Year Greta Thunberg, by Charlotte Alter, Suyin Haynes, and Justin Worland, Time] (December 2019)
  • Tokata Iron Eyes, an environmental activist, invited Thunberg, a fellow 16-year-old, to her homelands on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota, after befriending her... the duo spoke at the Standing Rock high school about the burgeoning youth-led climate movement that has seen millions of people strike from school and protest against fossil-fuel projects around the world. “This is a global fight; this is not just in my home country in Sweden,” Thunberg said. “We as teenagers shouldn’t be the ones taking responsibility. It should be the ones in power.” Iron Eyes said... “No 16-year-old should have to travel the world in the first place sharing a message about having something as simple as clean water and fresh air to breathe,”... In a closing ceremony, Thunberg was gifted with a Lakota Native American name, Maphiyata echiyatan hin win, which translates as “woman who came from the heavens”.
Our leadership has failed us. Young people must hold older generations accountable for the mess they have created. We need to get angry, and transform that anger into action.
  • Thunberg's blithe disregard for the benefits of economic growth is not uncommon for people from wealthy countries who are already living in an industrialized world built by the fossil fuels of yesteryear. For them, they associate additional economic growth with access to high fashion and luxury cars. But for the billions of human beings living outside these places, fossil-fuel-driven industrialization can be the difference between life and death.
  • Greta has the sense of moral clarity and laser focus that is one of the things I love and value about myself and other autistic people. We’re different — I’m brown, she’s white, and I feel more political commonality with Black and Brown young climate activists like Isra Hirsi and Autumn Peltier who are making connections between colonialism, racism and climate justice. But when I look at Greta’s unsmiling, outraged face, I feel a sense of autistic intimacy. But women are supposed to smile and be polite, don’t you know? Women and non-cis guys are supposed to be gracious and gentle and apologize and make eye contact. Autistic women and non-cis guys are often under even more pressure to keep up with traditional, neurotypical gender standards. We are not supposed to just say what the fuck we believe, call people out, and not smile doing it. We are not supposed to be autistic in public, without apology, let alone have any kind of radical politics. But Greta is.
  • Greta Thunberg is one of the great truth-tellers of this or any time. Let me refresh your memories about some of her most iconic lines. To the U.N. climate negotiators in Poland last December, she said: “You are not mature enough to tell it like it is. Even that burden you leave to us children.”
  • To the British MPs who asked her to speak, she asked, “Is my English OK? Is the microphone on? Because I’m beginning to wonder.”
  • To the rich and mighty at Davos who praised her for giving them hope, she replied, “I don’t want your hope. … I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. I want you to act. I want you to act as you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if the house is on fire, because it is.”
  • She also told them that not everyone is to blame for the climate crisis. No, she looked them in the eye and said that they were to blame. And we will always love her for that.
  • People can sneer all they want at Ms. Thunberg, just as their predecessors sneered at earlier protest movements and called them a waste of time. But many of those campaigns did have an effect. Some stopped wars. Some brought about laws that outlawed racist policies. Some stopped whales from being butchered indiscriminately. No, Greta Thunberg is not going to save the planet on her own. But at least she is holding those in a position to do something about climate change to account, speaking hard truths many others are afraid to. She is not an attention seeker. She is a young person frightened to death about the state of the world she is inheriting. Sure, mumble that she is a disillusioned naif if you wish. I prefer to think of Ms. Thunberg as something else: a powerful and vital new voice in the climate debate. And someone who deserves support, encouragement and thanks from her fellow global citizens.
  • Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish climate activist who started the Friday school strikes, has graduated from secondary education with 14 As and three Bs. She got these excellent grades despite being absent from class far more than most of her followers: As the leader of a movement, an international celebrity, and a Nobel Peace Prize nominee, she traveled extensively during her last school year.
  • The contrast between Thunberg’s academic achievement and her attendance record raises important questions. What kind of example does she set for the millions of kids who skipped school to participate in the climate protests? Should attendance be compulsory and, if so, why should it be required for someone like Thunberg? In Sweden, nine years of full-time education are mandatory and home-schooling is practically illegal...
  • What if Thunberg is offering policy makers two messages for the price of one? The first is, of course, about climate. But the second is that the world wouldn’t come to an end if the school week were shortened by a day. Going to a rally and reading up about the issues involved might do more good than polishing a chair in class... Homeschooling isn’t the answer... For her part, Thunberg is done wasting her time, at least for now. She is taking the next school year off to continue her climate change campaign. Whatever school she ends up in next is unlikely to make stringent attendance demands on a potential Nobel Peace Prize winner.
  • Greta is built in a laboratory! She has the proper face, the proper pigtails, the proper illness, she is properly little... She and all her family settled down forever, but it is evident that they are used. After two days she shook hands with miss Christine Lagarde, who leads the IMF. She is pure laboratory creation.
School strike for climate, also known in various regions as Fridays for Future, Youth for Climate or Youth Strike 4 Climate, is a growing international movement of pupils and students who, instead of attending classes, are taking part in demonstrations to demand action to prevent further global warming and climate change. ~Wikipedia
  • The students striking from schools around the world to demand action on climate change have issued an uncompromising open letter stating: “We are going to change the fate of humanity, whether you like it or not.” The letter, published by the Guardian, says: “United we will rise on 15 March and many times after until we see climate justice... Thunberg, now 16 years old and who began the strikes with a solo protest beginning last August... was one of about 3,000 student demonstrators in Antwerp, Belgium on Thursday, and joined protesters in Hamburg on Friday morning...
  • Over the past six months, she has become a superstar of the climate change movement. Her school strike, which started out with her sitting alone on a camping mat next to parliament, was swiftly highlighted by the media...She speaks softly, often simply nodding when addressed... she only speaks when necessary.
  • She says her dad often asks her to tone down her speeches, which she writes herself. “He becomes scared when he reads it, he is like, you shouldn’t say this, it is too provocative,” she says...
  • In 1429 Joan of Arc (17) led French troops to victory over English forces at the Siege of Orleans after she had a vision. Today, eco warrior Greta Thunberg (15) is leading the battle against the ravages of climate change. Greta has vision. She’s taken the leadership mantle from Joan of Arc whether she knows it or not. Some things in life just happen! For nearly three decades, the global movement to fix climate change has been stuck in low or no-gear ever since the nations of the world agreed to cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 1992 at the Kyoto Protocol. It’s been a dry run ever since, nothing of consequence happens. Fortunately, Joan of Arc’s contemporary counterpart Greta Thunberg has swept onto the scene from Sweden.... Greta is equally committed to justice as Joan of Arc, but it is climate justice rather than recapturing sovereign territory. Several weeks ago Greta went on strike from school to protest, sitting on cobblestones outside parliament in central Stockholm, handing out leaflets to adults, informing them of their failure to fight the climate crisis.

2018

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  • Thurnberg has an uncanny ability to concentrate... “I can do the same thing for hours,” she said....She began researching climate change and has stayed on the topic for six years. She has stopped eating meat and buying anything that is not absolutely necessary. In 2015, she stopped flying on airplanes, and a year later, her mother followed suit, giving up an international performing career. The family has installed solar batteries and has started growing their own vegetables on an allotment outside the city. To meet me in central Stockholm, Thunberg and her father rode their bikes for about half an hour; the family has an electric car that they use only when necessary.

See also

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