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6 Facts You *Need to Know* About Teenage Climate Change Activist Greta Thunberg

Everyone is talking about the 16-year-old from Sweden who gives death stares to world leaders. Here are a few things about her you might want to know...

06 February, 2020
6 Facts You *Need to Know* About Teenage Climate Change Activist Greta Thunberg

"How dare you?” asked Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old climate change activist from Sweden addressing some of the world’s most powerful people at the United Nations Climate Action Summit last week. “You are failing us,” she told them, accusing past generations of “stealing the dreams of her childhood.” Her speech has since been posted all over Social Media and met with praise, applause and even criticism. Amongst her supporters are Prince Harry (Duke of Sussex), Barrack Obama, and Hillary Clinton.


 

A Swedish high school student who started by protesting outside her nation's parliament, Thunberg has spent recent months bringing attention to global warming and its effects. Here are 6 facts about Greta Thunberg you might not know. 

1. She founded ‘Fridays For Future’.

Greta first caught the world’s attention with #FridaysFor Future, an international movement that started in 2018.  Greta who was 15 years old at that time, started taking time off from school to demonstrate against inaction on climate change. Her posts on social media went viral and inspired many others to follow suit.

2. She addressed a United Nations summit at age 15.

At the United Nations COP24 summit in Poland last year, she told assembled world leaders that they “have ignored us in the past, and you will ignore us again”, adding the powerful lines “ You say you love your children above all else, yet you are stealing their future in front of their eyes.”

3. She has been featured on the cover of Time magazine.

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Greta Thunberg was featured as a ‘next generation’ leader and was a part of the magazine’s 2019 list of 100 of the world’s most influential people.

4. She has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.

Greta has been nominated as a candidate to receive this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. If she wins, the 16-year-old would be the youngest Nobel Peace Prize laureate since Malala Yousafzai.

5. She chose to sail rather than fly across the Atlantic.

She chose to go on a two-week zero-emissions boat voyage across the Atlantic, traveling from Plymouth in the United Kingdom to New York City, popularising the movement of Flygskam or flight shaming amongst Swedes.

6. She is on the autism spectrum.

Greta calls her autism diagnosis a ‘superpower’, which she addressed in the following Instagram post

 In an interview to the New Yorker she had this to say:

 “I see the world a bit different, from another perspective. I have a special interest. It’s very common that people on the autism spectrum have a special interest.”

   Information courtesy: USA Today

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