When I was 15 years old, I was feeling awkward in my braces, struggling to decide what infinity scarf I should wear for the day, and freaking out that I failed my temporary license test for the first time. When Greta Thunberg was 15, she was organizing demonstrations to raise awareness for global climate change outside of the Swedish parliament building known as Riksdag. I’ll give her this one.
In all seriousness, Thunberg is taking the world by storm and she is only 16 years old. After the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida in February 2018, the young woman was inspired by student activists protesting against lax gun control to push for her own beliefs in her country. Thunberg organized a school climate strike in Stockholm in which she sat outside of Riksdag and distributed leaflets that said:
“I am doing this because you adults are shitting on my future.”
Since then, the empowered teen has been featured in multiple magazines like British Vogue and TIME magazine where she was named one of the 100 most influential people of 2019. Thunberg has spoken with U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez about the Green New Deal that AOC submitted to the U.S. House of Representatives. United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has voiced his support for Thunberg on multiple occasions and has expressed his regret in saying that his generation is “not winning the battle against climate change” so now it’s up to the youth to “rescue the planet.” The Swedish teen has since started the Fridays For Future movement that involves over 100,000 schoolchildren across the world.
Greta has been making her way across the world by train and by boat (since she’s given up air travel to reduce her carbon footprint), speaking at different conventions and governmental agencies with the hope that her message isn’t falling on deaf ears. It’s unlikely that current governments will implement enough change for our parents generation to see, but if the younger generations continue to fight for our environment and make changes to their routine lifestyles, there is a possibility of major change for future generations to come.
This doesn’t mean a complete overhaul of your life; Greta Thunberg is an example of an extreme commitment. However if people make incremental changes to their daily lives like cutting back on meat, recycling or using reusable bottles/containers, turning off the AC for half of the week, and/or walking to places within a few miles, we can start to make a positive impact on our world. This is our home- lets not wreck it.