Greta Thunberg
Greta Thunberg is a Swedish climate activist who gained international recognition for her efforts to raise awareness about climate change and advocate for urgent environmental action. Born in 2003 in Stockholm, she developed a strong concern for the environment at a young age, leading her to begin protesting outside the Swedish parliament in 2018 with a sign that read "Skolstrejk för Klimatet" or "School Strike for Climate." This solitary protest sparked a global movement known as Fridays for Future, inspiring millions of students around the world to join in on weekly strikes for climate action.
Thunberg is known for her direct and impassioned speeches, where she critiques world leaders for their inaction on climate issues. She has spoken at significant platforms, including the United Nations and the World Economic Forum, emphasizing the need for immediate and substantial changes to combat climate change. Despite facing challenges such as online misrepresentation and personal struggles with mental health, including her diagnosis of Asperger syndrome, Thunberg remains a pivotal figure in the climate movement.
Her activism has garnered both applause and criticism from various political figures and institutions, and she has received numerous accolades, including being named one of Time magazine's most influential people in 2019. Thunberg continues to engage in environmental protests and has expanded her activism to include issues related to social justice and Indigenous rights.
Greta Thunberg
Activist
- Born: January 3, 2003
- Place of Birth: Stockholm, Sweden
Significance: Activist Greta Thunberg has drawn global attention to climate change and has inspired thousands of schoolchildren to strike to draw attention to the issue. She has addressed lawmakers, government bodies, and economic leaders and chided them for their failures to take meaningful action to reduce carbon emissions.
Background
Greta Thunberg was born in 2003 in Sweden to actor Svante Thunberg and opera singer Malena Ernman. She has a younger sister, Beata. Thunberg grew up in Stockholm, where she attended a local school, played the piano, took ballet and drama classes, and rode horses.
Thunberg became interested in climate change as a third-grader after watching educational films about plastics pollution in the ocean and the effects of global warming on Arctic animals. Her concern about the fate of Arctic mammals and threats to Earth stayed with her for several years, and by the age of eleven, she became deeply depressed as it seemed futile to study and prepare for a future she did not expect to have due to climate change. She stopped eating, speaking, and going to school. She lost about twenty-two pounds (ten kilograms) and stopped growing. During this time, she was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome (an autism spectrum disorder), attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), obsessive compulsive disorder, and selective mutism. Her parents wrote a book about the family adapting to her and her sister’s various challenges.
Thunberg became a vegan and shared her concerns about the environment with her family. She persuaded her parents to become vegans, put in a solar-power system, stop flying, and create a vegetable garden.
Climate Activism
In 2018 Thunberg won a writing contest for her essay on the need for governments to take immediate action to curb climate change. Shortly thereafter, she joined a group of environmentalists who shared ideas on how to raise awareness about climate change. Although the group members discussed ideas for protests, Thunberg could not persuade anyone to participate in a school strike. Inspired by American students who walked out of schools in a call for gun reform following the February 14, 2018, school shooting in Parkland, Florida, she decided to hold a protest on her own and call for the Swedish government to reduce carbon emissions further.
On August 20, 2018, Thunberg skipped school and biked to the Swedish parliament building in Stockholm. From 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., she sat outside the building and held a solitary vigil, holding a hand-painted sign with the words Skolstrejk for Klimatet (School Strike for Climate) and handing out flyers warning about climate change. Despite little interest from passersby, she decided to continue her strike until the national elections of September 9. For three weeks, she skipped school every day and sat on the steps of the parliament building. Within a few days, people began to join her sit-in and more joined as days went by. Other activists continued the vigil with her for the next three weeks. After the national elections were held, she returned to school for four days a week but continued her sit-in and school strike every Friday.
Thunberg’s sit-ins drew ample media attention in Sweden and sparked conversations about climate change. She wanted to do more, though, than just raise awareness about climate change. She wanted radical changes. While Sweden is often considered a global role model for its climate change legislation and plan to become a fossil fuel–free country, Thunberg stressed its carbon emissions had been increasing, not decreasing, and she wanted the country to take more drastic actions.
Thunberg’s sit-ins also drew global attention. In November 2018, she lectured at a TEDxStockholm event; by the following August, the online video had been viewed more than 2.7 million times. Thunberg was also soon invited to address COP24, the twenty-fourth Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, held in December 2018 in Katowice, Poland. There Thunberg bluntly chastised government officials and bodies for their failure to take significant action to address climate change. She exhorted her audience to forgo what is politically advantageous and to treat climate change as the crisis it is. With a directness unfettered by political correctness, she accused government officials of stealing their children’s futures and using excuses rather than finding solutions. Thunberg’s speech brought her international fame, and she gained a large following on social media.
On January 25, 2019, Thunberg addressed government officials and the financial elite at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. In a similar, no-holds-barred manner, she castigated the billionaire attendees for putting profits above the environment. She concluded her speech by comparing Earth to a house on fire, and challenged government and economic leaders to respond to the climate crisis as they would to a burning house.
Thunberg’s actions inspired students in cities around the world to hold their own school strikes and sit-ins, which led to the Fridays for Future movement (also known as the School Strike for Climate). On March 15, 2019, an estimated 2.2 million people in 135 countries walked out of classrooms in a unity call for governments to address climate change.
Thunberg took a yearlong hiatus from school in 2019–20. In September 2019, she made headlines again for sailing across the Atlantic in order to address the UN Climate Action Summit in New York City. As in Poland and Switzerland, she castigated the assembled officials for pinning their hopes on youth like her rather than taking meaningful action themselves. At that same summit, Thunberg and fifteen other youth filed a legal complaint against Argentina, Brazil, France, Germany, and Turkey, all signatories of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, for violating their rights by failing to reduce carbon emissions and encouraging fossil fuels. During her visit to the United States, Thunberg also protested outside the White House.
Following those events, Thunberg and her family faced challenges as their profile rose. They were misrepresented online and became the subjects of hoaxes and conspiracy theories. Because of attempts to co-opt her name recognition and the movement she began, Thunberg filed for trademark protections in January 2020.
Thunberg cowrote the family memoir Our House Is on Fire: Scenes of a Family and a Planet in Crisis, published in March 2020. Around the same time, she urged fellow climate strikers to move their ongoing protests online amid the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. She briefly resumed her own in-person protests at the Swedish parliament between late September and the end of October before returning to digital activism. Thunberg also published another book that year, No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference, an illustrated collection of the activist's speeches.
In the early 2020s, Thunberg worked to regain the momentum in the climate change movement that was lost during the pandemic. That included continuing to educate others on the threats from increasing global temperatures through her writing and through in-person protests. In 2023, Thunberg published her third book, The Climate Book, which included essays from dozens of experts about the climate crisis. She made headlines in early 2023 for attending protests in Norway against wind turbines that infringe on the traditional reindeer-herding land of Indigenous people there and for participating in a protest in Germany against that nation's rising greenhouse gas emissions in the public transportation sector. Following the outbreak of the Hamas-Israel war in October 2023, Thunberg became involved in pro-Palestinian protests. She also continued to participate in environmental protests throughout Europe, occasionally encountering the police during such events. In early 2024, she was arrested at a protest held at a German coal mine, and she was among dozens of protestors arrested at a climate march in The Hague, Netherlands, in April 2024.
Impact
Thunberg has brought increased attention to climate change and helped to elevate it to a key political issue for countries around the world. She has earned approbation from leaders such as former US president Barack Obama and Pope Francis, along with the scorn of others, including former British prime minister Theresa May and US president Donald Trump. She and thousands of young people around the world demonstrated to global lawmakers and government bodies what young people want from their leaders.
For her activism, Time magazine named Thunberg among its hundred most influential people of 2019, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) branded her the “greatest threat” to the industry, and she was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. She was also presented with Amnesty International's highest honor, the Ambassador of Conscience Award, and the Right Livelihood Award in 2019.
Thunberg also helped to educate the public about Asperger syndrome, a developmental disorder that affects social interactions and communication. She considers it a gift and has shown how some of its characteristics—such as forthright speech and a single-minded focus—can be an advantage rather than a limitation.
Personal Life
Thunberg lives in Stockholm. She enjoys cooking and spending time with her horse and two dogs.
Bibliography
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Haynes, Suyin. “‘Now I Am Speaking to the Whole World.’” Time, 16 May 2019, time.com/collection-post/5584902/greta-thunberg-next-generation-leaders. Accessed 10 July 2019.
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Thunberg, Greta. “The Disarming Case to Act Right Now on Climate Change.” TED: Ideas Worth Spreading, Nov. 2018, www.ted.com/talks/greta‗thunberg‗the‗disarming‗case‗to‗act‗right‗now‗on‗climate. Accessed 5 Aug. 2019.
Watts, Jonathan. “Greta Thunberg, Schoolgirl Climate Change Warrior.”The Guardian, 11 Mar. 2019, www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/11/greta-thunberg-schoolgirl-climate-change-warrior-some-people-can-let-things-go-i-cant. Accessed 10 July 2019.
Witt, Emily. “How Greta Thunberg Transformed Existential Dread into a Movement.” The New Yorker, 6 Apr. 2020, www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/how-greta-thunberg-transformed-existential-dread-into-a-movement. Accessed 2 Nov. 2020.