Greta Thunberg

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Greta Thunberg

FRSGS
Thunberg September 2023, Stockholm, Sweden
Thunberg in 2023
Born
Greta Tintin Eleonora Ernman Thunberg

(2003-01-03) 3 January 2003 (age 21)
Stockholm, Sweden
Occupation
Years active2018–present
MovementSchool Strike for Climate
Parents
RelativesOlof Thunberg (grandfather)
AwardsFull list
Signature

Greta Tintin Eleonora Ernman Thunberg (Swedish pronunciation: [ˈɡrêːta ˈtʉ̂ːnbærj] ; born 3 January 2003) is a Swedish environmental activist known for challenging world leaders to take immediate action for climate change mitigation.[1]

Thunberg's climate activism began when she persuaded her parents to adopt lifestyle choices that reduced her family's carbon footprint. At age 15, Thunberg began skipping school on 20 August 2018, vowing to remain out of school until after the national Swedish election in an attempt to influence the outcome. She protested outside the Swedish parliament where she called for stronger action on climate change by holding up a Skolstrejk för klimatet (School Strike for Climate) sign and handing out informational flyers.[2] After the election, Thunberg spoke in front of her supporters, telling them to use their phones to film her. She then said that she would be continuing school striking for the climate every Friday until Sweden was in compliance with the 2015 Paris climate agreement.[3] Thunberg's youth and blunt speaking manner fueled her rise to the status of a global icon.[4]

Shortly after Thunberg's first school strike for the climate protest, other students engaged in similar protests in their communities. They then united and organized the school strike for climate movement under the banner of

How dare you" in reference to their perceived indifference and inaction to the climate crisis. Her admonishment made worldwide headlines.[7][8][9]

Thunberg's rise to world fame made her an ad hoc leader in the climate activist community.

After Thunberg graduated from high school in June 2023, her protest tactics began to escalate.[17] As an adult, her protests have included defying lawful orders to disperse—and peaceful but defiant confrontations with police—which have led to arrests, convictions, and one acquittal.[18][19] Thunberg's activism has also evolved to include causes other than climate change, most notably the Israel–Hamas war. Thunberg co-authored an op-ed titled "We won't stop speaking out about Gaza's suffering – there is no climate justice without human rights" wherein she articulated her and Sweden's Fridays for Future's position.[20]

Early life

Greta Tintin Eleonora Ernman Thunberg[21][22] was born on 3 January 2003, in Stockholm, Sweden,[23][24] to opera singer Malena Ernman and actor Svante Thunberg.[25][26] Her paternal grandfather was actor and director Olof Thunberg.[27][28][29] As explained by The Week, "with a thespian father" and singer mother, "it is perhaps unsurprising that [Thunberg] has a slightly unusual name.... Thunberg shares her second name with the adventuring creation of Belgian cartoonist Georges Remi, better known as Hergé."[30] She has a younger sister, Beata.[26]

Thunberg says she first heard about climate change in 2011, when she was eight years old, and could not understand why so little was being done about it.[32][26] The situation depressed her, and as a result, at the age of 11, she stopped talking and eating much and lost ten kilograms (22 lb) in two months.[33] Eventually, she was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD), and selective mutism.[32][26] In one of her first speeches demanding climate action, Thunberg described her selective mutism as meaning she "only speaks when necessary".[32]

Thunberg struggled with depression for almost four years before she began her school strike campaign.[34] When she started protesting, her parents did not support her activism. Her father said he did not like her missing school but added: "[We] respect that she wants to make a stand. She can either sit at home and be really unhappy, or protest and be happy."[35] Her diagnosis of Asperger's syndrome was made public nationwide in Sweden by her mother in May 2015, in order to help families in similar situations.[36] While acknowledging that her diagnosis "has limited [her] before", Thunberg does not view her Asperger's as an illness, and has instead called it her "superpower".[37] She was later described as not only the best-known climate change activist, but also the best-known autism activist.[38] In 2021, Thunberg said that many people in the Fridays for Future movement are autistic, and very inclusive and welcoming. She thinks that the reason so many autistic people become climate activists is that they cannot look away, and have to tell the truth as they see it: "I know lots of people who have been depressed, and then they have joined the climate movement or Fridays for Future and have found a purpose in life and found friendship and a community that they are welcome in." She considers the best things that have resulted from her activism to be friendships and happiness.[38]

For about two years, Thunberg challenged her parents to lower the family's carbon footprint and overall impact on the environment by becoming vegan, upcycling, and giving up flying.[25][39][40] She has said she showed them graphs and data, but when that did not work, she warned her family that they were stealing her future.[41] Giving up flying in part meant her mother had to abandon international ventures in her opera career.[35] Interviewed in December 2019 by the BBC, her father said: "To be honest, [her mother] didn't do it to save the climate. She did it to save her child, because she saw how much it meant to her, and then, when she did that, she saw how much [Greta] grew from that, how much energy she got from it."[42] Thunberg credits her parents' eventual response and lifestyle changes with giving her hope and belief that she could make a difference.[25] Asked in September 2021 whether she felt guilty about ending her mother's international career, she was surprised by the question: "It was her choice. I didn't make her do anything. I just provided her with the information to base her decision on."[38] The family's story is recounted in the 2018 book Scenes from the Heart,[43] updated in 2020 as Our House Is on Fire: Scenes of a Family and a Planet in Crisis, with contributions from the girls, and the whole family credited as authors.[38][44]

Activism

Strike at the Riksdag

Thunberg in front of the Swedish parliament, holding a "Skolstrejk för klimatet" (transl. School Strike for the Climate) sign, Stockholm, August 2018
climate crisis
must be treated as a crisis! The climate is the most important election issue!" (11 September 2018)
Sign in Berlin, 14 December 2018
Thunberg speaking at the annual climate conference, Austrian World Summit, 2019

In August 2018, Thunberg began the school climate strikes and public speeches for which she has become an internationally recognized

school shootings in the United States in February 2018 led several youths to refuse to return to school.[25] These teen activists at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, went on to organize the March for Our Lives in support of greater gun control.[45][46] In May 2018, Thunberg won a climate change essay competition held by Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet. In part, she wrote: "I want to feel safe. How can I feel safe when I know we are in the greatest crisis in human history?"[47]

After the paper published her article, Thunberg was contacted by Bo Thorén from Fossil Free Dalsland, a group interested in doing something about climate change. Thunberg attended a few of their meetings. At one of them, Thorén suggested that school children could strike for climate change.[48] Thunberg tried to persuade other young people to get involved but "no one was really interested", so eventually she decided to go ahead with the strike by herself.[25]

On 20 August 2018, Thunberg, who had just started ninth grade, decided not to attend school until the

carbon emissions in accordance with the Paris Agreement, and she protested by sitting outside the Riksdag every day for three weeks during school hours with the sign Skolstrejk för klimatet ("School strike for climate").[49][50]

Thunberg said her teachers were divided about her missing class to make her point. She says: "As people, they think what I am doing is good, but as teachers, they say I should stop."[35]

Social media activism

After Thunberg posted a photo of her first strike day on Instagram and Twitter, other social media accounts quickly took up her cause. High-profile youth activists amplified her Instagram post, and on the second day, other activists joined her. A representative of the Finnish bank Nordea quoted one of Thunberg's tweets to more than 200,000 followers. Thunberg's social media profile attracted local reporters, whose stories earned international coverage in little more than a week.[51]

One Swedish climate-focused social media company was We Don't Have Time (WDHT), founded by Ingmar Rentzhog. He said her strike began attracting public attention only after he turned up with a freelance photographer and posted Thunberg's photograph on his Facebook page and Instagram account, and a video in English that he posted on the company's YouTube channel.[52] Rentzhog subsequently asked Thunberg to become an unpaid youth advisor to WDHT. He then used her name and image without her knowledge or permission to raise millions for a WDHT for-profit subsidiary, We Don't Have Time AB, of which he is the chief executive officer.[53] Thunberg stated that she received no money from the company[52] and terminated her volunteer advisor role with WDHT once she realized they were making money from her name.[54]

Throughout the autumn of 2018, Thunberg's activism evolved from a solitary protest to taking part in demonstrations throughout Europe, making several high-profile public speeches, and mobilizing her followers on social media platforms. In December, after Sweden's 2018 general election, Thunberg continued to school strike—but only on Fridays. She inspired school students across the globe to take part in her Friday school strikes. In December alone, more than 20,000 students held strikes in at least 270 cities.[55]

Thunberg spoke out against the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (Undergraduate) 2020 and Joint Entrance Examination 2020 entrance exams, which were conducted in India in September. She said it was unfair for students to have to appear for exams during a global pandemic. She also said that India's students had been deeply impacted by the floods that hit states such as Bihar and Assam, which caused mass destruction.[56]

On 3 February 2021, Thunberg tweeted[57] her support of the ongoing 2020–2021 Indian farmers' protest. Effigies of Thunberg were burned in Delhi by nationalists who opposed the farmers' protests.[58] Thunberg's tweet was criticized by the BJP-led Indian government, which said that it was an internal matter.[59] In her initial tweet, Thunberg linked to a document that provided a campaigning toolkit for those who wanted to support the farmers' protest. It contained advice on hashtags and how to sign petitions, and it also included suggested actions beyond those directly linked to the farmers' protest. She soon deleted the tweet, saying the document was "outdated", and linked to a different one[60][61] "to enable anyone unfamiliar with the ongoing farmers protests in India to better understand the situation and make decisions on how to support the farmers based on their own analysis."[62][63] The Indian climate activist who edited the toolkit, Disha Ravi, was arrested under the charges of sedition and criminal conspiracy on 16 February 2021.[64]

Protests and speeches in Europe

Thunberg's speech during the plenary session of the 2018 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP24) went viral.[65] She said that the world leaders present were "not mature enough to tell it like it is".[66] In the first half of 2019, she joined various student protests around Europe, and was invited to speak at various forums and parliaments. At the January 2019 World Economic Forum, Thunberg gave a speech in which she declared: "Our house is on fire."[67] She addressed the British, European and French parliaments; in the latter case several right-wing politicians boycotted her.[68][69] In a short meeting with Thunberg, Pope Francis thanked her and encouraged her to continue her activism.[70]

By March 2019, Thunberg was still staging her regular protests outside the Swedish parliament every Friday, where other students occasionally joined her. According to her father, her activism did not interfere with her schoolwork, but she had less spare time.[71] She finished lower secondary school with excellent grades: 14 As and three Bs.[72] In July 2019, Time magazine reported Thunberg was taking a "sabbatical year" from school, intending to travel in the Americas while meeting people from the climate movement on her way to attend and address COP25.[73]

Sabbatical year

United States Congresswoman Dina Titus listening to Thunberg and her fellow activists discussing the urgent need to address climate change, 2019