Greta Thunberg is a teenage girl who recently became famous due to her environmentally related activities.
Greta Thunberg is a young activist who is really concerned about the environment and has already inspired millions of people to act upon environmental issues. Let’s find out more about her!
- Greta Thunberg was born on January 3rd in 2003.
- She was born in Stockholm, Sweden.
- She a Swedish activist on climate change.
- Her campaign is globally famous.
- Thunberg says she first heard about climate change in 2011.
- She was 8 years old, and could not understand why so little was being done about it.
- Three years later she diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, OCD, and selective mutism.
- She became famous in August 2018, when she was spending her days outside of the Swedish parliament.
- Back then she was 15 years old.
- She used to call for stronger action on global warming by holding up a sign saying in Swedish “School strike for the climate”.
- Soon, other students engaged in similar protests in their own communities.
- Together, they organized a school climate strike movement.
- The movement’s name is Fridays for Future.
- She addressed in 2018 United Nations Climate Change Conference.
- Then student strikes took place every week somewhere in the world.
- In 2019, there were at least two coordinated multi-city protests.
- Each one involved over one million students each
- Thunberg is known for her straightforward speaking manner.
- At home, Thunberg convinced her parents to adopt several lifestyle choices to reduce their own carbon footprint, including giving up air travel and not eating meat.
- It took her approximately 2 years to convince them.
- She has said she tried showing them graphs and data.
- When that didn’t work, she warned her family that they were stealing her future.
- Her mother is opera singer Malena Ernman and her father is the actor Svante Thunberg.
- Giving up flying in part meant her mother had to give up her international career as an opera singer.
- In May 2018, Thunberg won a climate change essay competition held by Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet.
- In part, she wrote that “I want to feel safe. How can I feel safe when I know we are in the greatest crisis in human history?”
- The paper published her article.
- After that, she 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 also suggested that school children could strike for climate change.
- 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.
- Her sudden rise to world fame has made her a leader and a target.
- In May 2019, Thunberg was featured on the cover of Time magazine.
- Time magazine named her a “next-generation leader” and noted that many see her as a role model.
- Greta has been named as one of the 100 most influential people of 2019 by Time magazine.
- Thunberg and the school strike movement were also featured in a 30-minute Vice documentary.
- It was titled Make the World Greta Again.
- Some media have described her impact on the world stage as the “Greta Thunberg effect”.
- Thunberg has been the recipient of numerous honors and awards,
- One of them is the fellowship of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society.
- Greta Thunberg was nominated for the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize.
- In September 2019, she addressed the UN Climate Action Summit in New York.
- Her speech was memorable as she addressed to the World’s leaders by saying “How dare you? You stole my childhood with your empty words.”
- She has also been a TEDx speaker.
- She gave a speech on TEDxStockholm.
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