"You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words."
"You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words."Fifteen-year-old Greta Thunberg, in blue sneakers and a purple backpack, sat on Sweden’s parliament grounds on August 28, 2018. It was a Friday, and she had skipped school for this exercise. Beside her was a sign that translated to “School Strike for Climate.”
She continued to do this every Friday since then. Sometimes, a few friends sat with her.
One year and one month later, on Sept. 20, the largest global youth action took place in numerous locations around the world. Young people took to the streets and demanded from their elders—especially government and business leaders, to do something about the climate crisis. They wanted to declare a climate emergency, saying that if the world does not do anything drastic to curb greenhouse emissions, global temperatures will rise rapidly and irreversibly, having catastrophic consequences on the planet.
Thunberg is indeed a remarkable young woman. Coming to the United States to attend the United Nations Climate Summit last month, she refused to travel by air because of the carbon footprint that such a trip would entail. Instead she took a boat and sailed the Atlantic. In the US, she made a mark by leading strikes, guesting in talk shows, and most especially speaking at the United Nations. In an impassioned speech, she told world leaders: How dare you!
She is just a child, indeed. She was not wearing a high-powered suit—just a bright pink shirt, with her long braided hair and voice that sounded as though she were running out of breath. Looks are deceiving, indeed: Her message was simple, evidence-based—and powerful.
“For more than 30 years, the science has been crystal clear,” she said on Sept. 24. “How dare you continue to look away and come here saying that you're doing enough, when the politics and solutions needed are still nowhere in sight?”
She used numbers to bolster her point, but in a way people can comprehend. "The popular idea of cutting our emissions in half in 10 years only gives us a 50-percent chance of staying below 1.5 degrees [Celsius], and the risk of setting off irreversible chain reactions beyond human control,” she added.
"Fifty percent may be acceptable to you. But those numbers do not include tipping points, most feedback loops, additional warming hidden by toxic air pollution or the aspects of equity and climate justice. They also rely on my generation sucking hundreds of billions of tons of your CO2 out of the air with technologies that barely exist.
"So a 50-percent risk is simply not acceptable to us—we who have to live with the consequences.
"To have a 67-percent chance of staying below a 1.5 degrees global temperature rise—the best odds given by the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change]—the world had 420 gigatons of CO2 left to emit back on Jan. 1st, 2018. Today that figure is already down to less than 350 gigatons.
"How dare you pretend that this can be solved with just 'business as usual' and some technical solutions? With today's emissions levels, that remaining CO2 budget will be entirely gone within less than 8 1/2 years.”
"You are failing us,” she said toward the end. “But the young people are starting to understand your betrayal. The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us, I say: We will never forgive you.”
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Despite her popularity and her passion, not every one appreciates what Thunberg is trying to do. A British minister dismissed Thunberg as “the Justin Bieber of ecology.” Online, she is mocked for being on the autism spectrum.
This was her response: “When haters go after your looks and differences, it means they have nowhere left to go. And then you know you’re winning! I have Aspergers and that means I’m sometimes a bit different from the norm. And—given the right circumstances- being different is a superpower. #aspiepower. I'm not public about my diagnosis to 'hide' behind it, but because I know many ignorant people still see it as an 'illness', or something negative. And believe me, my diagnosis has limited me before.”
Thunberg is in the running for a Nobel Peace Prize, this year’s winner of which will be announced today. She is up against the Ethiopian prime minister and a Brazilian indigenous leader, but she remains a favorite. (United States president Donald Trump is also coveting the distinction, but of course nobody is taking him seriously.)
Whether or not Thunberg bags the prize, she has made her mark by speaking truth to power, by warning us all of the danger that awaits us if we do nothing, in making the science accessible and understandable by ordinary people, and by empowering those who are “different” whatever bullies and critics may say.
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Then again, Thunberg is the first to admit she is fortunate.
And she is! She lives in a highly developed country, known for being able to provide good social services to its citizens. She was raised in a secure home, with a good education—her mother is a famous opera singer—which is probably why she is aware of this profound issue and developed a passion for it at such a young age. We hardly hear about her native Sweden being visited by natural disasters, much less her people and her government scrambling to cope with the effects of such catastrophes.
Elsewhere in the world, there are countless girls like her, who do not have the luxury of espousing a cause and chastising world leaders for their hypocrisy. While they would want to do that, or could be capable to do that, they are too bogged down surviving conflict, making a living, being limited by mindsets and stereotypes, and trying to live a “normal” life despite displacement, discrimination, disease and violence.
Today is the International Day of the Girl. Greta Thunberg is a great, inspiring young woman, and she will do more for the world. But today and every day, we should also remember the millions of girls around the world who need empowering, and who could be equally great, equally inspiring leaders—in their families, communities, countries—if they would only be given the chance.