Greta Thunberg

Greta Thunberg

Greta Tintin Eleonora Ernman Thunberg (born 3 January 2003) is a Swedish environmental activist. She is internationally known for challenging world leaders to take immediate action against climate change. Her activism started after convincing her parents to adopt several lifestyle choices to reduce their own carbon footprint. She was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, obsessive–compulsive disorder, and selective mutism.

About Greta Thunberg in brief

Summary Greta ThunbergGreta Tintin Eleonora Ernman Thunberg (born 3 January 2003) is a Swedish environmental activist. She is internationally known for challenging world leaders to take immediate action against climate change. Her activism started after convincing her parents to adopt several lifestyle choices to reduce their own carbon footprint. In August 2018, at age 15, she started spending her school days outside the Swedish Parliament to call for stronger action on climate change by holding up a sign reading Skolstrejk för klimatet. Soon, other students engaged in similar protests in their own communities. Together, they organised a school climate strike movement under the name Fridays for Future. In May 2018, she won a March for Our Lives in support of greater gun control in Florida. In 2019, there were multiple coordinated multi-city protests involving over a million students each. She has received numerous honours and awards including an honorary Fellowship of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, inclusion in Time’s 100 most influential people, being the youngest Time Person of the Year, and inclusion in the Forbes list of The World’s 100 Most Powerful Women. Her sudden rise to world fame has made her both a leader and a target for critics. She was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, obsessive–compulsive disorder, and selective mutism. She does not view her diagnosis as an illness, and has instead called it her ‘superpower’ Her father said: ‘To be honest, didn’t do it to save the climate.

She did it toSave her child because she saw how much it meant to her, and then, when she did that, how much energy she got from it.’ In one of her first speeches demanding climate action, she described the selectivemutism aspect of her condition as meaning she ‘only speaks when necessary’ The family’s story is recounted in the 2018 book Scenes from the Heart of the Heart. The family credits her parents with giving her hope and giving her the belief that she could make a difference and make her eventual response and response to the climate crisis a success. In an interview with Amy Goodman from Democracy Now!, she said she got the first idea of a climate strike after school shootings in the United States in February 2018. These activists at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida, went on a school strike to support a greater gun Control Act of 2018. In February 2018, several youths refused to go back to school to protest against the gun control law of the U.S. She went to the 2018 United Nations Climate Change Conference in New York and addressed the UN Climate Action Summit. Her speech there, in which she exclaimed ‘how dare you’, was widely taken up by the press and incorporated into music. Her influence on the world stage has been described by The Guardian and other newspapers as the ‘GretA effect’. She also received two consecutive nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize.