Green teen Greta Thurnberg’s small effort to create awareness over climate change is winning her recognition across the world. In the last three days, the sixteen-year-old girl became a part of Time’s list of the 100 most influential people in the world; met Pope Francis at the Vatican; and charmed EU officials in Strasbourg.
González, a graduate of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, wrote in Time, “Greta Thunberg saw her power in us, and we in turn see our power in her. Fighting in her home country, Sweden, for a future free from pollution, environmental degradation and climate change, Greta is inspiring steadfast students and shaming apathetic adults. She realized early on that the powers that be would be stacked against her and her mission, stating, “We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.”
This girl is unstoppable. After mobilizing students across the world to join her school strike movement, which entered 34th week this Friday, Greta chided EU leaders and representatives in Strasburg, ahead of European Parliament elections in May this year.
“”Our house is falling apart and our leaders need to start acting accordingly””
In a typically blunt speech, she said politicians were failing to take enough action on climate change and wondered why Europe has been palpitating over Brexit and not climate change.
“Our house is falling apart and our leaders need to start acting accordingly because at the moment they are not,” the schoolgirl from Sweden told a standing room-only meeting of Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and EU officials in Strasbourg.
“If our house was falling apart our leaders wouldn’t go on like we do today,” she said. “If our house was falling apart, you wouldn’t hold three emergency Brexit summits and no emergency summit regarding the breakdown of the climate and the environment.”
““The extinction rate is up to 10,000 times faster than what is considered normal, with up to 200 species becoming extinct every single day””
The EU leaders gave the little teenager a standing ovation before she began to speak. When she spoke on “sixth mass extinction,” her voice faltered. “The extinction rate is up to 10,000 times faster than what is considered normal, with up to 200 species becoming extinct every single day,” she said. “Erosion of fertile topsoil, deforestation of the rainforest, toxic air pollution, loss of insects and wildlife, acidification of our oceans – these are all disastrous trends.”
After done with putting EU leaders to task, she went to the Vatican to meet the Pope Francis with a sign reading “Join the Climate Strike,” which she showed the Pope after he greeted her.
This girl is on a mission and won’t stop until she makes the world leaders understand and start acting. With each passing day her support is increasing and so is the voice for climate change.
This is of vital importance to India, whose Prime Minister was not spared Greta’s chastisement earlier this year and is witnessing the effects of climate change right now, exemplified in the dust storms ravaging multiple states. As her words and actions make a global footprint, it is hoped that political leaders will follow suit.
