What Is Greta Thunberg Doing About Climate Change

Student and climate activist Greta Thunberg, 18, burst improbably onto the world stage in belatedly 2018 when what began equally a one-person school strike outside the Swedish parliament ended upwards galvanizing a global climate move to demand immediate action to prevent environmental ending.

Thunberg'due south school strike spread in Sweden and around the world, inspiring a youth-led global climate strike movement, Fridays for Future, which urged cuts in carbon emissions. Her speeches at major political gatherings, including the World Economic Forum, the British Parliament, the U.S. Congress and, most recently, the United nations climate summit known every bit COP26, have castigated leaders for failing time to come generations with their "fairy tales of eternal economic growth." Or, every bit she said in 1 speech, "How dare you! Y'all take stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words."

Thunberg credits her Asperger's syndrome, which is considered part of the autism spectrum, for her truth-telling and focus as a climate activist. She lives in Stockholm.

Yous chosen COP26 a "failure" and a "PR effect."

Well, in the terminal document, they succeeded in even watering down the blah, apathetic, apathetic. Which is very much an achievement, if you see information technology that mode. Of course it'southward a step forward that, instead of coming back every five years, they're doing it every year now. But all the same, that doesn't mean anything unless that really leads to increased ambition and if they actually fulfill those ambitions.

What practice you lot mean when you say, "watering downwards the apathetic, blah, blah"?

As we all know, or as we might know, the so-called "f-word" was included for the first fourth dimension in this document: fossil fuel. Which makes yous wonder what they accept been doing these decades without even mentioning fossil fuels for a problem which, to a very, very big extent, is caused by fossil fuels. And instead of "phasing out" [coal, the certificate'south language became] "phasing down." And so, aye, that is one very clear example.

And also, one question that was very upwardly in the air was the question nigh finance for loss and damage and the Green Climate Fund, which they again failed to agree on. The money that has already been promised, the bare minimum that the so-called global northward have promised that they will evangelize, they failed to come to any conclusions, and it's been postponed once again.

And what are positives that might have come up out of COP26?

One of the positives is that it shows that, under the electric current circumstances, within current systems, we won't exist able to solve the climate crisis unless there is massive pressure from the outside. Zip will come up out of these conferences unless there is a huge increase in the level of sensation and unless people actually get out on the streets and need change. And these global events are a large opportunity to mobilize people and to redirect the focus onto the big climate crunch once again and highlight the fact that nowhere nearly enough is being done about it.

I read recently that at the current rate of greenhouse gas emissions, we have eleven years until we become to 1.5 degrees Celsius modify [the Paris agreement's aspirational temperature threshold for heading off the worst impacts of climate change]. How do you lot get people to focus on that?

Well, at that place are many unlike numbers that include many different things. Only it'south just the principle that we demand to understand: that we have a very express time, that we are using up the carbon dioxide budget right now — no matter which carbon dioxide upkeep you go for — and that cannot be undone in the future. Yes, we may be able to come upward with new technologies and scale them upwards so that we tin can absorb carbon dioxide from the air, but you cannot undo the damage that has been done if we trigger feedback loops and irreversible tipping points.

But also, we need to empathize that i.v is not a safe level. Already, as it is at present — 1.1 or one.two — people are already suffering. Countless people are already bearing the brunts of the climate crisis and take been doing so for a long time. So this is non just a future problem. Nosotros need to empathise that this is here and now. Information technology'southward already happening — it has been happening for a long fourth dimension — and many people accept been begetting witness to this and trying to tell this, only they accept been ignored.

Greta Thunberg with Ugandan climate activist Vanessa Nakate at the opening plenary of a Youth4Climate event ahead of COP26, the United nations climate conference. (Luca Bruno/AP)

Y'all've been very successful in getting free energy and attention on this issue over the last few years. Can you lot talk almost first becoming enlightened of the climate crunch yourself, and being galvanized to action?

There'due south a big difference between the first time I heard most the climate crunch and when I actually understood its consequences. I heard about it in school peradventure when I was 7, viii or 9. They teach the ground principles: the greenhouse effect, and information technology'south being amplified past united states of america since we humans emit CO2 and and then on. Merely and then I read up on it more and more than because it didn't seem existent that they'd explain it as a very big problem — merely it wasn't treated similar one. It was kind of a long process because there'south a lot to read and a lot to empathize. And based on the things that I read, I drew the decision that this was very, very serious.

[My deportment] started small at home, like turning off the lamps when I wasn't in the room and cut downwardly meat consumption and so on. And then I did more: I stopped flying, and I stopped buying new things. I became a vegetarian and a vegan. I tried to join organizations and marches and sign petitions and the things that they recommend us to practise. But that didn't take an effect.

Was there a moment y'all moved from personal actions to a bigger scale?

I remember I was on a call with other young people who cared virtually the environment and were trying to effigy out something to exercise, and we were going to plan a march. And and then I thought, Okay, this could exist something. And so I presented my idea of school hitting, and they weren't very keen on the idea. They didn't call back it was going to have an impact. They were similar, "We can swallow some cookies and drink coffee and tea and brand information technology a pleasant event for young people to educate themselves about the climate crisis." And I was like, "No, you clearly haven't understood the climate crisis. This is an emergency. This is non only supposed to exist nice, this actually has to be something important." And I call up we who have the privilege and the opportunity to really exercise something should get put ourselves out in that location. And then I hung up on the call. Well, it was a Zoom telephone call, so I but pressed "Leave Coming together" — so information technology wasn't as dramatic as it would have been otherwise. But I hung up, and I decided to become on and do it by myself.

And that's when you were fifteen, right?

Yeah. I only idea that someone needs to do something. I demand to do something more considering this isn't leading to anything. And so I decided to school strike. And then many others did the same thing. And and so we became a global move.

Only before that, when did the weight of the emergency hit you?

Information technology was merely the cognitive dissonance that I saw with everyone around me. My parents, my classmates, anybody I met. They were like, "Oh, what are your interests?" And I said, "I'k interested in the climate considering information technology'due south an emergency." They're like, "Oh, that'southward fun." And I was similar, "You lot conspicuously don't get this." Because everyone said, "I intendance nigh climate modify. I think it's very of import." And then they don't practice annihilation. And that got to me considering I'k autistic, and I don't like when people say one affair then practice another thing. I accept to live true to my values, so to speak. Similar, I retrieve once I was talking to my dad, and he said, "I want to buy a new car. This SUV looks really dainty." And I was like, "Just you said you cared about the climate." He was similar, "I do, but y'all can still practice both." And I was like, "No, yous cannot." And I got really upset.

Y'all've quipped that if more people had autism or Asperger's perchance we would exercise better in focusing on the climate crunch and non continuing to justify the trade-offs in our own minds.

Of course not to romanticize autism or say that people should have autism. Because, under the incorrect circumstances, autism tin can exist something that holds you lot back. But I recollect that there are definitely many elements of what makes you lot autistic that more people should have. For instance, us not having every bit much cerebral dissonance and being able to focus on facts, it'southward a good affair. And being able to focus on an emergency and actually treat it as an emergency.

Information technology feels like many today — neurotypical people, people in general — are so focused on post-obit the stream, doing like everyone else, because they don't want to stand out. They don't want to be uncomfortable. They don't desire to cause any bug. They just want to be like everyone else. And I retrieve that'due south very harmful in an emergency where we are social animals. Nosotros're herd animals. In an emergency, someone needs to say that nosotros're heading towards the cliff. And anybody is only following, proverb similar, "Well, no one else is turning effectually, so I won't either." That could be very dangerous.

Do you lot think one of the reasons you lot were and so effective right away was because it was a shock to hear this pocket-size, young girl speaking uncomfortable truth to adults who were supposedly the experts?

Well, there take been many, many immature people — many people — who have been speaking out on this. I'm not the only one who has gained attending on this. But, of course, many people take listened to me. And I'm very privileged to come from a function of the globe where I take the opportunity to use my voice and to be listened to. Just nosotros just go straight to the signal. Nosotros don't care for the blah, blah, blah, then to speak. We say just what we want to be said. And we are not scared of being uncomfortable. Nosotros are not scared of beingness unpopular. We are ridiculed and mocked and hated on and sent threats — and that's not something that should be romanticized in whatever way. But many are still going because we know that what nosotros are doing is right. It's only the thought of: Nosotros don't care almost our reputation; we care more about the planet.

There are conspicuously people interested in climatic change who take a more diplomatic tack, aware that they have to compromise to get things done. Practice you ever worry that the "blah, blah, apathetic," or more antagonistic rhetoric, makes their job harder when they're trying to do the correct thing, just from a more than temperate position?

If you choose, as the media often do, like, 20 seconds from a 10-minute speech and merely expect at those twenty seconds, it may seem similar we have undemocratic views and that we are very populist and then on. Which is not true. So I understand that some people might call up that way and that they frame it that fashion.

Of course we need compromises. Just we have to also understand that we cannot compromise with the laws of physics. If nosotros are here [gestures], and we need to be there [gestures once more] to have, say, safe living weather condition, and they are talking about moving [just a tiny fleck], then I would rather say no. Aye, it's better than nothing, but we accept to zoom out and sympathise that nosotros're not going to get there if we pretend that this is enough.

Strategically, exercise you e'er feel the demand to alter your tack these days, to say, "Okay, this is what people might expect me to say now, and so here's a new fashion to shock people out of their complacency"?

At the voice communication I gave in the U.North. Full general Assembly, I said, "How dare you!" Of class, I said many other things, but that was what people took out of it. And me beingness emotional and angry, yelling at world leaders. And then I idea that, Okay, now I accept people's attention, I will only speak facts. So in the speech communication [in Madrid] at COP25 subsequently that, I basically simply spoke about facts and numbers because and then much attending was on that. So people watched information technology, and information technology felt like no one understood a discussion I said. Because sometimes the news is just that I'm making a spoken communication rather than what I have to say — very, very often. So that'southward a way of trying to, I don't know, surprise, if that'due south the right word.

Are you inspired past any of the world leaders, by President Biden?

If yous phone call him a leader — I mean, information technology's foreign that people think of Joe Biden equally a leader for the climate when y'all see what his assistants is doing. The U.S. is actually expanding fossil fuel infrastructure. Why is the U.S. doing that? It should not fall on u.s. activists and teenagers who just want to go to school to raise this awareness and to inform people that we are actually facing an emergency.

People inquire us, "What practice you want?" "What do you want politicians to practise?" And we say, beginning of all, we have to really understand what is the emergency. We are trying to find a solution of a crisis that nosotros don't sympathise. For example, in Sweden, we ignore — we don't even count or include more than two-thirds of our bodily emissions. How can we solve a crunch if nosotros ignore more than ii-thirds of it? Then it's all nearly the narrative. Information technology's all most, what are we actually trying to solve? Is it this emergency, or is it this emergency?

Thunberg at a climate march in Bristol, England, in February 2020. (Ben Birchall/PA Images via Getty Images)

Yous have get a hero to young people, nonetheless you were bullied equally a kid and socially isolated. It must be sort of complicated now that young people who previously didn't support yous or requite y'all the time of twenty-four hour period are putting you on a pedestal.

Yeah, I was scared of other young people when I first started school hit. And so it was very weird to take other immature people join me; it was a very strange feeling. Because I didn't know how they would react and how they would think.

What can y'all tell other young people, both those experiencing bullying and maybe those doing the bullying, to help them move to a improve place?

Merely to those who are experiencing information technology that you are not alone. There are many, many others who are experiencing this same matter — many more than you think — beneath the surface. And it should non exist like that. Children tin can exist very, very mean. Merely being strange is a good matter. I think nearly people in the climate motility are a bit strange — very much including myself. And that is a good thing because, if yous're not different, you are not able to envision another time to come, another world. And we need people who are able to think exterior the box. So being different is something that should be historic.

Do you draw a connexion between empathy for each other on a small-scale level and empathy as a global community with climate change and climate justice?

Of course. Since in that location are no binding agreements that safely put us towards a safe future for life on Globe every bit we know information technology, that means that we have to utilize morals, and we have to be able to experience empathy with i some other. That is all we have correct now. Some people say that we shouldn't use guilt or this sense of morality. But that is, quite bluntly, the only thing that we have to use. So, therefore, nosotros have to use information technology. And we have to make sure that nosotros don't lose that connectedness. We take to realize that we're in information technology for the long run and that nosotros need to take care of each other.

As somebody who had been living in social isolation before speaking out, how did you handle both the positive adulation and the sometimes very personal negative criticism, fifty-fifty from world leaders, on Twitter and other places?

I don't know. I didn't remember too much virtually it. I just thought: I'thousand doing what is right, and as long as I'grand doing what's right, what I think is right, it doesn't matter what others recall. But of course it was a huge shift from never talking to anyone whatsoever — in those days, I but spoke to my parents and my teacher and my sister. So to and so be speaking, more or less, to the whole world, information technology was a very big shift. I don't think anyone in the globe could have expected anything like that, no matter who you are or what you do. It simply blew up completely in a way that is very hard to understand if you haven't experienced it yourself. Merely I call up just the fact that I was and then different before fabricated it easier to stay grounded and not to heed besides much to what other people were saying, both positively and negatively.

Can yous go to the place in your mind where you lot say, Okay, it'south 30 years hence, and we were successful? What does that look like? And and then what practise you lot get to focus on in your life?

I have no thought. I effort not to think about that too much. I try to rather practise as much as I tin can in the now and modify the futurity instead of overthinking the future. Hopefully we will take intendance of this, notwithstanding that would look. But no thing what happens, if we continue to ignore it, the consequences are going to exist much, much worse.

What practise y'all exercise when you need a interruption?

I take occasional breaks. Like, this is my life all mean solar day, every day, but that doesn't mean I cannot focus on other things. I tin can focus on several things. For example, school. Although now we're really talking about the climate. And then I can't get away there, either!

So does the instructor only plough it over to y'all: "Greta …"?

[Laughs.] Nosotros're in climate role play. We're going to stand for unlike countries, and so we're going to reenact a climate briefing, brand speeches and be delegates, try to come with a resolution. And I'm going to exist Saudi Arabia.

Perfect.

I'm going to block everything. Yeah, I'm going to make certain that they don't come up upwardly with a resolution.

After the experience of the last few years, its roller-coaster upwards and down, do you lot detect yourself more or less hopeful than when you first sat out in front end of the Swedish parliament with your ["SKOLSTREJK FOR KLIMATET"] sign?

I don't know. In one sense, we're in a much worse place than nosotros were then because the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere are higher and the global emissions are nonetheless rising at almost record speed. And we have wasted several years of blah, blah, blah.

But then, on some other annotation, nosotros have seen what people can do when we actually come together. And I've met then many people who requite me very much hope and just the possibility that we tin can actually change things. That we can treat a crisis like a crisis. So I retrieve I'm more hopeful now.

What can we acquire from the pandemic about what tin can be achieved when people do, in fact, treat a crisis like a crisis?

I think many people have realized how of import science is. Because we saw how, when we really wanted to discover a vaccine, nosotros could exercise that in, like, no time. Which only shows that, if we actually focus on something, if nosotros actually want something, nosotros can accomplish nearly anything.

Right now, what's holding the states back is that nosotros lack that political will. We don't prioritize the climate today. Our goal is not to lower emissions. Our goal is to observe solutions that allow us to go on life [every bit it is] today. And, of course, you can ask, "Can't we take both?" But the uncomfortable truth is that we have left it too late for that. Or the world leaders take left information technology as well belatedly for that. We need to fundamentally alter our societies now. If we would have started 30 years agone, it would have been much smoother. But at present information technology's a different situation.

Just as well, information technology has just shown how fast social norms can change. And I think that tin can exist something that nosotros can learn from information technology. If I would take gone upwardly to someone and shaken hands with them during the worst function of the pandemic, that would have been totally unacceptable. But just before the pandemic, everyone did that. It inverse, basically overnight, people's mindsets. And that just shows the possibilities.

Thunberg holds a sign reading "Schoolhouse Strike for Climate" in forepart of the Swedish parliament in November. (Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP/Getty Images)

KK Ottesen is a regular correspondent to the magazine. Follow her on Twitter: @kkOttesen . This interview has been edited and condensed.

Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2021/12/27/greta-thunberg-state-climate-movement-roots-her-power-an-activist/

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