“You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I’m one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!”

16 year old Greta Thunberg, of Sweden, has been extremely vocal on the topic of climate change. “The climate crisis is not just the weather. It means, also, lack of food and lack of water… places that are unlivable and refugees because of it. It is scary.

When Thunberg was just eight years old, she became concerned about our climate. She watched a documentary in school titled “Climate Change,” which sparked her passion for the planet. “When the documentary was over, her fellow students seemed to move on, and their worries shifted back to less existential concerns. But, for Greta, once she understood the climate crisis, she could not ‘un-understand’ it – she stopped eating, she stopped speaking, she fell into a depression.” Thunberg didn’t understand why this was happening to the planet, but she was desperate to find out.

Thunberg was determined to find out why climate change is happening, and she quickly became an expert on our climate issues. She sought all the information she could find, and used it to change her daily habits to lessen her carbon footprint. She also informed many of her friends and family about the climate crisis, begging them to change their daily habits.

Even after Thunberg changed her lifestyle, and convinced close friends and family to do the same, she still felt incomplete. Then, she turned to activism. “In August 2018, she began protesting outside of the Swedish Parliament during school hours with a sign painted with the words, “Skolstrejk for Klimatet” (School Strike for Climate)” Thunberg has since then protested every Friday during school hours, and many students have joined her. Not only students, but millions of people all around the world joined the global climate strike on September 27. 

Not only has Thunberg had major success with protests, she has also had many other accomplishments. On Saturday, September 28, Thunberg was gifted the keys to Montreal City Hall by mayor Valérie Plante. On Tuesday, October 1, she received the Right Livelihood award along with Aminatou Haidar, Davi Kopenawa, Guo Jianmei, and the Hutukara Yanomami Association. 

In September, Thunberg attended the U.N. Climate Summit, where she gave a speech that moved millions.

“This is all wrong. I shouldn’t be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you!” During the Summit, Thunberg was extremely vocal on the topic of our climate, bashing the older generation for their contributions to climate change. 

Even though climate change has been something that has affected the better part of her life, it is not the only obstacle in her way. Thunberg has been diagnosed with Asperger’s, a developmental disorder in which it affects one’s ability to effectively communicate and socialize. “I have Asperger’s, I’m on the autism spectrum, so I don’t really care about social codes that way.” Thunberg has deemed Aspergers her ‘superpower,’ and she does not let her diagnosis get in the way of her achieving her goals.

Despite all the odds and all of the naysayers, Thunberg persevered to show that, if we are willing to dedicate ourselves to a cause, we are fully capable of reducing our contributions to the downfall of the climate. We have enough resources to produce less plastic and carbon, and to change our daily habits to lessen our carbon footprint, which, in return, will positively affect our climate.

Climate Change is still a series issue, but with the help of Greta, millions all around the world have become more aware of the effects of climate change.