Per The Guardian, h/t Mother Jones:
On behalf of all kids worldwide, 15-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg delivered a thundering smackdown to adult leaders at the UN’s 2018 world climate conference (COP24) currently happening in Katowice, Poland.
“For 25 years countless people have come to the UN climate conferences begging our world leaders to stop emissions and clearly that has not worked as emissions are continuing to rise. So I will not beg the world leaders to care for our future,” she said. “I will instead let them know change is coming whether they like it or not.
“Since our leaders are behaving like children, we will have to take the responsibility they should have taken long ago,” she said. “We have to understand what the older generation has dealt to us, what mess they have created that we have to clean up and live with. We have to make our voices heard.”
Mention of leaders behaving like children brings one particular climate-change-denying leader to mind instantly.
Greta has a much more clear and stark view than the vast majority of adults worldwide:
“What I hope we achieve at this conference is that we realize that we are facing an existential threat. This is the biggest crisis humanity has ever faced. First we have to realize this and then as fast as possible do something to stop the emissions and try to save what we can save.”
She isn’t just talking. Inspired by the American school strikes for gun control, she began a lone school strike back in August, first protesting at the Swedish parliament for two weeks, then taking every Friday off, which she plans to do until Sweden cuts carbon emissions by 15%.
According to MJ, more than 20,000 students around the world have been inspired to join her, in 270 municipalities in countries that include Australia, the UK, Belgium, Japan and the USA. A quick search shows the movement is most active and best organized in Australia.
Video from the UK:
Canadian kids speak out too: Vancouver, Toronto:
In the US:
About the rapid worldwide spread of school strikes, Greta says: “It proves you are never too small to make a difference.”
Words to live by, if we want to live. Even against such a huge, deep-pocketed opposition… you are never too small to make a difference.
BTW, awareness of climate change is in Greta’s blood. She is descended from Svante Arrhenius, a Nobel-laureate Swedish scientist who was a climate change pioneer, first calculating how much CO2 emissions would produce a greenhouse effect in 1896. Greta’s father Svante Thunberg says his illustrious ancestor was wrong about one thing: “He thought we’d be [at today’s levels of warming] in 2,000 years’ time.”
For news, organizational info, videos, etc., see Greta Thunberg’s Twitter feed here.
If you know of an American website on the school strike please comment and I’ll add it here.
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