Make the World Greta Again
- Caitlyn Daas
- May 30, 2019
- 2 min read
Recently, Greta Thunberg's "Skolstrejk För Klimatet” has transitioned to a global climate justice movement. It started when Greta was 15 years old, protesting in August 2018 outside of the Swedish parliament. Her protest began with skipping school for three weeks preceding the Swedish elections, standing alone in front of the Riksdagshuset to fight for our planet.
According to a 2018 TED Talk, Greta gave her reasoning of the importance to take action about climate change. “If your house is on fire you don’t sit down at the table talking about how nice you’ll build it afterwards.... When your house is on fire you run outside and make sure everyone is ok and call the fire department. That is the mindset we need to have.”
Greta began her activism after she learned about the effects of climate change, specifically deforestation, global warming, and ocean pollution. She shared her experience with depression at age 11, which influenced her solo activism and its later momentum through the Fridays for Future movement that consumed Sweden and spread throughout the globe.
A global youth movement spread throughout Europe, demanding that their voices be heard and their politicians prioritize climate change in politics, especially through cuts to greenhouse gas emissions, production, and use.
On March 15, 2019, Greta's influence had organized a global climate strike in 125 countries and over 2,000 cities. Around 1.6 million people joined the youths' school strike. It was the largest climate justice protest in history, and Greta's influence even made its way to Boone, North Carolina.
Appalachian State University students came together on March 15 to protest with Greta and many other activists around the world in the name of climate justice. This was soon after the Appalachian Climate Action Collective passed their proposal for university efforts to be carbon neutral by 2025.
The hashtag for the movement, #FridaysForFuture, spread quickly as the movement gained popularity, and many countries involved have an individual Fridays for Future Instagram profile, helping the movement spread.
Greta has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize and has been invited to speak with parliaments as well as the United Nations.
Comments