Greta Thunberg was born in 2003. She started a school strike for climate change in August of 2018; a strike which has since spread from Sweden, all over the world and now involves millions of other children protesting governmental change, or lack thereof, to help prevent the climate crisis we are paving towards. Her activism for climate change has led to her being nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for two consecutive years, 2019 and 2020. In this post, Nidhi Parekh of The Shared Microscope hopes to shed light on Greta’s work and her 2020 nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Greta started her school strike by skipping school every Friday. She used to sit outside the Parliament building in Sweden, where she “handed out fliers with a long list of facts about the climate crisis and explanations on why [she] was striking”.
Since her school strikes, Greta has since spoken at climate rallies across Europe and in the UK, has spawned the Extension Rebellion. She has also reminded us all that her activism is all done for free. As she has mentioned in her speeches, she has not received any money or any promise of future payments in any form at all.
Greta has spoken out to politicians, actors, social media influencers, children, and adults of all kinds, calling our collective silence “almost worst of all”. Through her speeches, Greta continually reminds us to “treat the climate crisis like the acute crisis it is”, like “our house is on fire”.
It seemed apt to write about Greta Thunberg on the same day that the Nobel Peace Prize will be awarded — a Friday — the day of #FridaysForFuture protests around the world. Greta constantly reminds us that “no one is too small to make a difference”. The time for change is NOW. We cannot afford to wait anymore; “there is no grey area when we talk about survival – you either survive, or you don’t”.
As Greta says, we must stop competing with each other. We need to cooperate and work together to share the resources of the planet in a fair way.
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