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Greta Thunberg, whose solo school strike in 2018 snowballed into an international movement to fight climate change – today turned 18.
Who can forget her emotion-packed speech at the United Nations Climate Action Summit in 2019. ‘How dare you,’ she roared. ‘How dare you look away… and come here saying that you’re doing enough,’ the climate activist from Sweden asked.
Thank you so much for all the well-wishes on my 18th birthday!
Tonight you will find me down at the local pub exposing all the dark secrets behind the climate- and school strike conspiracy and my evil handlers who can no longer control me!
I am free at last!! pic.twitter.com/w1VBG83VVN— Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) January 3, 2021
So in honour of her birthday, we take a look at more of our favourite words of wisdom from the teen activist:
1. “For 25 years, countless people have come to the U.N. 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.”
2. “I believe that once we start behaving as if we were in an existential crisis, then we can avoid a climate and ecological breakdown. But the opportunity to do so will not last for long. We have to start today.”
3. “Until you start focusing on what needs to be done rather than what is politically possible there is no hope. We cannot solve a crisis without treating it as a crisis. We need to keep the fossil fuels in the ground and we need to focus on equity. And if solutions within this system are so impossible to find then maybe we should change the system itself.”
4. “Humanity is now standing at a crossroads. We must now decide which path we want to take. How do we want the future living conditions for all living species to be like?”
5. “If we fail…all our achievements and progress have been for nothing, and all that will remain of our political leaders’ legacy will be the greatest failure of human history. And they will be remembered as the greatest villains of all time, because they have chosen not to listen and not to act.”
