Sixteen year old Greta Thunberg, the acclaimed climate activist who set sail from Plymouth in the UK two weeks ago, reached New York yesterday. The teenager rose to fame after she took time off from school in 2018 and sat outside the Swedish parliament calling for action on the climate crisis. This act and her passionate calls to address climate issues has triggered a ‘school climate strike movement’. The movement witnessed school students in nearly 300 cities from across a dozen countries take part in climate demonstrations and they demanded governments to take urgent and immediate action to arrest global warming and climate change.
Greta, leading by example, has made lifestyle changes including avoiding air travels in her small but impactful gestures to lower carbon footprints. For her journey from the UK to the US, she sailed on the zero emission yacht fitted with solar panels and underwater turbines that served as green energy sources. Greta not just “green sailed” but she also effectively sailed her message of saving the planet from climate change.
The school girl who is known to give her candid views and opinions on environmental issues has admonished governments for not taking enough and emergent actions to save the planet. She lectured at the United Nations in 2018 and again this year on September 23, she will speak at the UN Climate Action Summit.
Image: Anders Hellberg (CC BY-SA 4.0)
On her arrival in New York in the backdrop of the blazing Brazilian forest fire, she set the media ablaze by saying that Donald Trump should listen to science.
With the older generation having colossally failed to handle the environment, it is heartening that school children have decided to lead by example and make their voice heard, loud and clear.
May a thousand Gretas bloom.
