Greta Thunberg: All about the 16 year old climate activist

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg drew attention of people across world after her powerful speech at United Nations on climate change on September 23 and winning Right Livelihood Award, also kwn as 'Alternative ble Prize'. While many lauded her for raising awareness and holding world leers accountable for climate change, a section called her speech as full of ‘drama and rhetoric’. Thunberg, a 16-year old student from Stockholm, first me helines when she sat outside Swedish Parliament and called it ‘School strike for climate’ in Swedish. She skipped school for it where attendance is compulsory for a student her .

School strike by Greta Thunberg

In May 2018, before her ‘school strike’, Thunberg won an essay competition on climate change organised by a Swedish newspaper. reafter she decided to make an effort to hold government accountable for it and demand action against it. In run-up to 2018 United Nations Climate Change Conference held in Katowice, Poland, many students organised protests and strikes where Thunberg became centre of campaign. Thunberg wrote a Facebook post in February this year where she talked about idea of school strike.

“I like idea of a school strike. So I developed that idea and tried to get or young people to join me, but one was really interested. So I went on planning school strike all by myself,” she wrote. 

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Urged her family to change ir lifestyle

Born to opera singer Malena Ernman and actor Svante Thunberg, Greta was eight years old when she heard about climate change for first time and wondered why so little was being done about it. According to book ‘Scenes from Heart’, written by Greta’s mor Malena Ernman, Thunberg urged her parents to change lifestyle to lower carbon emissions. Her parents eventually responded to it, which meant becoming vegan and giving up flying. se choices came at a cost and Ernman h to give up her international career as an opera singer. 

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Thunberg taking on haters

On September 26, Thunberg took to social media to dress criticism she got after  speech at UN. “Here we go again... As you may have ticed, haters are as active as ever - going after me, my looks, my clos, my behaviour and my differences,” she wrote. “y come up with every thinkable lie and conspiracy ory. It seems y will cross every possible line to avert focus, since y are so desperate t to talk about climate and ecological crisis,” she ded. Thunberg, who was diagsed with Asperger syndrome, wrote, “Being different is t an illness and current, best available science is t opinions - it’s facts.” She has also changed her Twitter bio after she was targeted for having Asperger's syndrome. It res, “16-year-old climate and environmental activist with Asperger’s Join global climate strikes on September 27th!”

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