Greta Thunberg: "If a single virus destroys our economy in weeks, we are not thinking long term"
The Swedish Greta Thunberg, who in September 2018 started a protest to demand
actions against climate change
, this Sunday turns 18 maintaining her role as a reference in a
global movement
that has inspired millions of young people.
With a speech that appeals to science without avoiding the emotional component, the
adolescent with a
serious
gesture
has become one of the greatest global phenomena of recent times, supported by a legion of admirers and adored by the media.
Person of the year for Time magazine and a
two-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee
, Thunberg has met with the Pope and top world leaders and has given speeches at the UN and at major climate summits.
His continuous presence in the media has generated enmities and he has starred in
public disagreements
with important political figures such as the President of the United States, Donald Trump.
And although the coronavirus pandemic has somewhat dimmed its brightness, Thunberg, with 4.4 million followers on Twitter and more than double on Instagram,
retains its role as an icon
that has resulted in the appearance of some "Greta" in any country of the world.
September 2018, start of the mobilizations
The original Greta sat for the first time on August 20, 2018, three weeks before her country's legislative elections, in
front of the Swedish Parliament to start a daily strike
until the Government fulfilled the commitment to cut emissions of the Agreement of Paris against climate change.
The strike, which later took place only on Fridays, received
great media attention
, first in Sweden, then in other countries, and in a few months, the young woman had been a guest star at the UN Climate Summit in Poland, the Forum Davos, Brussels and the Elysee Palace in Paris.
Thunberg, who for climatic reasons only travels by train and bus and
never by plane
, led youth demonstrations throughout Europe and became the image of the
"FridaysForFuture"
movement
and of school strikes around the world.
The Swedish teenager took a sabbatical year, later altered by the pandemic, to travel around the American continent, arriving on a sailboat powered by solar panels and underwater turbines and owned by Pierre Casiraghi, son of Carolina de Monaco.
"They have stolen my dreams, my childhood with their empty words," he said in September last year at the UN in a famous speech in which he reproached leaders for daring to "look the other way" while scientific evidence warns of a These words gave rise to an ironic comment by Trump, who later had several
controversies on social networks
with Thunberg, as did the president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, who called her "brat."
Social protests in Chile led to the suspension of the UN climate summit and its transfer to Madrid, where it arrived after hurriedly crossing the Atlantic in a camataran of Australian youtuber and
followed by a media caravan
from Lisbon to the capital Spanish.
The one renamed the "GretaCOP", in a pun on the acronym in English for the summit, was one of the high points of Thunberg, about whom the British BBC
has announced a series
.
It has also been the subject of a documentary that was premiered at the Venice Film Festival.
As she assures herself in "Scener ur hjärtat" (Scenes from the heart), written jointly with her parents and her younger sister as therapy, it was at the age of eleven that she began to be interested in the
effects of climate change
, which it caused a personal crisis that spread to the whole family.
It was then that she and her sister Beata were diagnosed
with Asperger's syndrome
, a condition that she highlights on her Twitter profile, and other minor disorders.
"Suffering from this disease makes me see the world differently, or black or white, and the climate issue is one of them," said Thunberg in an interview, who until then had spent a
childhood full of travel
due to work commitments in his mother, mezzo-soprano Malena Ernman, who represented Sweden at Eurovision.
Ernman, the actor Svante Thunberg (his partner and Greta's companion on his travels) and the girls overcame the crisis with a collective commitment: they stopped traveling by plane and adopted a
vegan diet
, in addition to limiting consumption, according to what they say.
Ernman became an active debater in Swedish media and social media, and Greta followed suit by writing to the conservative Svenska Dagbladet three months before starting her strike.
A controversial media phenomenon
The fact that the book on the family crisis was published a couple of days after Greta began the mobilizations raised suspicions, although the family separated the two events and assured that the
proceeds from the sale
went to a charity.
His continuous media presence and his elaborate speech have also generated
suspicions and complaints
of a possible manipulation of a young woman who his critics consider should be in the institute, to which he has returned in recent months to resume his studies, although without abandoning his environmental activism .
Thunberg, who was involved in a controversy over the use of his name by a Swedish climate foundation to attract investors, has decided to shield this and "FridaysForFuture" as
trademarks within the European Union
.
"This is too much for me, too much responsibility," he says through tears on the boat trip to New York, as he can see in the documentary that bears his name, in one of the few moments in which the young Swede has shown in public feelings.
An artistic icon in murals and graffiti around the world, but also a recurring subject of memes, Thunberg - whom Dagens Nyheter, the leading Swedish daily, recently made editor-in-chief for a day - has seen
its activity reduced by the coronavirus
, although continues to exercise in social networks as a scourge of deniers and banner of the climate fight.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
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