Greta at Glastonbury: "We are approaching the precipice"

• Music Billie Eilish causes delirium in the resurrection of Glastonbury

Greta Thunberg

staged it at

, taking over from Billie Eilish and as an "opener" for Californian rockers

, dwarfed on the Pyramid stage but undeterred by the crowd chanting

"We are approaching the precipice," the 19-year-old Swedish activist proclaimed, with crumpled pages and in a more urgent than apocalyptic tone.

"Don't let them drag you an inch closer to the edge of the abyss. Right now is the time to defend our ground!"

Thunberg's surprise appearance put the

"Glastonbury is the greatest concentration of freedom in the world!"

Greta was introduced on stage by the festival's legendary co-founder,

who described her as "the most inspiring voice of her generation".

Thunberg attacked politicians with a new line of attack: "It is not only acceptable for leaders to lie, it is almost what we all expect of them."

The Swedish activist slammed

"The forces of greed and planetary destruction are so powerful that our fight for the natural world is already a battle to avert catastrophe. ".

As a counterpoint, infecting the incombustible spirit of the festival that has just turned 52 against all odds, Thunberg urged the 200,000 children of Glastonbury to

"Hope isn't something they give you," he said.

"It is something that must be earned and created, something that cannot be achieved passively, or by waiting for something or someone to arrive."

In her own way, although without music, Greta picked up the baton from Billie Eilish, the youngest debutante in the history of the Pyramid (20 years old), who the night before launched her particular warning about climate change with "All the Good Girls Go to Hell", the song in which God and Lucifer blame each other for the self-destructive urge of the human species.

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