Earth Protect Blog

But why Thunberg? Political commentator Isabel Oakeshott says, “Greta Thunberg is an extraordinary phenomenon. She has forced politicians in the UK to confront an issue many would rather ignore and propelled climate change to the top of the political agenda. In a short space of time, a 16-year-old with a smart PR and social media operation has achieved more than years of international summits and lobbying by big names. To have made an impact on this scale is quite incredible and she deserves huge credit.”

SMALL BEGINNINGS

Thunberg’s original plan was to sit outside parliament with a cardboard sign that read: skolstrejk för klimatet (school strike for the climate). Passers-by (politicians, secretaries, the general public) would see her, a teenager – long, honeyed hair braided into two plaits, dressed in leopard print leggings and a blue hoodie – and wonder, why isn’t that girl in school? Then, when they asked, she would hand them a flyer that gave them an explanation: “We kids most often don’t do what you tell us to do. We do as you do. And since you grown-ups don’t give a sh*t about my future, I won’t either. My name is Greta and I’m in ninth grade. And I refuse school for the climate until the Swedish general election.”

Thanks to that original plan, Greta has become a world icon, reaching the ranks of those known only by their first name. Her mission has stretched far beyond that day but its roots can be traced back much earlier to her family and childhood. Growing up with her mum, an opera singer, her actor father and her 14-year-old sister Beata, she was instilled with a commitment to caring for the environment by her mother’s own passions (she won the WWF Sweden Environmental Hero of the Year Award in 2017).

When Thunberg was nine years old, she says she heard the phrase ‘climate change’ for the first time. “[At school] they were always talking about how we should turn off lights, save water, not throw out food […] I thought this was very strange. If humans could really change the climate, everyone would be talking about it […] But that wasn’t happening,” she told The New Yorker.

She began doing her own research and looking for ways to help. At 12, she stopped eating meat, refused to take flights because of the carbon emissions and persuaded her parents to do the same, resulting in her mother giving up an international career. The family installed solar panels on their house and began growing their own vegetables.