Greta Thunberg: an environmental activist who refuses awards for saving Earth

Greta Thunberg

Greta Tintin Eleonora Ernman Thunberg born on 3 January 2003 is a young teen Swedish environmental activist who has gained international recognition for promoting the view that humanity is facing an existential crisis arising from climate change.^[3] Thunberg is known for her youth and her straightforward speaking manner,^[4] both in public and to political leaders and assemblies, in which she criticizes world leaders for their failure to take sufficient action to address the climate crisis.^[5]

Thunberg's activism started after convincing her parents to adopt several lifestyle choices to reduce their own carbon footprint. In August 2018, at age 15, she started spending her school days outside the Swedish parliament to call for stronger action on climate change by holding up a sign reading Skolstrejk för klimatet (School strike for climate). Soon, other students engaged in similar protests in their own communities. Together, they organised a school climate strike movement under the name Fridays for Future. After Thunberg addressed the 2018 United Nations Climate Change Conference, student strikes took place every week somewhere in the world. In 2019, there were multiple coordinated multi-city protests involving over a million students each.^[6] To avoid flying, Thunberg sailed to North America where she attended the 2019 UN Climate Action Summit. Her speech there, in which she exclaimed "how dare you", was widely taken up by the press and incorporated into music.

Her struggle for the environment starts with her action with schoolmates to strive for climatic change. Time passed by with her speeches at different places in the city and around which motivated more young activists with her. Day by day, her movement became popular and raised to national level.

She refused to accept an environmental award, saying the climate movement needed people in power to start to “listen” to “science” and not awards.

The young climate activist, who has rallied millions to her “Fridays for Future” movement, was honoured at a Stockholm ceremony held by the Nordic Council, a regional body for inter-parliamentary cooperation.

Thunberg had been nominated for her efforts by both Sweden and Norway and won the organisation’s annual environment prize.

But after it was announced, a representative for her told the audience that she would not accept the award or the prize sum of 350,000 Danish kroner (about USD 52,000 or 46,800 euro), the TT news agency reported.

She addressed the decision in a post on Instagram from the United States.

“The climate movement does not need any more awards,” she wrote.

“What we need is for our politicians and the people in power start to listen to the current, best available science.” While thanking the Nordic Council for the “huge honour,” she also criticised Nordic countries for not living up to their “great reputation” on climate issues.

“There is no lack of bragging about this. There is no lack of beautiful words. But when it comes to our actual emissions and our ecological footprints per capita... then it’s a whole other story,” Thunberg said.

Still only 16 years old, Thunberg rose to prominence after she started spending her Fridays outside Sweden’s parliament in August 2018, holding a sign reading “School strike for climate”

Swedish teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg on Tuesday refused to accept an environmental award, saying the climate movement needed people in power to “listen” to “science” and “not any more prizes”.

Thunberg was honoured at a Stockholm ceremony by the Nordic Council, which is a regional body for inter-parliamentary cooperation. Two fellow activists spoke on Thunberg’s behalf at the award ceremony and quoted her as saying: “What we need is for our rulers and politicians to listen to the research,” according to AP. The 16-year-old is currently in the United States.he thanked the Nordic Council for the award and called it a “huge honour”. She also criticised the Nordic countries for not living up to their “great reputation” on climate problems. “There is no lack of bragging about this,” she wrote in the post. “There is no lack of beautiful words. But when it comes to our actual emissions and our ecological footprints per capita... then it’s a whole other story.”

Sources: Wikipedia, Hindustan Times, TOI, scroll.in, India Today news