11/03/2019

Generation Greta Will Step Up Their Climate Strikes On 15 March

Medium - Alexander Verbeek

On this cold and rainy morning, I joined Greta Thunberg in front of the Swedish parliament for her climate strike.



It is just 29 weeks ago that she sat there for the first time. All alone, since nobody she had asked wanted to join her. But she didn’t give up and she is now the founder of an international youth movement that challenges the world’s leaders to act on climate change.
Her ‘Fridays For Future’ protest has inspired and mobilised hundreds of thousands of students all over the world. Together they ask us, the grown-ups, to look into the mirror. We have to shamefully admit that our generation made a mess of our global environmental responsibilities, as well as quite a few other tasks to keep this planet a liveable place.
Today, on International Women’s Day, she was awarded as ‘Woman of the Year’ by two Swedish newspapers.
Many famous, inspiring leaders would never have been recruited if you would have asked a specialised agency to find you a new leader. And I guess that 16-year old Greta would not have met any of the criteria a recruitment office would use to search for a new inspiring global leader. But for me, and millions of others, she is a source of inspiration. Her direct communication is the wake up call that the world needs. Especially now that we have nearly run out of time to act.
Last November, I saw her speak at the Stockholm TEDx event, not far from where her climate strike had started in the summer. The huge conference hall seemed even more intimidating when the small, then 15-year old, Greta walked on stage. But she captivated the audience with the most clear call for climate action I had ever heard. There is no time to lose for a rapid reduction of greenhouse gas reductions, we don’t need to wait for more research, and all of us, including our leaders, need to act now.
Soon after, she travelled by public transport to COP24 in Katowice, where she told world leaders to stop behaving like children: “you are not mature enough to tell it like it is, even that burden you leave to us children”.
When she arrived by train in Davos, she told the world’s business leaders it is insane for a record 1500 of them to arrive by private jet to discuss climate change.
The movement that Greta started is still growing. On Friday 15 March, 860 actions are planned in 75 countries, and the list is still growing.
This massive youth movement seems to become an intergenerational conflict at a scale that we have not seen since the late 1960s. While politicians tell them to go back to school, there is no stopping them and it may soon be about more than just climate change.
While Greta keeps focussed on the climate message, other young people will add governance, economy, equality, justice and power relations on Generation Greta’s wish list for change. Politicians better pay attention.
Every year on 10 December, I am surprised that we still don’t have a Nobel Prize for the Environment. But until that issue is resolved, I hope that Greta Thunberg will be this years’ Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

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