Greta Thunberg. Image by Anders Hellberg via Wikimedia Commons
under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
Greta Thunberg has been named 2019 Time Person of the Year. Back in the summer of 2018, she sat alone in front of the Swedish parliament striking for climate. She no longer found any reason to attend school as she believed that government inaction on climate change had robbed her of her future. Fast forward to 2019 and she has inspired millions of children and adults across the globe to strike for climate and biodiversity loss. She has led 69 school strikes in cities and communities across Europe and North America and has learned from several Indigenous leaders and communities. While Thunberg doesn’t have a simple solution, she elevates the science and has instigated a cultural shift and attitude around our climate crisis. She has spoken to countless leaders from all levels of government and successfully convinced many to shift their trajectory. She has also bluntly shamed world leaders for their broken promises in a way that many could not even dream of. She has become an icon of her generation. While her voice is small, it is loud and clear. And her simple message is this: “we can’t just continue living as if there was no tomorrow, because there is a tomorrow.”