Diana Padron
September 17, 2019
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“What we do or don’t do right now, me and my generation can’t undo in the future.”
Sixteen-year-old Swedish climate change activist Greta Thunberg spoke these words to a darkly-lit audience made up of people more than twice her age at TEDxStockholm. In that emboldening spotlight, Greta Thunberg sounded her call to action with the same gravitas from the beginning of her widespread campaign to advocate climate change awareness and hold global leaders accountable for their lack of action. Greta had, after all, been wrestling with her feelings of frustration on the subject since she was eight.
“What we do or don’t do right now,” Greta peers into the audience with the conviction of a condoned individual, “will affect my entire life and the lives of my children and grandchildren.”
Previous to Greta Thunberg, the main advocates of climate change had been scientists who were alarmed at the findings they were yielding. Among the indisputable evidence stacked against any shadow of a doubt regarding the validity of the crisis is a global temperature rise, ocean acidification and high atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. The atmospheric carbon dioxide levels alone are the highest that they have been for a milenia and have been on an upward trend since the Industrial Revolution. This past July was declared the hottest month on record. The global sea level rose about eight inches in the last century, with the rate rapidly accelerating every year.
The world is changing at drastic rates, and people have been noticing.
Unfortunately, the people at power typically favor economic prosperity and regulating carbon emissions could hinder that corporate greed. It doesn’t help when the leader of the nation, President Donald Trump, himself claims that climate change is not long-lasting or manmade, calling it “very expensive global warming bullshit.” Such influences have delayed significant action in terms of legislation or banning the emission of harmful greenhouse gases.
In 2017, the Trump administration declared their intention to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, an agreement within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that sets out to create and implement national climate action plans specific to each country. Not only are we not practicing environmentally-aware practices in the commerce sector, we are taking a deliberate step back on addressing the crisis.
The generation in power has done little to preserve the future of this planet and the youth are stepping up to the plate. In 2018, Greta Thunberg, tired of the inaction, embarked on a school strike to protest in front of Swedish parliament. Armed with a sign and leaflets, Greta sat out in front of Riksdag for three weeks and talked to anyone who was interested in listening. On her sign was one simple statement: Skolstrejk för klimatet, translated to ‘school strike for the climate’.
The movement quickly gained momentum through the use of social media and news outlets. Within eight months, thousands of students followed in Greta’s footsteps and joined in protest. Today, Greta continues to protest every Friday with passionate students from over 70 countries through her movement adequately called Fridays For Future.
Along with Fridays For Future, Greta has been an avid speaker in the community, having made appearances at the 2018 United Nations Climate Change Conference, the Australian World Summit and TEDxStockholm. She has also met with former President Barack Obama, author of the Green Deal & U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and other formative leaders intent on making a difference.
However it is not her succinct candor in speaking to figures of authority that makes Greta Thunberg so extraordinary. Nor is it her implementation of her preachings in her lifestyle, becoming vegan and reducing her carbon footprint. All these things make her a wonderful role model but the true underlying feature that shines the brightest in these trying times is her incentive, her passion, the simple willingness to act.
In this new generation, a culture of pessimism has emerged since media has made it virtually impossible to be unaware of the frightening state of the world. It’s easy to become discouraged when the average America is resentful toward their own government. Nonetheless, innovation and positivity is not only vital, but perhaps the only way the generation of tomorrow will be able to solve our world’s most pressing issues.
The world belongs to young people. One day they will inherit all the problems left over by their predecessors and whether there will be anything left to do is up to those who decide to act.
So act, even if it feels of unimportance as one tiny speck on the surface of the Earth because I guarantee you there are millions of people who feel the same way and choose not to.
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