Climate Change

Activism
Greta Thunberg
in September 2022.
| Photo: Picture
Alliance
5 Though the biggest way to slow carbon emissions
is to not have children, Thunberg was not
about to tell people not to do so. “I don’t think it’s
selfish to have children,” she said. “It is not the
people who are the problem; it is our behavior.”
6 Her concern for the environment isn’t paralyzing:
“I don’t sit and speculate about how the future
might turn out; I see no use in doing that,” she said.
“As long as you are doing everything you can now,
you can’t let yourself become depressed or anxious.”
7 The activist, known for her wit, has become a
symbol for young people across the world protesting
climate change inaction. Thunberg burst onto
the global stage with #FridaysForFuture, an international
movement that began in 2018. Thunberg,
then fifteen, started taking weeks off school to
demonstrate outside the Swedish parliament.
8 At sixteen, Thunberg inspired the largest climate
strike in history, testified before Congress,
and addressed the United Nations for the second
time. “People are suffering, people are dying, entire
ecosystems are collapsing ... and all you talk
about is money and eternal fairy tales of economic
growth. How dare you?” she said before the UN.
9 Also in 2019, Time magazine named her as its
2019 Person of the Year for “sounding the alarm
about humanity’s predatory relationship with the
only home we have, for bringing to a fragmented
world a voice that transcends background and borders,”
and “for showing us all what it might look
like when a new generation leads.”
10 She’s also gone up against world leaders on
frequent occasions: Russian President Vladimir
Putin called her “a kind and very sincere girl” who
doesn’t understand the complexities of “the modern
world,” and Brazil’s far-right president Jair
Bolsonaro labeled her a “brat.”
11 She has most famously clashed with President
Donald Trump on multiple occasions. After Thunberg
delivered her emotional speech to world leaders
at the UN, news cameras captured her staring
at President Donald Trump when he arrived in the
same lobby. Trump tweeted after her speech that
Thunberg “seems like a very happy young girl looking
forward to a bright and wonderful future.”
12 Trump also criticized Thunberg after Time’s
decision to recognize her in 2019. “So ridiculous.
Greta must work on her Anger Management problem,
then go to a good old-fashioned movie with a
friend! Chill, Greta, Chill!” he tweeted. Thunberg
copied his exact phrasing in her reply to Trump’s
November 2020 tweetstorm calling for states to
“stop the count” in the November election.
13 She also endorsed President-elect Joe Biden,
who has pledged to return the US to the Paris climate
accord. During the interview with The Times,
Thunberg addressed Biden’s pledge, cautioning
that “just because of that shift, we shouldn’t be relaxing
and thinking everything is all right now. Of
course, it will mean a change, mainly because it is
one and not the other in charge,” she said.
© 2021/Elinor Aspegren, Savannah Behrmann/USA Today
All rights reserved.
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
5 – 7 to slow h.: reduzieren — paralyzing lähmend — wit (Wort)Witz — to burst h.: erscheinen
8 – 9 to address s.o. zu jdm. sprechen — How dare you? Was unterstehen Sie sich? — to sound the alarm Alarm
schlagen — predatory räuberisch — to transcend s.th. über etw. hinausgehen
10 – 11 to go up against s.o. s. mit jdm. anlegen — sincere aufrichtig — far-right ultrarechts — brat Göre — to clash
with s.o. mit jdm. aneinandergeraten — on multiple occasions mehrfach
12 – 13 to recognize s.o. h.: jdn. würdigen — anger management Aggressionsbewältigung — phrasing Formulierung
— to call for verlangen — state h.: US-Bundesstaat — count h.: Auszählung der Briefwahlstimmen — to endorse
unterstützen — President-elect designierte(r) Präsident(in) — to pledge zusichern — to caution warnen — shift
Veränderung
6