- What's your message to world leaders today?
- (Greta) My message is...
- Oh, this is climate change stuff, isn't it?
- Ooh, is that Greta?
Dun, dun, duh! (laughs)
- Oh my God, it's Greta!
She is a queen.
- I've seen so many people like sharing this everywhere.
- (Greta) I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean.
- Then go back to school.
- (Greta) Yet, you all come to us young people for hope.
- She's overwhelmed with emotion, me too.
- She's not trying to level with them.
She's like, I guess, yelling at them.
A good way to have people hear you out
is having a nice, civil, conversation.
- (Greta) You all come to us young people for hope.
How dare you!
- We're literally the same exact age.
And here she is doing this, and I'm here,
like what, what am I doing? (laughs)
- (Greta) How dare you!
- I'm pretty sure that how dare you thing
has become like a really big meme.
- (Greta) Entire ecosystems are collapsing.
- She's like, incredible, this girl.
- (Greta) We are in the beginning of a mass extinction,
and all you can talk about is money
and fairy tales of eternal economic growth.
How dare you! (crowd cheers)
- She's just so powerful.
- Greta, we shoulda listened.
We shoulda listened Greta, why did we just clap?
We shoulda been like
"let's get up and go do something right now!"
- (Greta) For more than 30 years, the science has been crystal clear.
- Has it?
- I mean, of course I'm worried,
but there's nothing I can do about it.
So you can't really do much about it.
- (Greta) And come here, saying that you're doing enough.
- She's, she's really angry.
Like, I can feel her pain.
- Like, I think, here's the thing.
I think with climate change
and all this stuff going on with the environment,
that we can fix it.
But at the same time, it is so impossible
to get everyone on board to do what it needs to be done.
- (Greta) The popular idea of cutting our emissions in half
in 10 years only gives us a 50% chance.
- Okay.
- Yeah, but I mean, like, wait, I'm just confused
how a 16 year old gets into a U.N. meeting?
- (Greta) So a 50% risk is simply not acceptable to us,
we, who have to live with the consequences.
- That's true!
We're so young,
and we still, we're still growing up,
and what, we don't have a world to live in!
Our world is literally burning down!
- (Greta) There will not be any solutions or plans presented...
- I appreciate her rhetoric and appreciate her leadership.
I just wish more of us were leaders.
- (Greta) And you are still not mature enough
to tell it like it is.
- This is a little girl
telling you you're not mature enough.
Like, that should be speaking volumes to you.
- (Greta) But the young people
are starting to understand your betrayal.
- I like how she's trying to get her point across,
and I understand, I hear people out
when they talk about climate change.
But people will go on a reach to try and get people to understand.
- (Greta) And if you choose to fail us,
I say we will never forgive you.
- Yeah, that was like really, really, powerful.
I feel like so filled with emotion.
- I 100% believe that climate change is happening.
Of course.
Am I a little bit skeptical that it's man-made's fault, yes.
I believe like the Earth is just gonna do
whatever it wants to do.
- I respect her for doing this,
I just wish that people were more aware,
and that it didn't take Instagram,
and like this video specifically for them to open their eyes.
- (William) From Germany...
- Are these the strikes? - (William) ...to Australia...
- That's a lot of people! - (William) ...to South Africa,
and even with armed guards in Afghanistan.
- I didn't even know about this part!
- (William) Record numbers of people all over the world
are on strike for the climate. - I went to that!
- (William) Millions of protesters today demanded immediate action.
- And people still aren't doing [bleep].
- (William) And most of these protesters would credit
one Swedish teenager for getting it all started,
16 year old Greta Thunberg.
- 16.
- (William) Last fall, Thunberg started skipping school on Fridays
to demonstrate outside the Swedish parliament building.
- That's so awesome though, that's so dope.
- (William) Her sign read School Strike For Climate.
- Interesting.
- (William) Since then, she's become a global celebrity.
- (laughs) Greta is bae.
- (William) Quietly leading massive rallies
and confronting world leaders.
- Like one person did all this.
- (William) 14 year old Alexandria Villasenor
is one of the millions of young people who followed Thunberg's lead
and joined this movement. - Oh cool.
I haven't heard of her.
- (William) She's now been on her climate strike
in front of the United Nations headquarters in New York
for 40 straight Fridays.
- How is she not kicked out of school yet for absences?
- That's so sad, that she had to skip school.
- (William) 17 year old Gia Bastida
is another member of this movement.
- I still can't believe I'm literally like the same age
as all these girls.
- (William) This broad network of activists
want several key things.
Passage of a green new deal with its shift
to 100% renewable green energy by 2030.
- By 2030?
How likely is that?
- (William) Protection and restoration
of half the world's lands and oceans.
- Damn.
- (William) Stopping deforestation within 10 years,
ending subsidies for industrial agriculture...
- That's asking for quite a lot.
- The young teenagers are acting like they know everything.
- (William) And halting resource extraction on indigenous lands.
- That last one's really big.
- (Katie) Young people feel like that nobody is doing anything,
and so the responsibility is on our shoulders,
and I think it's really important to acknowledge how sad that is.
- Yes.
I feel like, like what Greta did is such as big domino effect.
- We hear a lot about climate change,
and I feel like this is one of the few instances
where it actually kinda resonating for more than a day.
- (FBE) The response towards Greta has been met with positivity,
but as you can imagine, she also has seen some backlash.
- I, oh my God.
It's all adults that are hating on her,
and that's the sad part!
- (FBE) So we have this clip from Fox News to show you
as an example of the negativity,
but we want to make sure you know
that they apologized after this aired for the behavior of their guest.
- Okay.
- (anchor) Systems produce methane, a potent greenhouse gas.
End quote, Michael Knowles. - Fox News?
- (anchor) Michael, I'll start with you
for just quick reaction.
- (Michael) Ironically, there was a study that came out
of Carnegie Mellon University in 2015
which showed that meatless diets
are actually far worse for the environment
than the regular meat-filled diets.
- What? - No, what, really?
- (Michael) ...increase energy use, they increase water use,
but none of that matters, because the climate hysteria movement
is not about science.
If it were about science, it would be lead by scientists
rather by politicians and a mentally ill Swedish child.
- Oh, that's so mean! He really said that!
- (Michael) And a mentally ill Swedish child who is being...
- Huh, he called her "mentally ill"?
- (Michael) The mentally ill Swedish child.
- Shut the [bleep] up.
What the [bleep] are you talking about?
- He's an adult. He's a full grown adult.
- (anchor) Chris, you had a visceral reaction to that, go ahead.
- (Chris) Yeah, I mean, you're a grown man,
and you're attacking a child, shame on you.
- Exactly! - Props to him.
- (Michael) ...for exploting a mentally ill child.
- (Chris) Now relax, skinny boy, I got this.
- Pfft, wow!
- (Chris) You're a grown man, and you're attacking a child.
Shame on you.
- He wasn't attacking her, he was just saying,
like this is what it is.
- (Chris) Now relax, skinny boy, I got this.
- Okay, now he's attacking him, like what the heck?
- (Chris) Relax, skinny boy, I got this.
Okay, you're attacking a child. - Dude, I...
Dude, I love politics, bro.
- (Chris) You are despicable for talking about her like that,
and you should apologize on national television right now.
- He didn't say anything that was offensive, about her.
What?
That just escalated quickly, what the heck just happened?
- He said how dare you,
like say that about a child,
but then you said shut up skinny boy.
That's literally a playground insult.
- Him criticizing Greta and being like oh,
she's like mentally ill, I feel like she has the right mindset.
I don't think that needs to be targeted at all.
- (FBE) So there is a lot to talk about in this episode,
but let's start with Greta Thunberg.
Did you know who she was before today?
- Yeah, of course, I think I've been,
I think, the first time I saw her pop up
was about six or seven months ago.
- She went really viral on Twitter for like what she was doing.
- I just saw a clip of her on Twitter,
the clip that she spoke to the U.N.
The passion that she had resonated with me a lot.
- I did a lot of like climate change research and stuff,
and she was like the first person that popped up.
- I found her on Instagram, and all of the stuff,
and I followed her, and I'm keeping up with everything
because I 100% agree with everything that she says.
- (FBE) When you see someone around your age
having this much passion, and getting all this attention,
how does it make you feel?
- I feel like honestly, like there's no limit,
so that young kids can do really anything.
- There was this stereotype back then, oh you're a kid,
you don't know nothing, this and that,
and now it's like look at her,
she's proving all these grown people wrong.
- Empowered, I guess, because it's very rare
that you see someone like her
get millions of people behind her.
I really live in a bubble,
and I feel so guilty for not being able
to go to like climate strikes,
and it makes me feel like oh,
I care, but I'm not actually doing anything,
and I think that makes me part of the problem.
- (FBE) Why do you think Greta has had such a massive global impact,
especially with young people?
- I think it's the fact that she's a teenager.
If someone this age can do something,
then why can't we make a difference,
and it spreads and spreads and spreads and spreads.
- When you see people the same age as you
fighting so strongly for something, it doesn't do anything
but like make you listen and get involved.
- I definitely, definitely think it has to do with social media, 100%.
Just the accessibility of the internet and like how easy it is
to find any article anywhere,
I think really what gave this its power to get to the next level.
- I freakin' can't stand when adults are like
"you're always on social media, it's brainwashing you."
I am kept in the loop with Instagram, YouTube, Twitter.
- (FBE) Do you feel that youth protesting and leaving school
is an effective way to enact change or not?
- That's a hard question, I really wanna know.
I'm at a loss when it comes to those kind of things,
'cause like, it's been so long where this has been going on,
and like she said, I haven't seen any change.
- Yeah, I went with the Sunrise Movement in L.A.
It was great, but I mean, there's always room for improvement.
- The walk outs and stuff like that that are doing for like gun laws
and stuff like that last year,
I know my school had a couple walk outs,
'cause my town was affected by one shooting.
It definitely feel like made a change
and brought awareness to the town and the area.
- In the past, striking on stuff has like changed,
and made things better, so maybe this is something
that will make things better by striking, who knows?
- Taking to the streets is more of like,
I don't wanna say a past way to do it, because people still do it obviously,
but I mean, I feel like the internet is an even better way
to go on strike, I guess.
I think you have a better influence on people
than if you're just in the streets yelling about stuff.
- (FBE) Let's talk about what we also showed you.
How there are some adults being very negative
and expressing backlash towards Greta.
So what does it make you think
seeing adults saying these kinds of things
to someone who's a teenager expressing her opinion?
- It's shallow.
It does nothing to demean someone whose only purpose in life
is to do good and make change.
- Makes them look immature,
looks like if you wanna tell somebody to just say it,
just be like "oh yeah, in my opinion, I don't think this is true,"
instead of oh, "mentally ill," you know,
"she doesn't know what she's talking about
she's getting exploited." It's like whoa, relax there, buddy.
- People are just so hostile nowadays, especially when it comes to politics.
- People are very extreme about their opinions.
If you don't have my exact opinion,
I don't wanna talk to you,
I don't wanna have anything to do with you.
More things get done when you have a civil conversation.
- It's sad how I have to say that it's natural,
because I'm so used to it at this point.
I'm probably gonna get shamed for what I'm saying right now.
I'm not gonna let them shut me up and change,
it's not gonna change my views, because they don't agree with it.
- (FBE) So let's directly address climate change.
For anyone watching this, we wanna point out
that we do film the show in Southern California.
- Yeah.
- (FBE) Which is a very liberal area.
But how is climate change talked about,
and what do you think about it here?
- See, it's so weird, because honestly,
I don't hear about climate change.
- I don't think I talk about it very much,
and I don't think my friends talk about it very much,
so I'm kinda somewhat out of the loop.
I mean, obviously, I know it exists.
- It's a turning point,
and it's up to us whether we acknowledge it or we don't.
- There's scientific facts that literally state
how real climate change is.
- There's no reason to not believe it's true,
when we get reports like hottest day ever
in the last 40, 50 years in this place, or spiked this,
and just things that never happened before happening,
and it's like, well, for what though?
If you don't think it's climate change,
give me what you think it is.
- A few months ago, I didn't know what climate change was.
I knew what global warming was,
but I didn't know what climate change was.
At first, I was like oh yeah, we need to do something about it.
But then over time, I was like mmm,
something's not adding up.
I just believe that science can't prove everything.
It's difficult for me to talk about it
because some people don't wanna hear what I have to say,
'cause then they're gonna start saying "oh, why do you believe that,
you need to believe this."
I hear them out, I listen to them, I listen to what they have to say.
Most of the time, they don't really ask me about it,
so I don't say anything.
It's kinda hard for me to get my thoughts out,
because no one really wants to hear it 'cause they're like,
they're strictly one-sided.
- I'm more of the it's not a thing.
There has to be a lot more scientific evidence
for me and a lot of other people to believe in this climate change
or for it to be debunked.
Doing your research is better than
having your parents tell you what to believe.
- (FBE) Hearing you say that, can you talk about
what it's like to be a conservative teenager in L.A. in 2019?
- It's not easy. (laughs)
Because everyone is just "how dare you not be like this,"
and then you're just trying, you're at your friend's house,
and they're like, something political comes up,
you're not even talking about it, like "oh my gosh, I hate our president,
our president sucks," and you're like,
I don't wanna say anything 'cause I like these people,
but you know if I say something,
I might be, they might not like me as much.
I pride myself on letting people have their own opinions,
'cause obviously we're in Calfornia. I'm not like a normal Californian.
People should be able to live in harmony,
even if they don't have the same opinions.
- (FBE) So finally, from discussing Greta and her activism,
what would you say to other young people watching this
who feel that they don't really have a voice
or a way to instill real change?
- Young people, I know you're watching this on your phone right now
or something that has internet.
So please, use the internet.
There's gonna be that one person that cares,
and that's all it really takes sometimes,
that one person that cares, and they'll spread the word
with that passion, that's how it all starts.
- In this day and age, there's so many ways
to get your voice out there.
Just try.
- You should speak up, so we know how it is for you,
'cause we don't know how it is until you speak up.
You, as an individual in this economy, you have power.
- It's really important to keep speaking our voice,
and it's really important that we don't let anyone stop us,
because if you do, then we're just gonna be stuck
in the same place that we've been.
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