Before Greta Thunberg would become one of the world’s most well-known climate change
activists at just 16 years’ old
Before she would spark a worldwide climate school strike with over 100 thousand students
getting involved
Before Greta would feature as a voiceover for a song by The 1975 about the Climate Crisis
Before Greta would win the Alternative Nobel for her environmental work and the 2018 Children’s
Climate Prize
Before she would appear in Time Magazine in 2018 as one of the world’s 25 most influential
teenagers and in 2019 as one of the 100 most influential people
Before she would receive the award for Swedish woman of the year and have a 50-foot mural
painted of her:
Before she would take on US Congressmen: Before she would speak to leaders at
the UN
And before she would face criticism from many people, including the President of The United
States of America
Before Greta would have close to 6 million followers on Instagram, over 2.2 million followers
on Twitter, and close to 2 million likes on Facebook at the time of this recording
Greta is without a doubt one of the most famous 16 year olds in the world.
And she’s famous for a different reason than most teenagers these days.
Most famous kids of today have gained their audience through Tik Tok or trolling online.
But Greta has built her audience by going after world leaders, governments and big oil
companies in attempts to slow down the process of climate change.
Now, I will say that I think this issue is much more complicated than a lot of the media
on both sides is making it sound.
It can’t be just protests, and it also can’t just be ignored, because clearly things are
happening that need to be dealt with.
But this video isn’t going to get too deep into any of that.
Instead, let’s take a look at how a 16-year-old kid found herself at the center of one of
the most politically charged topics of 2019.
What’s going on good people in the comment section?
I hope you’re having one Hecht of a day, my name is Jeremy Hecht and today I’ll be
your host, taking you through the life and activism of Greta Thunberg, prior to global
fame, here for you of course, on Before They Were Famous.
Now this video is a little bit different from the usual videos we do about celebrities,
but Greta has been making so many waves in the climate change debate that we thought
it would be good to go through her story and show you how she’s become such a household
name so quickly.
Alright, let’s get into the video!
Greta Thunberg was born on January 3, 2003, in Stockholm, Sweeden.
Greta grew up with her younger sister, who is also diagnosed with Autism.
But Greta’s confidence on stage definitely runs in her family.
Her mother Malena Ernman is a famous opera singer, and her father, Svante Thunberg is
an actor, author and producer.
Malena has appeared in musicals, has performed jazz, is a member of the Royal Swedish Academy
of Music and represented Sweden at the Eurovision Song Contest in 2009.
Even her grandfather Olof is an actor and director.
So, relatively famous Swedish family.
But, it was actually a young Greta that convinced her mother to give up her Opera career to
help focus on the environmental impact of aviation.
We’ll get into that in a second.
Greta’s parents even co-authored a book together called “Scenes from the Heart”
about their family and the climate crisis.
So how did a 16-year-old get so involved in all of this stuff?
Well let’s take a step back.
Greta first heard about climate change in 2011, when she was just 8 years old.
She was confused as to why there was so little being done on the global stage.
After constantly thinking about the problem, she eventually became depressed, stopped talking,
stopped eating and there was clearly something wrong.
She was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, obsessive-compulsive disorder and selective
mutism, which she has described as only speaking when she feels it’s necessary.
At first, she viewed her diagnoses as a limiting factor in her life, but more recently, she
has said that she feels like her Asperger’s is her superpower.
I’m pretty sure that’s similar to something that some, big, artist said about their mental
illness…
I’m forgetting his name though:
For two years, Greta would challenge her parents daily to lower their own carbon footprint.
She said in an interview:
I have a special interest.
It’s very common that people on the autism spectrum have a special interest.
And she found her special interest and began devoting all of her time and energy into the
climate crisis.
Greta gave up meat and flying and suggested that her family do the same.
Which, is the reason that her mother gave up her international singing career, because
she couldn’t fly out to shows after committing to her daughter’s plan.
As you can guess, it took her parents some time before they caught on.
I mean, this is just me personally, but if my kid told me to give up something that I
had worked my whole life to attain, I might be a little skeptical.
Sit down kid, I made you.
But eventually, her parents supported their child’s dream and changed their lifestyle.
They wanted their child to feel like she could truly make a difference in this world.
In late 2018, those dreams became something that reached far beyond her household.
After seeing so many school shootings take place in the US, Greta was inspired by student
protests.
The Parkland students invoked a lot of conversation and Greta knew that similar conversations
had to be had about Climate change.
In May of 2018, Greta won a climate change essay competition held by a Swedish newspaper
called, and pardon my pronunciation here but I figured, why not try it out: Svenska Dagbladet.
She wrote…
I want to feel safe.
How can I feel safe when I know we are in the greatest crisis in human history?
I would argue that it’s the second greatest crisis in human history…
standing only behind my pronunciation of the magazine 15 seconds ago…
After Greta’s paper was published by the magazine, she was contacted by Bo Thoren from
Fossil Free Dalsland.
The group wanted to do something about climate change and invited Greta to meet with them.
Greta came up with the idea for a school strike to raise awareness about climate change.
But it wasn’t as easy of a job as it originally sounded.
Sure, getting kids out of class sounds like a synch, but a lot of kids didn’t really
want to get involved and cause a stir with their school.
I guess it was one thing to miss school due to a snow day, but another thing to miss school
because of the lack of a snow day…
But Greta was determined to make her dreams happen and increase global awareness of the
climate problem.
SO, she decided to go ahead with the strike all by herself.
So on August 20, 2018, Greta decided that instead of going to class as usual for her
9th grade year, she would not attend school until the 2018 Swedish general election on
September 9th.
This was sparked by heat waves and wildfires during Sweden’s hottest summer in 262 years.
What Greta was asking for, was for the Swedish government to reduce carbon emissions in accordance
with the Paris Agreement.
But I know what you’re thinking, wow that sounds like it’s pretty chill to just stay
home from school for a few weeks and not have to do anything.
Well, it wasn’t THAT type of time off.
Greta actually sat outside of the Swedish parliament building every single day for three
weeks straight during school hours, which is a long time to be sitting outside of a
building.
She would sit there and hand out pamphlets that said: “I am doing this because you
adults are s**** on my future!”
She came out swinging on the adults!!!!!!!
Speaking of adults, her father supports her dreams, but was also skeptical about her missing
so much school for the strike:
[We] respect that she wants to make a stand.
She can either sit at home and be really unhappy, or protest, and be happy
A representative of the Finnish Bank also quote tweeted on of Greta’s tweets to his
200 thousand followers, and big names started getting involved.
In just over a week, her school climate strike had gained international support.
After the general elections took place, Greta returned to school, but since she felt there
was still a lot more to do and more attention to be raised, she continued to strike every
Friday.
It became a global movement as more than 20 thousand students in around 270 cities took
place in the Friday Climate Strike.
Currently, according to Ted.com, over 100 thousand students have been involved in the
movement, which now goes by the name, of Fridays For Future.
In 2019, Greta’s prominence rose even more.
She published a series of climate action speeches urges all those in power to take action and
began getting invited to speak all over the globe.
In August of 2019, Greta sailed across the Atlantic Ocean from Plymouth UK to New York
in a 60-foot racing yacht equipped with solar panels and underwater turbines.
The trip was to demonstrate Thunberg's belief of the importance of reducing emissions.
The trip took her 15 days.
And when she got to New York, no, she didn’t rest, she went straight to the UN Climate
Action Summit in New York City.
The impact of Greta’s work has reached everyone from media to celebrities to politicians.
And even authors.
In August of 2019 alone, there was a doubling of the number of children’s books being
published about the climate crisis.
Which, seems weird because if we’re trying to save the environment, printing more books,
which are made on paper… seems to be going in the wrong direction…
Maybe they’re on Kindel…
But, that’s beside the point.
She has even had an economic impact on the climate crisis.
Inspired by Greta’s work, the wealthiest of the wealthy have contributed more than
half a million pounds already to support the Climate Emergency Fund and Trevor Neilson,
one of those philanthropists, has said that he will be contacting his super rich friends
to donate a hundred times that amount in months to come.
Even if you disagree with her methods, you absolutely cannot deny Greta’s impact.
I mean, she’s even impacted the way people in her country use transportation.
In a June 2019 report, Swedish Railways said that the number of people in Sweden taking
the train for their domestic journeys had risen by 8% since the previous year.
Now, you can’t prove it was all due to Greta’s campaign, but you’ve got to think it played
a big part.
But of course, no activism comes without criticism.
Many people claim that even though there is a lot of support for Greta, that most people
are not actually doing anything to help the cause.
And, anybody who is making money off of the things that are being protested are never
pleased, which happens any time somebody’s dollars are getting hurt… * cough * Oil
companies.
One writer claimed that Greta’s parents were pimping her out for fame and ignoring
her mental problems.
But I think the real ones misusing her for fame are people like Ingmar Rentzhog who asked
her to be an advisor for his climate startup that I mentioned earlier, called “We Don’t
Have Time,” and then he used her name and likeness without permission, for profit…
So, if anybody is using a 16-year girl for fame, it’s that guy.
British businessman Arron Banks even tweeted, what seemed like him wishing harm or at least
being okay with harm to Greta’s life when said in reference to her yacht trip:
“Freak Yacht accidents do happen in August”
Bro…
She’s a 16 year old who just loves the planet, calm down and go back to your millionaire
lifestyle alright… buddy.
But many of the attacks on Greta have been refuted heavily.
Scientific American published a piece stating that many of Greta’s detractors are using
personal attacks rather than attacking the facts that she is bringing to the table.
But I think Greta said it best in Time magazine:
It's quite hilarious when the only thing people can do is mock you, or talk about your appearance
or personality, as it means they have no argument or nothing else to say.
Well said Greta.
As for the future, well she is still set to attended the COP 25 Climate Change Conference
in Chile coming up in December so expect to hear her name in the news more.
And being that she is only 16 years old, I have a feeling that she is only just getting
started.
But as for the rest of the story, well, we’ll have to wait and see because this is Before
They Were Famous.
My name is Jeremy Hecht, if you liked this video, I’d really appreciate a follow on
Instagram and you can let us know who you want us to cover next.
But I’m out for now.
Dream Good, Live Better I hope you have one Hecht of a day, and I’ll see you in the
next video.
And if nobody has told you yet today, I love you.
Peace!