Beginning in 2018, one teenage girl named Greta Thunberg was the voice leader to those who are powerless and are afraid to speak out on their opinions regarding the current state of condition of our home planet. Her sense of bravery and activism sparked international recognition and attention by many people which even garnered her several awards and recognition including a Nobel peace Prize, Forbes and TIME Magazines, respectively. Her sudden influence globally through environmental activism specifically on climate change had been described by many media outlets as the “Greta effect”.
This only started with Greta marching in front of her school walking to the Swedish parliament with the poster saying, “School strike for climate”. Then after that tumultuous amounts of student strikes have been organized in many nearby communities and cities and it drew millions of supporters in every protest for a cause. She was an advocate of development for the environment amidst the growing problems related to climate change. Her message to many world leaders last year in the UN Climate Change Summit most especially a part of her speech saying, “How dare you?”, gained mixed reactions and became a famous trademark among many.
Her courageous act when it comes to environmental activism had came influence from her parents Malena Ernman, a Swedish opera singer and Svante Thunberg, who is also an environmental activist himself. According to an article of CBS News, Mr. Thunberg at first did not support her going to protests and activism, even in skipping school but on the brighter side, her fight and activism helped her ward off depression, specifically Asperger’s syndrome, on the autistic spectrum. Her father mentioned that “her activism helped her show herself as a person, she dances around, she laughs a lot, we have a lot of fun — and she’s in a very good place.”
Greta Thunberg’s speech and advocacy still does not speak much on what she expects for the future of our planet. He past speeches and protest are well enough to explain and show that even as young as her age, one person can speak out for the rest of the billions of people around the world on what she feels for our environment which is the “new poor”. A personal insight that I can share is that all of these advocacies bear great symbolism and wake-up call to also gain attention and awareness to the atrocities that human life has committed against the planet, being an activist also is a great way to fight for what is right justly but on deeper side protesting like Greta has been doing is not enough to say that we are making a change for our planet because putting words into actions on preventing Earth’s deterioration can make a huge change and impact for all of us. Doing practical methods or in other words, acting on the ability of what we can do is already a big help or contribution to the impact of climate change on our society. These methods includes segregation of our waste, participating on clean-up drives of our own respective communities which involves streets and riverbanks/estuaries, turning waste as useful materials for everyday life or upcycling and not into too much usage of energy waste coming from our gadgets and lights which contributes release of harmful chemicals to the atmosphere. These simple acts of conservation are already considered a huge step for our planet, speaking out our opinions is considered courage to do something life-changing but in the long run actions will speak louder to justify the words we fight for.
References:
O’KANE, C. (2019): Greta Thunberg’s dad says he was “not supportive” of her activism – but then he saw it help her out of depression. 10:47 AM / CBS NEWS. Retrieved March 4, 2020 from https://www.cbsnews.com/news/greta-thunberg-parents-dad-svante-thunberg-not-supportive-of-climate-activism-but-saw-it-help-depression-autism/
Cjay's bloggie 