New York: A 16-year-old environmental activist Monday scolded heads of state at the UN Global Climate Action Summit, accusing them of robbing her generation of a future by focusing on money and not on fighting global warming.
“You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words,” Greta Thunberg said in a speech full of emotion and stinging criticism.
“People are suffering, people are dying, entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are at the beginning of a mass extinction and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of endless economic growth. How dare you!”
Thunberg, who traveled from Europe to New York for the summit on a zero-emissions sailboat, said she should be in school in her native Sweden rather than at the UN telling world leaders what to do to address climate change. Listen to the science, she told them, which has been “crystal clear” for 30 years. She admonished them for leaving her generation with the task of sucking billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide out of the air “with technologies that barely exist”.
Thunberg’s impassioned speech sparked many reactions from people across the world, applauding her efforts to get world leaders to commit more effectively to tackling climate change. The #HowDareYou began trending by Monday morning.
Also read: Don’t bet on the UN to fix climate change – it’s failed for 30 years
Thank you @gretathunberg for giving us the much needed punch in the face, for bringing your generation together and showing us that we need to know better, do more to save what is most critical. At the end of the day, we only have this one planet. #HowDareYou https://t.co/IiQ5NUavpD
— PRIYANKA (@priyankachopra) September 24, 2019
The anger we feel toward the perpetrators of the climate crisis captured in a single moment #HowDareYou
Brave @GretaThunberg ? pic.twitter.com/StGUwWMJUI
— Senator Jordon Steele-John ?? (@Jordonsteele) September 24, 2019
Anyone describing Greta Thurnberg's speech as "unhinged" or that she's somehow being "abused" – clearly you've never seen a teen girl speak about ANYTHING she cares about. I took the same tone talking about My So Called Life getting cancelled. #HOWDAREYOU
— Sara Schaefer (@saraschaefer1) September 23, 2019
This is devastatingly powerful. @GretaThunberg gave a brutally honest assessment of where the world is at, the failure of leadership, and why it is not fair to leave saving the planet to our children and grandchildren. #howdareyou https://t.co/Kx73xl2n0U
— ?? Sarah Hanson-Young (@sarahinthesen8) September 23, 2019
The world has found its shero, and her name is @GretaThunberg. #howdareyou pic.twitter.com/x1ivMd0oA9
— Buffy Wicks (@BuffyWicks) September 23, 2019
Leaders from around the world, including French President Emmanuel Macron, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, have gathered in New York this week to make new pledges to curb global-warming emissions. President Donald Trump, who wasn’t originally scheduled to attend, made a surprise appearance at the summit Monday.
However, there were some who ridiculed Thunberg, who suffers from Asperger’s. Most of these trolls seem to be pro-Trump, who is famously a climate change-denier, and went to the extent of suggesting that she was mentally disturbed and even a victim of “child abuse”.
"Mass Extinction" is what happens when socialist/communist take over countries!
See Russia, China, Cuba, Venezuela…— Robert Dubois (@RobertDubois_82) September 24, 2019
Poor Greta. She would sleep better at night if she simply read this list of 50 Climate predictions made by scientists that NEVER came true. Here are the top 25 but I’m sure this time #51 they are right.. not pic.twitter.com/cumTNgdr86
— Melissa Tate (@TheRightMelissa) September 24, 2019
https://twitter.com/MarkDice/status/1176341028929826816?s=20
That girl is the victim of severe child abuse. Some of the worst psychological abuse I have seen.
Eventually she will need to participate in cult deprogramming.
Sad!— David Wohl (@DavidWohl) September 24, 2019
Many came to the defence of Thunberg, who last year skipped school for three weeks to protest outside Sweden’s Parliament. Her climate movement has inspired many young voices, spurring people in over 100 countries to join her in a climate strike last week.
#DonaldTrump picking on an innocent young girl is absolutely disgusting!! ?
— Jules Morgan (@glamelegance) September 24, 2019
This is tooooo funny!!!#ClimateActionSummit #GretaThurnberg pic.twitter.com/dD1z6xZfxM
— Mr Producer (@RichSementa) September 23, 2019
That a Grown. Ass. Man. finds it necessary to post an Official Presidential* Statement via his Twitter acct at 11:30pm to attack her makes me sick.
Take your smart ass comments and poor attempt at shade throwing and stick it entirely up your 300lb ass.
Fucking neanderthal.
— ? Koko ? ? (@Kokomothegreat) September 24, 2019
Just a reminder that this is a full-grown, 73-year-old man that occupies the most powerful position in the world, talking shit about a child.
— Brian Tyler Cohen (@briantylercohen) September 24, 2019
The bottom line: pic.twitter.com/gjCgepZ4Ex
— Millionaire Poso (@JackPosobiec) September 24, 2019
(With inputs from Bloomberg)
Also read: World leaders gather for UN climate summit, but without US and Brazil