Greta Thunberg believed, strongly, that it was time for world leaders to stop acting like everything is normal when normal is leading us straight to catastrophe.
That is why, at age fifteen, she decided to stop doing the one thing all kids are supposed to do when everything is "normal": go to school to prepare for their futures as adults.
So, in August 2018, at the start of the school year, Thunberg didn't go to class.
Instead, she went to Sweden's parliament and camped outside with a handmade sign that read simply, SCHOOL STRIKE FOR THE CLIMATE. She planned to demonstrate in front of the Swedish parliament from the first day of the fall term until the country's parliamentary elections three weeks later.
Every morning, she would ride her bike to the parliament, arriving when her classes would have started. After posting on social media, she would turn off her phone, as would have been required in the classroom. During the day, she sat on the ground outside the building, studying her textbooks, although she made it clear in interviews, that she found preparing for the future to be pointless.
As she explained:
"Why should we be studying for a future that soon may be no more when no one is doing anything whatsoever to save that future? And what is the point of learning facts in the school system when the most important facts given by the finest science of that same school system clearly means nothing to our politicians and our society?"
At the hour when school would normally end, she packed up her things and cycled home. She did it alone. She returned every Friday, spending the entire day there. One day, a young boy asked if he could sit with her. Others joined them.
In a matter of days, she became a globally recognized figure, known for her precise articulation of the scientific causes of climate change and the unequivocal condemnation she rained upon her elders for failing to address it. After the Swedish elections, she decided to continue her campaign by striking only on Fridays, sparking what has become a global student movement called Fridays for Future.
Of course, Greta's story is now well known to all of us.
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Charles Aulds
20 August 2020
