Climate action

You have stolen my dreams and my childhood. People are suffering, people are dying, entire ecosystems are collapsing. 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?
- Greta Thunberg at the UN on 23-Sep-2019. 

• This is her best speech.  It captures the anxiety of a generation and those living on the front lines of famines, heat waves, droughts, and sea level rise.
• They whispered to her, “you cannot withstand the storm”. She whispered back, “I am the storm”!  You go girl.
• Why is Trump there? He doesn't believe in Climate Change. 
• On 26-Nov-2018 asked about the findings in a report warning of devastating effects of climate change that unchecked global warming would wreak havoc on the US economy, US President Donald Trump said: "I don't believe it." 
• I feel no need to meet President Trump. My message to President Trump is just listen to science, and he obviously doesn't do that. - Greta Thunberg
• Pro-tip: Yielding to the demands of a catastrophizing 16 year-old who has no experience with unintended consequences is a bad idea. We are not beginning a mass extinction. Both mankind and nature can and will adapt to the modest increases in temps. Don't fall for the drama. - Doug Sheridan
• We have taken planet stability for granted and our stable, reliable planet no longer exists. What we do in the next few years, will determine the next few thousand years. - David Attenborough. 
• She is amazing. The only reason people can make fun of this statement is because they still feel safe and their bellies are full. In about 20 years nothing will be funny anymore. The older people will die but millennial's have the possibility of horror.

• Greta has done more in 16 years to raise climate awareness than you or I have in our lifetime.
• Rich people will be ok. Poor people will not.
• We have to look for a solution, because she is right - people are dying and ultimately the planet will die if we don’t do something fast.
• The earth will fix itself by killing off as many humans as it can. That’s the only way balance will be restored.
• Everyone, can fight, climate change every day,  just by making the right choice of food.
• No one is willing to live without modern luxury and necessities to deal with it.

Greta Thunberg - Speeches - Excerpts

Greta Thunberg (16), Climate activist from Sweden

On March 15, 2019, about 1.4 million students in 123 countries joined school strike for climate justice. I am going to continue school striking until Sweden is in line with The Paris Agreement.  Richest 10% of world population emits about half of greenhouse gases. Richest 1% emits more than the poorest 50%. About 100 companies emit approximately 71% of our total emissions of CO2. If the richest 10% of the world’s population would lower their emissions to that of the average citizen in EU, then the world’s emissions of CO2 would be cut by about one third. Our biosphere is being sacrificed so that rich people in countries like mine can live in luxury. It is the sufferings of the many which pay for the luxuries of the few.

• People tell success stories but their financial success has come with an unthinkable price tag.
• We need to start living within the planetary boundaries. This will be drastic change for many but not for most. Because most of the world population is already living within the planetary boundaries. It is minority who are not. 
• The main solution however is so simple that even a small child can understand it. We have to stop the emissions of greenhouse gases. And either we do that or we don't. 
• People are not aware that there is such a thing as a carbon budget. If you regularly fly around the world, eat meat and dairy and are living a high carbon lifestyle then that means you have used up countless of people’s remaining carbon budgets. Carbon budgets that they will need in their everyday life, for generations to come. Those whose carbon budgets we are stealing are the ones least responsible and the ones who are going to be affected the most by this crisis.
• We must change almost everything in our current societies. The bigger your carbon footprint is, the bigger your moral duty. The bigger your platform the bigger your responsibility. 
• I want you to act as if you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if the house was on fire, because it is. 
• We need to keep the fossil fuels in the ground and we need to focus on equity. And if solutions within this system are so impossible to find then maybe we should change the system itself. We have run out of excuses and we are running out of time. We have come here to let you know that change is coming whether you like it or not. The real power belongs to the people! 
• Rich countries like Sweden need to start reducing emissions by at least 15% every year to reach the 2 degree warming target. 
• We are in the midst of the sixth mass extinction, and the extinction rate is up to 10,000 times faster than what is considered normal, with up to 200 species becoming extinct every single day. Erosion of fertile topsoil, deforestation of our great forests, toxic air pollution, loss of insects and wildlife, the acidification of our oceans. These are all disastrous trends being accelerated by a way of life that we, here in our financially-fortunate part of the world, see as our right to simply carry on. 
• Our house is falling apart, and our leaders need to start acting accordingly, because at the moment they are not. If our house was falling apart, you would change almost every part of your behavior, as you do in an emergency. If our house was falling apart, you wouldn't hold three emergency Brexit summits and no emergency summit regarding the breakdown of the climate and environment. 
• No one ever speak about the aspect of equity clearly stated everywhere in the Paris agreement, which is absolutely necessary to make it work on a global scale. That means that rich countries like mine (Sweden) to get down to zero emissions, within 6–12 years, so that people in poorer countries can heighten their standard of living by building some of the infrastructure that we have already built, such as hospitals, electricity, clean drinking water and so on.
• The climate crisis has already been solved. We already have all the facts and solutions. All we have to do is to wake up and change. 
• Today we use 100 million barrels of oil every single day. There are no politics to change that. There are no rules to keep that oil in the ground. So we can’t save the world by playing by the rules. Because the rules have to be changed. Everything needs to change. And it has to start today. 
• Since our leaders are behaving like children, we will have to take the responsibility they should have taken long ago. 
• If burning fossil fuels was so bad that it threatened our very existence, how could we just continue like before? Why were there no restrictions? Why wasn't it made illegal? 
• I was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome OCD and selective mutism. That basically means I only speak when I think it is necessary. Now is one of those moments. 
• If the emissions have to stop, then we must stop the emissions. Either we go on as a civilization or we don't. We have to change. We need a system change rather than individual change. But you can not have one without the other.
• Rich countries like Sweden need to start reducing emissions by at least 15 percent every year. And that is so that we can stay below a two degree warming target. IPCC have recently demonstrated, aiming instead for 1.5 degrees Celsius would significantly reduce the climate impacts.
• People keep doing what they do because the vast majority doesn't have a clue about the actual consequences of our everyday life.
• No one is acting as if we were in a crisis. Even most climate scientists or green politicians keep on flying around the world, eating meat and dairy. 
• What we do or don't do right now will affect my entire life and the lives of my children and grandchildren. What we do or don't do right now, me and my generation can't undo in the future. 
• We children usually don't do as you tell us to do, we do as you do. And if you adults don't care about my future, neither do I. 

Greta Thunberg ....

 

• Greta Thunberg cut a frail and lonely figure when she started a school strike for the climate outside the Swedish parliament building last August (2018). Her parents tried to dissuade her. Classmates declined to join. Passersby expressed pity and bemusement at the sight of the then unknown 15-year-old sitting on the cobblestones with a hand-painted banner. Eight months later on this Friday Mar 15, 2019, the global climate school strike (over a million students on strike for climate justice) has become the biggest environmental protests the world has ever seen. 
• Ms Thunberg's made it clear that "if solutions within the system are so impossible to find, maybe we should change the system itself". In her speech to MPs in April 2019, Miss Thunberg said the UK was supporting shale gas fracking, greater exploitation of North Sea oil and gas fields and expanding airports. "This ongoing irresponsible behavior will no doubt be remembered in history as one of the greatest failures of humankind," she said. She described the UK's carbon emissions reduction as the result of "very creative" accounting.
• In an industry conference, Oil and Gas UK chief executive Ms. Deirdre Michie said: "I would like to reassure Greta Thunberg - we are listening, because we want the world to be a better place too. And while we believe that our industry's global contribution has improved the lives of billions of people, we are clear that climate change is a real and present danger that we must deal with together." She described the climate activist (Ms.Greta Thunberg) as an "impressive young woman we can all take inspiration from".
• Unfortunately the public's, Govt's, etc Green credentials vaporize at the first suggestion that to avert climate change they may have to compromise their lifestyles a tiny bit. Much easier subscribe to the delusion that wind turbines, solar panels electric cars, etc help, even if they obviously don't. Meanwhile the worlds fossil fuel consumption grows year-on-year unabated.

Excerpts from Greta Thunberg's speeches:

• Some people can let things go. I can’t.
• The main solution however is so simple that even a small child can understand it. We have to stop the emissions of greenhouse gases.
• We must change almost everything in our current societies.
• Our civilization is being sacrificed for the opportunity with a very small number of people to continue making enormous amounts of money. 
• And if solutions within this system are so impossible to find then maybe we should change the system itself.
• The real power belongs to the people! 
• 200 species going extinct every single day.
• If the emissions have to stop, then we must stop the emissions. 
• People keep doing what they do because the vast majority doesn't have a clue about the actual consequences of our everyday life.
• Most climate scientists or green politicians keep on flying around the world, eating meat and dairy.
• We need action more than hope. Once we start to act, hope is everywhere. 
• Today we use 100 million barrels of oil every single day. There are no politics to change that. There are no rules to keep that oil in the ground. So we can't save the world by playing by the rules. Because the rules have to be changed. 

Greta Thunberg speeches

1. Speech at TEDxStockholm 
2. Speech at COP24 Dec 3 2018 
3. Speech at COP24 Dec 12 2018 
4. Challenging The World Economic Forum in Davos - January 22 2019 
5. Speech "Our House is on Fire" at 2019 World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos 
6. Speech 2019-02-21 in Brussels: "We want politicians to listen to the scientists" 
7. "You can't just sit around waiting for hope to come" 2019-02-21 in Brussels 
8. Speech at the EU Parliament in Strasbourg 2019-04-16 

Climate changes: Our house is on fire - Greta Thunberg

Greta Thunberg, 16, Swedish girl

 Greta Thunberg (left) takes part in a ‘school strike for climate’
at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. 

Swedish school strike activist Ms. Greta Thunberg, 16, demands economists tackle runaway global warming. Her Davos speech here:

Our house is on fire. I am here to say, our house is on fire.

According to the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), we are less than 12 years away from not being able to undo our mistakes. In that time, unprecedented changes in all aspects of society need to have taken place, including a reduction of our CO2 emissions by at least 50%.

And please note that those numbers do not include the aspect of equity, which is absolutely necessary to make the Paris agreement work on a global scale. Nor does it include tipping points or feedback loops like the extremely powerful methane gas released from the thawing Arctic permafrost.

At places like Davos, people like to tell success stories. But their financial success has come with an unthinkable price tag. And on climate change, we have to acknowledge we have failed. All political movements in their present form have done so, and the media has failed to create broad public awareness.

But Homo sapiens have not yet failed. 

Yes, we are failing, but there is still time to turn everything around. We can still fix this. We still have everything in our own hands. But unless we recognise the overall failures of our current systems, we most probably don’t stand a chance.

We are facing a disaster of unspoken sufferings for enormous amounts of people. And now is not the time for speaking politely or focusing on what we can or cannot say. Now is the time to speak clearly.

Solving the climate crisis is the greatest and most complex challenge that Homo sapiens have ever faced. The main solution, however, is so simple that even a small child can understand it. We have to stop our emissions of greenhouse gases.


Either we do that or we don’t.

You say nothing in life is black or white. But that is a lie. A very dangerous lie. Either we prevent 1.5C of warming or we don’t. Either we avoid setting off that irreversible chain reaction beyond human control or we don’t.

Either we choose to go on as a civilisation or we don’t. That is as black or white as it gets. There are no grey areas when it comes to survival.

We all have a choice. We can create transformational action that will safeguard the living conditions for future generations. Or we can continue with our business as usual and fail.

That is up to you and me.

Some say we should not engage in activism. Instead we should leave everything to our politicians and just vote for a change instead. But what do we do when there is no political will? What do we do when the politics needed are nowhere in sight?

Here in Davos – just like everywhere else – everyone is talking about money. It seems money and growth are our only main concerns.

And since the climate crisis has never once been treated as a crisis, people are simply not aware of the full consequences on our everyday life. People are not aware that there is such a thing as a carbon budget, and just how incredibly small that remaining carbon budget is. That needs to change today.


No other current challenge can match the importance of establishing a wide, public awareness and understanding of our rapidly disappearing carbon budget, that should and must become our new global currency and the very heart of our future and present economics.

We are at a time in history where everyone with any insight of the climate crisis that threatens our civilisation – and the entire biosphere – must speak out in clear language, no matter how uncomfortable and unprofitable that may be.

We must change almost everything in our current societies. The bigger your carbon footprint, the bigger your moral duty. The bigger your platform, the bigger your responsibility.

Adults keep saying: “We owe it to the young people to give them hope.” But I don’t want your hope. I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. And then I want you to act.


I want you to act as you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if our house is on fire. Because it is.

Greta Thunberg, a Swedish climate activist told world leaders: 

'I don't want you to be hopeful, I want you to panic.
I want you to feel the fear I feel every day and then I want you to act.'
In an impassioned warning to act now on climate change,
Thunberg told her audience at Davos:
'Either we choose to go on as a civilisation or we don’t'