A 16-year-old Swedish climate activist much celebrated by the Left who is about to visit America and attend a U.N. summit said she wouldn’t want to “waste time talking” to President Trump. Regarding a meeting with Trump, Thunberg stated, “Why should I waste time talking to him when he, of course, is not going to listen to me?”
Great Thunberg has been championed by various members of the Left, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). When they spoke over a video link The Guardian gushed, “Ocasio-Cortez speaks with her customary snap and brilliance that, held up against the general waffle of political discourse, seems startlingly direct. Thunberg, meanwhile, is phenomenally articulate, well-informed and self-assured, holding her own in conversation with an elected official nearly twice her age and speaking in deliberate, thoughtful English.” Ocasio-Cortez said, “To hear you articulate the belief that I’ve had as well is so exciting and validating.” Thunberg responded on Twitter that Ocasio-Cortez was “inspiring.”
In late July, Thunberg posted a photo of herself in an antifa T-shirt; she later deleted the tweet, stating, “Yesterday I posted a photo wearing a borrowed T-shirt that says I’m against fascism. That T-shirt can apparently to some be linked to a violent movement. I don’t support any form of violence and to avoid misunderstandings I’ve deleted the post. And of course I am against fascism.”
In April, speaking before the European Parliament, Thunberg told European politicians, “I want you to panic.”
Thunberg stated, “I want you to act as if the house is on fire. I have said those words before, and a lot of people have explained why that is a bad idea. A great number of politicians have told me that panic never leads to anything good, and I agree. To panic, unless you have to, is a terrible idea. But when your house is on fire and you want to keep your house from burning to the ground, then that does require some level of panic … ”
She warned, “Around the year 2030, ten years, 259 days, and ten hours away from now, we will be in a position where we set off an irreversible chain reaction that will most likely lead to the end of our civilization as we know it. That is, unless, in that time, permanent and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society have taken place … We are in the midst of the sixth mass extinction, and the extinction rate is up to ten thousand times faster than what is considered normal with up to 200 species becoming extinct every single day.”
She concluded, “It’s okay if you refuse to listen to me; I am, after all, just a 16-year-old schoolgirl from Sweden. But you cannot ignore the scientists or the science or the millions of school-striking children who are school-striking for the right to a future. I beg you: please do not fail on this.”
In December 2018, Thunberg told CNN, “And we young people need to say that we must hold the older generations accountable for the mess they have created and expects us to live with. And say to them that we cannot continue risking our future like this. And so, we need to get angry and then we need to transform that anger into action.”