Releasing the Genius Releasing the Genius Magazine - Issue 2 | Page 9

I
f you’ve followed the news at
all recently, you have probably
heard of Greta Thunberg. Born
on January 3, 2003, in Stockholm,
she has recently become so well
known for her activism and inspiration
that she is quickly becoming a favourite
to win the Nobel Peace Prize. What
many people don’t know is the many
struggles that she has had to overcome
in order to be so inspirational to people.
Her desire to change the world began in
2011 when she first began to learn about
climate change. She began by throwing
down a challenge to her parents: lower
the footprint of the family by becoming
vegan and give up flying. For her mother,
this meant giving up a career as an
international opera singer. She has since
credited their response to this challenge
with giving her the hope that she might
actually be able to make a difference.
The recent trips she has made around
the world, including Canada, echoes
the young women who broke ground
before her. Severn Cullis Suzuki
was only 12 years old when she
made a plea to the world to help stop
ecological damage in Rio de Janeiro
at the 1992 Earth Summit. Likewise,
Autumn Peltier, a 15-year-old member
of the Wikwemikong First Nation
from Northern Ontario, attended the
Children’s Climate Change Conference
in Sweden in 2015 and addresses the
United Nations regularly.
These young women are disruptors.
Greta is a disruptor. That is, by no
means, a bad thing. The disruption
takes two forms: the actions she is
taking and the way she is responding
to critics. Beginning in 2018, Thunberg
began to present public speeches and
stage school climate strikes. Though
her parents did not like her missing
school (nor did her teachers), she
persisted and eventually changed their
minds. Since that time, other students
have joined in. After the 2018 Swedish
general election, she transitioned
to strike only on Fridays. Globally,
this inspired others to join in. As of
September 27, 2019, over six million
people in over 4,500 locations begun to
strike in a 150 countries.
"
One of the key reasons why Greta has
become such an inspiration is that
she has overcome her own disabilities
to act in these ways. Diagnosed with
Asperger’s syndrome, she has managed
to not only overcome it but has flipped
it to her own advantage. She constantly
challenges herself to speak up, even
when doing so is difficult, and it makes
the thing that she says and the actions
that she takes all the more meaningful.
In her own words, she considers
Asperger’s to be her “superpower,” and
while acknowledging that it has limited
her in the past in some ways, she does
not view it as an illness and does not
allow it to hold her back anymore.
HUMANITY FACES AN
EXISTENTIAL CRISIS
DUE TO THE CHANGING
CLIMATE...
"
The way she responds to the people
challenging her views, many of
whom are attacking her either on
her disabilities or as climate change
deniers, is equally impressive. After
she crossed the Atlantic, one critic said
she was “deeply disturbed” to which
she replied:
"I am indeed ‘deeply disturbed’ about
the fact that these hate and conspiracy
campaigns are allowed to go on and
on and on just because we children
communicate and act on science.
Where are the adults?"
What Greta does, at its core, is
take the ordinary and turn it into
something extraordinary. A single
student protesting outside of a school
may not mean much, but when that
single student affects what hundreds or
thousands of other students are doing,
suddenly it is a very different picture.
What Greta is doing is the equivalent
of metaphorically dropping a stone into
a pond. That stone may not seem to do
much, but the ripples that it creates in
the waters will spread and eventually
become waves.
was meant to be a carbon-neutral way of
crossing the ocean to reduce emissions.
After the 15-day voyage, she attended
the Climate Action Summit in New
York put on by the United Nations.
She also attended a UNICEF press
conference on September 2019 where
she and other children announced that
official complaints had been made
against nations that are not meeting
their emission reduction targets as
outlined in the Paris Agreement.
Her message is simple to understand
but not easy to execute, her main point
being that it doesn’t matter if it is easy. It
simply has to be done. Humanity faces
an existential crisis due to the changing
climate, that change will affect youth
more than anyone else, and not enough
is being done. Decision-makers must
stop ignoring scientists, and the current
goals outlined in the Paris Agreement
are simply insufficient to stem the
changes that are already occurring.
The story of Greta is extraordinary, but
it is not as unique as one might think.
High-achieving children are born and
are taking action every single day.
The question is whether their parents,
and the adult world in general, are
willing to listen to what they have to
say with enough of an open mind to
take them seriously. When they do, it
is surprising what profound sentiments
these children can convey. Leadership
is action and speech; it is not age.
Many adults would do well to take that
message to heart. Since Greta began
her campaigns, droves of others have
come to support her, including other
students, politicians, and hundreds of
scientists.
For more
information
on Greta,
the story of
her family
is told in the
2018 book
Scenes from
the Heart.
In August 2019 she sailed across the
Atlantic, from the United Kingdom to
New York City in the United States, on
a yacht powered by solar panels. This
9