“Many people say that we don’t have any solutions to the climate crisis. And they are right. Because how could we? How do you 'solve' the greatest crisis that humanity has ever faced? How do you 'solve' a war? How do you 'solve' going to the moon for the first time? How do you 'solve' inventing new i…”— Greta Thunberg, theguardian.com
“You lied to us. You gave us false hope. You told us that the future was something to look forward to. And the saddest thing is that most children are not even aware of the fate that awaits us. We will not understand it until it’s too late. And yet we are the lucky ones. Those who will be affected th…”— Greta Thunberg, theguardian.com
“At first when I heard about climate change, I was a climate denier. didn’t think it was happening. Because if there really was an existential crisis like that, that would threaten our civilization, we wouldn’t be focusing on anything else. That would be our first priority. So I didn’t understand how…”— Greta Thunberg, ft.com
“I tried to make the others in the group join me...but no one was really interested. So then I decided I was going to do it alone. And even if no one was joining me, I was going to do it.”— Greta Thunberg, ft.com
“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.”— Greta Thunberg, ft.com
“Around the year 2030, we will be in a position where we probably set off an irreversible chain reaction beyond human control, 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 industrialized soc…”— Greta Thunberg, facebook.com
“The climate crisis is both the easiest and the hardest issue we have ever faced. The easiest because we know what we must do. We must stop the emissions of greenhouse gases. The hardest because our current economics are still totally dependent on burning fossil fuels, and thereby destroying ecosyste…”— Greta Thunberg, theguardian.com
“During the last six months I have travelled around Europe for hundreds of hours in trains, electric cars and buses, repeating these life-changing words over and over again. But no one seems to be talking about it, and nothing has changed. In fact, the emissions are still rising.”— Greta Thunberg, theguardian.com
“Just unite behind the science. I’m not the one who’s saying these things. I’m not the one who we should be listening to. And I say that all the time. I say we need to listen to the scientists.”— Greta Thunberg, democracynow.org
“I was fortunate to be born in a time and place where everyone told us to dream big; I could become whatever I wanted to. I could live wherever I wanted to. People like me had everything we needed and more. Things our grandparents could not even dream of. We had everything we could ever wish for and…”— Greta Thunberg, theguardian.com
“When I’m really interested in something, I get super-focused on that. And I can spend hours upon hours not getting tired of reading about it and still be interested to learn more about it. And that is very common for people on the autism spectrum. And yeah, and it just—I think that was one of the re…”— Greta Thunberg, democracynow.org
“The political system that you have created is all about competition. You cheat when you can, because all that matters is to win, to get power. That must come to an end, we must stop competing with each other, we need to cooperate and work together and to share the resources of the planet in a fair w…”— Greta Thunberg, eesc.europa.eu
“You can't just sit around waiting for hope to come, you're acting like spoiled irresponsible children. You don't seem to understand that hope is something you have to earn. And if you still say that we are wasting valuable lesson time then let me remind you that our political leaders have wasted dec…”— Greta Thunberg, eesc.europa.eu
“Many people are trying to make the school strikes a question of whether we are promoting truancy or whether we should go back to school or not. They make up all sorts of conspiracies and call us puppets who cannot think for ourselves. They are desperately trying to remove the focus from the climate…”— Greta Thunberg, eesc.europa.eu
“I think when I—I think I was maybe 7, 8, 9 years old when I first heard about the problem. And then, of course, by time, I read about it more and more and sort of understood how important it was and how severe this crisis was. And so, it was around that age and maybe 10, 11, 12. I think I became rea…”— Greta Thunberg, democracynow.org
“If I would have been normal like everyone else, I could just continue like everyone else. And get stuck in the social game, and just continue like before. But since I was different, I see the world from a different perspective, I see things very black and white.”— Greta Thunberg, ft.com
“Tens of thousands of children or schools are striking for the climate on the streets of Brussels. Hundreds of thousands are doing the same all over the world. We are school striking because we have done our homework. And some of us are here today. People always tell us that they are so hopeful. They…”— Greta Thunberg, eesc.europa.eu
“I was so sad because the world was so wrong, everything was so wrong, and then I thought there is no point in living…I became depressed, I stopped eating, and I stopped talking, and I stopped going to school.”— Greta Thunberg, ft.com
“Why should I be studying for a future that soon will be no more, when no one is doing anything to save that future?”— Greta Thunberg, ft.com
“My message to the young people of the world is that right now we are facing an existential crisis, I mean, the climate and ecological crisis, and it will have a massive impact on our lives in the future, but also now, especially in vulnerable communities. And I think that we should wake up, and we s…”— Greta Thunberg, democracynow.org