This summer is witnessing many fires and floods that strike many countries around the globe, and the intense heatwave, which scientists describe as “the most observed heatwave on the planet”, has killed a lot of people all around the world.
Greta Thunberg, the Swedish environmental activist who is also universally known for challenging world leaders to take immediate action for climate change mitigation, commented on the current climate changes in an Instagram Post by saying; “Wildfires, floods, droughts, heatwaves and other (un)natural disasters rage all over the world. Many now ask "What will it take for people in power to act?” Well, it will take many things, but above all, it will take massive pressure from media and massive pressure from the public”.
The year 2021 witnessed many issues, opinions, and events raised regarding climate change issues and its long-term impact on human life on Earth, and thus the Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg had comments on all of this.
Firstly, the young Swedish activist launched an appeal to change food habits in terms of production and consumption, in light of the crises and threats facing the world. In a video posted on social media on the occasion of the International Day for Biological Diversity, Thunberg said that the crises the world is going through in terms of climate, environment and health “are all interconnected."
Greta Thunberg, in particular, touched on diseases transmitted from animals to humans, including "Covid-19, Zika and Ebola", which she said were caused mainly by agricultural practices.
"Our way of farming and dealing with nature, by clearing forests and destroying natural habitats, created the ideal conditions for the transmission of diseases between animals and from them to us," Thunberg added.
The Swedish environmental activist also mocked the leaders of the "Group of Seven", stressing that they did not make concrete efforts on the climate issue. Thunberg tweeted, through her official account on the “Twitter”: “The climate and ecological crisis is rapidly escalating. G7 spends fantasy amounts on fossil fuels as CO2 emissions are forecast for the 2nd biggest annual rise ever. This calls for steak-and-lobster-BBQ-celebration while jet planes perform aerobatics in the sky above the G7 resort!”
Among her efforts for the environment, the Greta Thunberg Foundation will pay 100,000 euros to the COVAX system in order to fight the "vaccine inequality tragedy" against the epidemic, which the Swedish environmental activist has denounced.
Thunberg, who has become an icon in the fight for climate, asserted, "The means are available to us to correct the massive imbalance that exists today in the world in the fight against Covid-19. Just as with climate change, we must help the most vulnerable first."
She added that she was sure that COVAX, the Gavi Vaccine Alliance and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, which should ensure equitable distribution in 92 poor countries, is the appropriate response.
Greta Thunberg, a name frequently mentioned in international media, for a Swedish girl, no more than 16 years of age, entered the world of environmental defense from its widest doors by chance, to become a symbol of activists in the field.
Born on January 3, 2003, to an opera singer mother and a film actor father, doctors diagnosed her health condition with a group of incurable diseases such as Asperger's syndrome, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and selective mutation, so that the girl received more attention from her parents.
In May 2018, with the help of her parents, the exceptional girl won a writing competition on the topic of climate. The competition was organized by the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet, which at the time suggested that the students express their concerns about the current climate change, which enabled her to meet the activist Bo Toran, an environmental advocate and member of the Swedish association Fossil Free Dalsland, which was established in 2013.
In 2019, Thunberg sailed across the Atlantic on a yacht to attend a UN climate conference in New York. Delivering what is probably her most famous speech, she angrily told world leaders they were not doing enough. "You all come to us young people for hope. How dare you? You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words," she said.
Thunberg was named Time Magazine's Person of the Year in December 2019. Her growing fame caught the attention of world leaders, not all of them supportive.
Donald Trump, who was US president at the time, tweeted that she should "work on her anger management problem" and go to "a good old-fashioned movie with a friend". Thunberg then changed her Twitter bio to: "A teenager working on her anger management problem."
