College Voices
A 16-Year-Old Swedish Girl Questioning World Leaders with 4 times of “How Dare You?”
The issue of climate change has been globally discussed when a 16 year old girl, Greta Thunberg, led up millions of young people to protest for politicians’ failing to react towards climate change on Friday, followed by 4 times of, “How Dare You?” . This questions world leaders on a Climate Action Summit held in New York.
When asked the message to the world officials today, the Swedish girl,Greta Thunberg, showed her anger by saying, “We will be watching you!” .
“You all come to us young people for hope. How dare you?! You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words, and yet, I am the lucky ones. People are dying. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing.”
“We are in the beginning of the mass extinction and all you can talk about is money and fairy tale of the eternal economic growth. How dare you?!” Greta said to the world leaders in a sobbing tone.
Greta, as the first global climate strike, was alone at the very beginning to fight the worsening climate. Now she has ignited millions of young people, especially students, to protest on the streets around the world, demanding urgent action to cope with the climate crisis, NPR reports.
The ongoing protests, also called Global Climate Strike, was planned to hold a week from September 20th to the 27th. The appeal is to urge those who are holding the world’s office to take the climate crisis seriously, with the goal to end the fossil fuels by 2030.
According to the official website, millions of young school strikers from over 150 countries have been leaving classrooms every Friday to show their determination and attitude towards politicians and businesses. Greta is one of them.
Data from BBC demonstrated that hundreds of millions of people would be jeopardized by the end of this century because of the continuous growing sea levels and its acidification.
It is also being proved that climate change has been an inevitable cause for the increasing mental disorder cases. According to APHA (America Public Health Association), there are more than 40 million people suffering from mental disorders within the United States. Among them are victims of natural disasters, with an increased risk of PTSD, anxiety, depression, or even suicide.
Besides all these devastating influence of the climate crisis, Greta and 15 other children similar in age have filed a documentation to the U.N., where they accused five countries: German, France, Brazil, Argentina and Turkey for not enforcing their obligation to curb the emissions, and help alleviate the crisis.
“How dare you continue to look away and come here saying that you are doing enough when the politics and solutions needed are still nowhere in sight.”
How dare you pretend that this can be sold with just business as usual and some technical solutions?” Greta asked.
Above all, this 16-year-old Swedish activist spoke up through the U.N. convention at the climate session, saying, “this is all wrong. I shouldn’t be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean.”