Greta Thunberg Quotes (42 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

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No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference

Greta Thunberg

Greta Thunberg: 42 quotes 28 likes

Famous Greta Thunberg Quotes

“I think it is insane that people are gathered here to talk about the climate and they arrive here in private jets.”

Greta Thunberg

Time to 'get angry', teen climate activist says in Davos https://news.yahoo.com/time-angry-teen-climate-activist-says-davos-015904861.html, World Economic Forum, Davos (January 2019)...
2019, World Economic Forum (January 2019)

“Our house is on fire. I am here to say, our house is on fire. […] 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. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. And then I want you to act. I want you to act as you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if our house is on fire. Because it is.”

Greta Thunberg book No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference

2019, World Economic Forum (January 2019)
Source: Greta Thunberg, 16, urges leaders to act on climate, The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/25/our-house-is-on-fire-greta-thunberg16-urges-leaders-to-act-on-climate (25 January 2019)
Cited in ', Penguin Books, 2019, pages 19-24 (ISBN 9780141991740).

“I want people to unite behind the science… And that is what we have to realize, that that is what we have to do right now.. 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

We Are Striking to Disrupt the System: An Hour with 16-Year-Old Climate Activist Greta Thunberg https://www.democracynow.org/2019/9/11/greta_thunberg_swedish_activist_climate_crisis, DemocracyNow (11 September 2019)
2019

“Some people say that the climate crisis is something that we all have created. But that is just another convenient lie. Because if everyone is guilty then no one is to blame. And someone is to blame. Some people – some companies and some decision-makers in particular – have known exactly what priceless values they are sacrificing to continue making unimaginable amounts of money.”

Greta Thunberg book No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference

Teen activist tells Davos elite they're to blame for climate crisis, CNN https://edition.cnn.com/2019/01/25/europe/greta-thunberg-davos-world-economic-forum-intl/index.html (25 January 2019)
Cited in No One is Too Small to Make a Difference, Penguin Books, 2019, pages 17-18 (ISBN 9780141991740).
2019, World Economic Forum (January 2019)

“We need to focus every inch of our being on climate change, because if we fail to do so than all our achievements and progress have been for nothing and all that will remain of our political leaders’ legacy will be the greatest failure of human history. And they will be remembered as the greatest villains of all time, because they have chosen not to listen and not to act.”

Greta Thunberg

2019, European Economic and Social Committee (February 2019)

“Many people, especially in the US, see countries like Sweden or Norway or Finland as role models – we have such a clean energy sector, and so on. That may be true, but we are not role models. Sweden is one of the top 10 countries in the world when it comes to the highest ecological footprints, according to the WWF – if you count the consumer index, then we are among the worst per capita.In Sweden, the most common argument that we shouldn’t act is that we are such a small country with only 10 million inhabitants – we should focus more on helping other countries. That is so incredibly frustrating, because why should we argue about who or what needs to change first? Why not take the leading role?”

Greta Thunberg

Quoted in Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez met Greta Thunberg: 'Hope is contagious', The Guardian, Emma Brockes https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jun/29/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-met-greta-thunberg-hope-contagious-climate|When (29 June 2019)
2019

Greta Thunberg Quotes about people

“That happens all the time. That’s basically all I hear. The most common criticism I get is that I’m being manipulated and you shouldn’t use children in political ways, because that is abuse, and I can’t think for myself and so on. And I think that is so annoying! I’m also allowed to have a say – why shouldn’t I be able to form my own opinion and try to change people’s minds?But I’m sure you hear that a lot, too; that you’re too young and too inexperienced. When I see all the hate you receive for that, I honestly can’t believe how you manage to stay so strong.”

Greta Thunberg

“We have been told that the EU intends to improve its emission reduction targets. In the new target, the EU is proposing to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 45 percent below 1990’s level by 2030. Some people say that is good or that is ambitious. But this new target is still not enough to keep global warming below 1.5 °C. This target is not sufficient to protect the future for children growing up today. If the EU is to make its fair contribution to staying within the carbon budget for the 2 °C limit, then it means a minimum of 80 percent reduction by 2030 and that includes aviation and shipping. So it is around twice as ambitious as the current proposal.”

Greta Thunberg book No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference

Speech by Greta Thunberg, climate activist https://www.eesc.europa.eu/en/avdb/video/speech-greta-thunberg-climate-activist to the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) in Brussels (21 February 2019)
Cited in No One is Too Small to Make a Difference, Penguin Books, 2019, pages 37 and 38-39 (ISBN 9780141991740).
2019, European Economic and Social Committee (February 2019)

“People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction. And all you can talk about is money and fairytales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!”

Greta Thunberg

If world leaders choose to fail us, my generation will never forgive them https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/sep/23/world-leaders-generation-climate-breakdown-greta-thunberg (23 September 2019), from speech delivered at the UN Climate Action Summit.
2019

“We have to understand the emergency of the situation. Our leadership has failed us. Young people must hold older generations accountable for the mess they have created. We need to get angry, and transform that anger into action.”

Greta Thunberg

Twitter post https://twitter.com/Ocasio2018/status/1076890299773976582 (23 December 2018)
2018

“We are about to sacrifice our civilization for the opportunity of a very small number of people to continue to make enormous amounts of money. […] But it is the sufferings of the many which pay for the luxuries of the few. […] You say that you love your children above everything else. And yet you are stealing their future.”

Greta Thunberg

2018, "You are stealing our future" (December 2018)

“I would like to say something that I think people need to know more than how I deal with haters.”

Greta Thunberg

In response to Time editor Edward Felsenthal question about how she dealt with all the haters
2020, Rolling Stone Interview: How one Swedish teenager armed with a homemade sign ignited a crusade and became the leader of a movement, Jack Davison, (March 2020)

Greta Thunberg Quotes about change

“We cannot solve a crisis without treating it as a crisis. […] And if solutions within the system are so impossible to find, then maybe we should change the system itself?”

Greta Thunberg

2018, "You are stealing our future" (December 2018)

“There are no emergency meetings, no headlines, no breaking news. No one is acting as if we were in a crisis. Even most climate scientists or green politicians keep on flying around the world, eating meat and dairy. … Today we use 100 million barrels of oil every single day. There are no politics to change that. There are no rules to keep that oil in the ground. So we can't save the world by playing by the rules. Because the rules have to be changed. Everything needs to change. And it has to start today.”

Greta Thunberg

"School strike for climate - save the world by changing the rules" https://www.fridaysforfuture.org/greta-speeches#greta_speech_tedx, TEDxStockholm (24 November 2018)
2018

“Today we use 100 million barrels of oil every day. […] There are no rules to keep that oil in the ground. So we can't save the world by playing by the rules. Because the rules have to be changed. Everything needs to change. And it has to start today.”

Greta Thunberg book No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference

Declaration of Rebellion, Extinction Rebellion, Parliament Square, London, 31 October 2018.
Cited in No One is Too Small to Make a Difference, Penguin Books, 2019, page 12 (ISBN 9780141991740).
2018, "Almost Everything is Black and White" (October 2018)

“We have not come here to beg world leaders to care. You have ignored us in the past and you will ignore us again. You've run out of excuses and we're running out of time. We've come here to let you know that change is coming, whether you like it or not. The real power belongs to the people.”

Greta Thunberg book No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference

You Are Stealing Our Future: Greta Thunberg, 15, Condemns the World’s Inaction on Climate Change https://www.democracynow.org/2018/12/13/you_are_stealing_our_future_greta, Democracy Now! (13 December 2018)
Cited in No One is Too Small to Make a Difference, Penguin Books, 2019, pages 14-16 (ISBN 9780141991740).
2018, "You are stealing our future" (December 2018)

“For 25 years, countless of people have stood in front of the United Nations Climate Change conference asking our nations’ leaders to stop the emissions. But clearly this has not worked, since the emissions just continue to rise. So I will not ask them anything. Instead, I will ask the people around the world to realize that our political leaders have failed us, because we are facing an existential threat and there is no time to continue down this road of madness.”

Greta Thunberg

School Strike for Climate: Meet 15-Year-Old Activist Greta Thunberg, Who Inspired a Global Movement https://www.democracynow.org/2018/12/11/meet_the_15_year_old_swedish, Democracy Now! (11 December 2018)
2018, "School Strike for Climate" (December 2018)

“Here is my speech from the Brilliant Minds conference in Stockholm. Since I don't have the video yet, I'm sharing it like this. 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 society have taken place. Including a reduction of our CO2 emissions by at least 50%. And please note that these calculations are depending on inventions that have not yet been invented at scale. Furthermore these scientific calculations do not include most unforeseen tipping points and feed back loops. Nor do these calculations include already locked in warming hidden by toxic air pollution. Nor the aspect of equity, which is absolutely necessary to make the Paris Agreement work on a global scale. And these calculations are not opinions or wild guesses.”

Greta Thunberg

Greta Thunberg's FB page https://www.facebook.com/732846497083173/posts/853561781678310?s=723487177&sfns=mo, (15 June 2019)
2019

Greta Thunberg Quotes

“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 the hardest are already suffering the consequences. But their voices are not heard.”

Greta Thunberg

2019, "You did not act in time" (April 2019)

Understanding , Fate , Future , Children

“Canada declares national #ClimateEmergency. It’s great that more countries and regions are doing this. But remember:The fossil fuels must stay in the ground. Forget “climate neutral” and clever accounting. Our emissions must start their way to zero. Now.”

Greta Thunberg

Twitter post https://twitter.com/GretaThunberg/status/1140904436094644224 (18 June 2019)
2019

Way , Forgetting , Country

“You only talk about moving forward with the same bad ideas that got us into this mess. Even when the only sensible thing to do is pull the emergency brake. You are not mature enough to tell it like it is. Even that burden you leave to your children.”

Greta Thunberg

2018, "You are stealing our future" (December 2018)

Idea , Bad luck , Children

“This target is not sufficient to protect the future for children growing up today. If the EU is to make its fair contribution to stay within the carbon budget for the 2C limit then it needs a minimum of 80 percent reduction by 2030, and that includes aviation and shipping… There is simply not enough time to wait for us to grow up and become the ones in charge.”

Greta Thunberg

2019

Time , Waiting , Future , Children

“You don’t listen to the science because you are only interested in solutions that will enable you to carry on like before. Like now. And those answers don’t exist any more. Because you did not act in time.”

Greta Thunberg book No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference

"You did not act in time": Greta Thunberg's full speech to UK MPs https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/apr/23/greta-thunberg-full-speech-to-mps-you-did-not-act-in-time (23 April 2019)
Cited in No One is Too Small to Make a Difference, Penguin Books, 2019, pages 58 and 67 (ISBN 9780141991740).
2019, "You did not act in time" (April 2019)

Science , Time

“[…] why should I be studying for a future that soon will be no more, when no one is doing anything whatsoever to save that future? And what is the point of learning facts within the school system when the most important facts given by the finest science of that same school system clearly means nothing to our politicians and our society?”

Greta Thunberg

2018, "Almost Everything is Black and White" (October 2018)

School , Study , Future , Learning

“I have Asperger's syndrome and that means I'm sometimes a bit different from the norm. And - given the right circumstances - being different is a superpower. It makes you think differently. And especially in such a big crisis like this one we need to think outside the box. We need to think outside our current system, that we need people that think outside the box and who aren't like everyone else.”

Greta Thunberg

Greta Thunberg Explains Why Her Asperger's Is A 'Superpower' That Helps Her Activism https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/greta-thunberg-arpergers-activism_n_5d77e5cee4b064513575d260, HuffPost (10 September 2019)
2019

Thinking , Box , People , Making love

“Unite behind the science, that is our demand. (Thunberg told a plenary session of the European Economic and Social Committee”

Greta Thunberg

EESC
Kicking Ass for Her Generation': Applause for 16-Year-Old Greta Thunberg as EU Chief Pledges $1 Trillion to Curb Climate Threat, Julia Conley, https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/02/21/kicking-ass-her-generation-applause-16-year-old-greta-thunberg-eu-chief-pledges-1Common Dreams (21 February 2019)
2019

Science

“Avoiding climate breakdown will require cathedral thinking. We must lay the foundation while we may not know exactly how to build the ceiling.”

Greta Thunberg

“The Eloquence of Greta Thunberg”, Thomas Gaulkin, https://thebulletin.org/2019/04/greta-thunberg-climate-change-eloquence/ Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (25 April 2019)
2019, "You did not act in time" (April 2019)

Thinking

“For way too long, the politicians and the people in power have gotten away with not doing anything to fight the climate crisis, but we will make sure that they will not get away with it any longer. We are striking because we have done our homework and they have not.”

Greta Thunberg

Teen climate activist Greta Thunberg speaks at four school strikes in a week, video 1:57, Source: Reuters, https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2019/mar/01/teen-climate-activist-greta-thunberg-speaks-at-four-school-strikes-in-a-week-video The Guardian (1 Mar 2019)
2019

Way , Fight , Making love , People

“I often talk to people who say, ‘No, we have to be hopeful and to inspire each other, and we can’t tell [people] too many negative things’ . . . But, no — we have to tell it like it is. Because if there are no positive things to tell, then what should we do, should we spread false hope? We can’t do that, we have to tell the truth.”

Greta Thunberg

Quoted in Greta Thunberg: ‘All my life I’ve been the invisible girl,' Leslie Hook https://www.ft.com/content/4df1b9e6-34fb-11e9-bd3a-8b2a211d90d5Financial Times (22 February 2019)
2019

Truth , Falseness , People , Hope

“We have lots of unions who are planning to strike, so, I mean, adults striking from their work. And that is so incredibly important to show that this is such an — this is not just for children or teenagers. This is for everyone. And what we are doing, we are not, of course — I mean, we are striking to disrupt the system…”

Greta Thunberg

After being asked about 900 Amazon workers based in Seattle who will strike on September 20th in solidarity with a global strike: We Are Striking to Disrupt the System... https://www.democracynow.org/2019/9/11/greta_thunberg_swedish_activist_climate_crisis, DemocracyNow (11 September 2019)
2019

Children

“We are facing an existential crisis… 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 should also try to wake the adults up, because they are the ones who — their generation is the ones who are mostly responsible for this crisis, and we need to hold them accountable.”

Greta Thunberg

We Are Striking to Disrupt the System... https://www.democracynow.org/2019/9/11/greta_thunberg_swedish_activist_climate_crisis, DemocracyNow (11 September 2019)
2019

Future , Thinking , Communication

“School strike week 43. And even though summer holidays are here and school is over, we go on. #fridaysforfuture #schoolstrike4climate #climatestrike”

Greta Thunberg

Twitter post https://twitter.com/GretaThunberg/status/1139412721907064833 (14 June 2019)
2019, June 2019

School , Holiday , Summer

“Because you grown-ups don’t give a damn about my future, neither do I. My name is Greta, I am in ninth grade, and I am going on strike from school for the climate.”

Greta Thunberg

Her twitter bio
2020, Rolling Stone Interview: How one Swedish teenager armed with a homemade sign ignited a crusade and became the leader of a movement, Jack Davison, (March 2020)
Source: [https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/greta-thunberg-climate-crisis-cover-965949/

Future , School

“We say no more blah blah blah. No more exploitation of people and the nature and the planets … no more whatever the fuck they are doing inside there.”

Greta Thunberg

2021, Response to COP26 (November 2021)

People , Nature

“We are sick and tired of it and we are going to make the change whether they like it or not … We are not going to let them get away any more.”

Greta Thunberg

2021, Response to COP26 (November 2021)
Source: Quoted in “‘You can shove your climate crisis up your arse’: Greta Thunberg sings at Cop26 – video” https://www.theguardian.com/environment/video/2021/nov/02/you-can-shove-your-climate-crisis-up-your-arse-greta-thunberg-sings-at-cop26-video, The Guardian (2 November 2021)

Change

“You can shove your climate crisis up your ass.”

Greta Thunberg

Source: 2021, Response to COP26 (November 2021)

“Whether or not you choose to rise to that challenge is up to you. Either way, history will judge you.”

Greta Thunberg

2021, An Open Letter to the Global Media by Greta Thunberg and Vanessa Nakate (October 2021)
Source: "An Open Letter to the Global Media by Greta Thunberg and Vanessa Nakate" https://time.com/6111851/greta-thunberg-vanessa-nakate-open-letter-media/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=editorial&utm_term=ideas_&linkId=137945320, TIME (29 October 2021)

History , Way

“We can still avoid the worst consequences, we can still turn this around. But not if we continue like today. You have the resources and possibilities to change the story overnight.”

Greta Thunberg

Source: 2021, An Open Letter to the Global Media by Greta Thunberg and Vanessa Nakate (October 2021)

Change

“The media must hold the people in power accountable for their actions, or inactions.”

Greta Thunberg

Source: 2021, An Open Letter to the Global Media by Greta Thunberg and Vanessa Nakate (October 2021)

People

“If you want to truly cover the climate crisis, you must also report on the fundamental issues of time, holistic thinking and justice.”

Greta Thunberg

Source: 2021, An Open Letter to the Global Media by Greta Thunberg and Vanessa Nakate (October 2021)

Time , Justice , Thinking

“I am pleased to announce that I've decided to go net-zero on swear words and bad language. In the event that I should say something inappropriate I pledge to compensate that by saying something nice. #COP26,”

Greta Thunberg

Source: Greta Thunberg says she's going 'net-zero' on cussing after COP26 sing-along, Lauren Said-Moorhouse, CNN https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/03/uk/greta-thunberg-net-zero-swearing-cop26-intl-scli-gbr/index.html, November 3, 2021

“They invite cherry-picked young people to meetings like this to pretend that they listen to us. But they clearly don’t listen to us. Our emissions are still rising. The science doesn’t lie. We can no longer let the people in power decide what is politically possible. We can no longer let the people in power decide what hope is. Hope is not passive. Hope is not blah, blah, blah. Hope is telling the truth. Hope is taking action. And hope always comes from the people.”

Greta Thunberg

Source: 'Blah, blah, blah’: Greta Thunberg lambasts leaders over climate crisis, by Damian Carrington, The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/28/blah-greta-thunberg-leaders-climate-crisis-co2-emissions, (28 September 2021)

People , Truth , Lie , Science