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Interview Greta Thunberg in English

greater it's been only seven months since you've started school striking for the climate all by yourself today you are the big star of a global movement wherever you go it causes quite a scene people in fact thousands of people want to see you want to take photos selfies or want to interview you do you like this level of attention not not really I don't really like being in the center of attention I find it hard sometimes with with all the attention and people everywhere but I I can't really complain because I put myself in this situation so and it's it's a small price to pay knowing that you you have an impact and I if that is something I I have to do in order to continue doing this than I don't mind and do you think does it helped the Friday's for future movement that everybody is focused on you know I don't think everyone is focused on me I think I think that we since this movement everyone is equally equally included everyone is equally important and I think at least I hope that's the case I think so because this is something that we need to do together one person can't change the world but one person can influence other people so that they together can change the world and does it help you you describe yourself as hi and as someone who usually doesn't speak much but now you are standing literally um one of the biggest stages of the world and you have to speak all the time what does that do to you privately I am very shy I don't speak I don't make more small talk and I never speak unless I think it's necessary but when I when I have a speech when I am in front of an audience then I I don't get nervous because I know I have something to say in a message I want to get out so that I don't I don't find hard strangely everyone else think that is hard and don't mind making small talk but for me it's the exact opposite and you never get nervous sometimes a little bit but no I wouldn't say so maybe like a small tiny bit but but not not nervous because you're so focused yeah that's the explanation yes I like this photo a lot of course you know it because it shows you it shows you on the 20th of August 2018 the very first day of your school strike with your famous signs sitting in front of the Swedish parliament did you expect then that you might have to sit there alone for like weeks or months before anyone would react actually I didn't really expect anything I just thought this I I'm going to do what I can do everything in my power to to get attention and focus on the climate crisis and if I do this then maybe the media will write about it and people will start talking about it so I didn't really have any expectations I didn't I didn't do it to create a movement you didn't do it to no I I did it so that people would start talking about it more that it would be getting normalized in in the media and but I only sat alone for one day already the second day people started joining me and were you surprised I was very surprised I didn't expect that reaction but it was also of course it was a very huge step because the step from one to two is always the hardest and the biggest step and once you have passed that step you are not far from creating a movement and and then more and more people start coming and joining in Stockholm and then after maybe a week people started doing it in other Swedish cities and then in other countries and then in other continents and then suddenly it was a global phenomenon I and I think a tipping point was when Australia started striking the November 30th they it was like tens of thousands of children in Australia and then after that it was the cup and then Germany started doing it Switzerland Belgium the UK Canada and so on and then it just escalated and and now March 15 15th was like the big global strike and then we had the latest update is one point one point six three million children who school straight for the climate on all continents including Antarctica that's fantastic isn't it yeah yeah that's fantastic did your parents allow you to start the school to strike uh no I mean they they didn't approve of it but when I first told them I I started planning myself and I started planning on what I was going to do and and then I told them about my plans my idea and they weren't very they didn't think it was that good of an oven and that idea they they said are you sure you want to do this and isn't there anything else you can do and I said no I'm going to do this whether you approve of knots or not so it didn't bother you no they can't they can't stop me from doing it um I mean I I explained to them why I was doing it and they they know why and they understand why but they still don't as parents think it's right and well thus your radical determination come from what do you think I think I just I'm a realist I see fact you're a realist not radical you're realistic I am realistic and I see I know what needs to be done and then I I just do it I don't I have no doubts and second thoughts I when I decide to do something and when it's something I'm really passionate about then I I do it there is no second option and I I know how bad the situation is I spoke to countless of scientists and I have read countless of reports and articles and I know I know how bad the situation is and then I I feel like if I if I don't do anything than I I will regret it later and of course you said I want you to panic I want you to feel the fear I feel every day what exactly are you afraid of I am afraid of the uncertainty of the future that we don't know what is going to happen we we might soon if we haven't already passed part tipping points and once we do that there is no going back and that we can't just invent something in the future or new technologies because then the earth gets in a position where it starts warming itself and that I I think think it's very scary and and many people react very strongly when they hear that I say I want you to panic but by because many people think that by panic you run around screaming and no one knows anything and it's all chaos and by panic I mean that we step out step out of our comfort zones and that we change our behavior and our way to look at this crisis and treat this crisis can you understand that there are many people who don't feel the fear you feel and who have not begun to panic so far definitely because to feel this fear to to have that feeling and conviction you need to to know what is going on and the most people I speak to they don't they are not fully aware of the situation and when you are not fully aware of the situation then you can't you don't know really what's going on and then you don't know what that situation what do you need to do what your role is and what what really is at risk you have the Asperger's syndrome I'm not that familiar with it and I think most of the people aren't so if you don't mind what impact thus the syndrome have on the way you think it has very very much impact and because if I wouldn't have had this diagnosis then I would have been like everyone else and I had just continued like everyone else not noticing something was wrong wrong and but now I I am different I think different I work differently and do you understand differently as well some things I some people say that oh climate change is so important and and yet they just carry on like before and I I don't understand how you can have such double standards if I if I think something is important than I I spend 100% of my energy on that and I can't do that at the same time as I am doing the opposite as people do today and yeah three years ago I guess I'm not quite sure about it three years ago ground about you radically change the life of your family you managed to have your family stop eating meat for example how did you do that and what did it take to convince them I not quite much in the beginning they were like everyone else they were like don't worry some someone will invent something in the future we people have this under control and but but the more I read about it the more I understood that we don't have this under control and so then I I started to become worried about it and I and I told my parents about it and I talked to them and I kept I kept showing them articles and graphs and everything like that and they at the beginning they were like everyone else okay that is important but and so on they always had excuses but then I I made them feel so guilty you made them feel guilt yeah I told I told that news for your parents yeah I just kept telling them that they were stealing our future and that they they you cannot stand up for human rights while you are living that lifestyle on and and then they decided to to do those changes because I have made them feel better guilty now all of them are vegan nobody you know no they're not my dad but my mom she she tries she tries she's she's like 90% vegan and then she eats some others she's like a trash can she eats things that's that was supposed to be thrown out but she they try and I think nobody of your family members is allowed to fly anymore that's why your mother had to give up her international career as an opera singer that's quite a big sacrifice to make is there no room for compromise when it comes to your lifestyle for them it is of course but but I am for me I see things very much black and white and for me it's either either you live sustainable or you you you don't live sustainable you can't be a little bit sustainable and for them from for most people they're like me you can you can fly in vacation once every two years or things like that but for me I can't do it because I wouldn't be able to look myself in the eyes then if I would fly around telling other people to reduce their carbon footprints so you go by train your travel by train you do not buy new clothes anymore if that is right and you do not want to get Christmas presents anymore as far as I know do you expect us all really us all to live like you do you no of course not I'm not telling anyone to live a certain lifestyle all I'm doing is trying to make people aware and then so that they educate themselves and try to understand how the situation isn't really like and then once they know all those facts they can decide on their own whether they want to make those sacrifices if you could call it that so I'm not telling anyone I am just seeing like the graph of how much percent per year we need to reduce our emissions and then I want to to make my own contribution to that you have also faced criticism as you know there are people who claim for example that you do not write your speeches yourself that you are manipulated and instrumentalized is there any truth behind it I mean it's it's just really ridiculous really that people think so little of each other that they try to put others down and that's some no one can do something just for a good course there was has to be a hidden agenda behind it and I think that's very sad but of course since people are not aware of what the climate crisis really means then what I'm doing must be seen as very strange and of course I'm not manipulated and I write my own speeches but sometimes I I have like scientists come with input so that everything is correct that nothing can be misunderstood and does it hurt you that people say these things and looking for a hidden agenda I mean I think at the beginning it did because I was I wanted to I was sad because they spreaded lies and that they spent all the time spreading hate and lies and leaving out facts but then I realized that I can't do anything about it they are just a small percentage of of all the people and that since they are doing that writing those things it means that what we are doing the school's right movement is doing is having an impact and that they feel threatened by it so I think it's a positive sign recently it has been said that you are in favor of nuclear power are you personally no but I I mean nuclear power is not the future it's not renewable and but according to the IPCC not according to me I could enjoy the IPCC nuclear power can be a small part of a very big new fossil free energy solution in countries and areas that lack the possibility of the of 100 percent renewables and but I mean nuclear power is very dangerous expensive and time-consuming I mean just ask a scientist if we were to replace fossil fuels with nuclear power how many new nuclear power plants we will have to to build each week within the timeframe of the Paris agreement to reach to say to reach the Paris agreement and how much money that will cost how much time it takes you will to build nuclear power and how much from how much it takes from our remaining carbon budget so but if we should talk about the these things we should talk about energy efficiency and - and especially reducing our energy energy demand but still we can't keep focusing on these small things we need to realise that there are no solutions within these current systems and we need to see the whole picture and to have a holistic view on the climate crisis yes but let me follow up if you if one wants to stop the emissions to stop the emissions and that is what you want not to lower them but to stop the emissions is it then possible to avoid nuclear energy in your understand ask scientists that is that is something I can't speak out on because I don't have that scientific education that is such a big decision that's we need to have scientific evidence and scientific based recommendations on what we should do so I can't say what we should do you said in an interview recently your parents have noticed that you have become happier in the past months why is that I think it's because I I have something I feel like I must do I feel I can't have been having an impact and that I think I have gotten a meaning in a way and I think we today we lack that very much we only focus on the surface and we only care about shallow things and I think that we need to to to have something to to dip to fight for and I think this is my something that I feel like I I want to do and you met people who think like you do yes I have met many people before I started to discuss cool striking I I haven't really I hadn't really met many young people who cared about the climate crisis but now I have met many such people I thought that I was alone worrying about and caring about these issues but they have proved me wrong that my generation many of them do care and what do you do when the high browned you subsides one day perhaps and you haven't reached your goal yet I mean I'm not going to be this much in in the media attention I'm not going to be this interesting for media all the time it's going to end soon and but I know that my I mean my goal is just to to do everything I can I mean I don't many people say that I my mission will fail I don't really have mission my mission is to do everything in my power to to make the world a better place and to try to to make to do everything in my power to to make the world be in line with the Paris agreement and I know that is I am NOT going to achieve that one person is not going to achieve that it takes cooperation and we need to work together to to reach that greater thank you thank you very much thank you so much

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