16-year-old Greta Thunberg In A Brut Interview

Brut America

"Dear Mr. Trump..."  16-year-old Greta Thunberg has a message for the president on climate responsibility. The Swedish activist shared with Brut what she'd say to him — as well as her goal for saving the planet.

Transcript

00:00Dear Mr. Trump, I know a lot of people have tried to convince you that the climate crisis is the biggest crisis humanity has ever faced,

00:09and yet that has not seemed to be working.

00:12I think you should know that if you don't take action now, you are going to be seen as one of the worst villains in human history.

00:31You say you love your children above all else, and yet you are stealing their future.

00:45The first time I heard about it was maybe when I was eight years old,

00:50and my teachers in school told me about this and they showed us films and pictures

00:57of starving polar bears and plastic in the ocean, and I was really affected by that.

01:02I became very sad, and I thought it was very strange.

01:07I wondered why this could be, how this could be, that there was an existential crisis

01:14that would threaten our civilization and our existence, and yet that wasn't our first priority.

01:23We were focusing on other things, and we were basically not talking about it.

01:30The turning point in my life where I decided that I was going to do something about the climate crisis

01:36was maybe when I was eleven, and then I became ill.

01:42I fell into a depression, and then I thought to myself that I should do something about it.

01:51I thought to myself that I can do so much good with my life instead,

01:56and this is just a waste of time to feel like this,

02:00and so then I decided to do something with my life to try to make a difference.

02:06When I first told my parents about my idea with school striking, they weren't very fond of the idea.

02:13They said, isn't there anything else you can do to try to change things and to make your voice heard?

02:20I said, no, I'm going to do this, because I had made up my mind,

02:24and I wasn't going to let anyone tell me not to do it.

02:28I have said that I will stand here outside the Swedish Parliament every Friday

02:33until Sweden is in line with the Paris Agreement,

02:37and when everyone starts realizing that we are facing an existential crisis.

02:43Some people ask me if I am hopeful or pessimistic or optimistic,

02:50and I say that I am realistic.

02:52I say that this is what I need to do, and this is what I have to do to be able to do that,

02:58and so then I just decide to do that, because once I decide to do something, I do it, and I complete it.

03:09My message to young people is that we need to realize what the older generations have done to us

03:17and keep doing in this very moment, and will not stop until something happens,

03:23and we need to hold them accountable for this mess they have created,

03:27and we need to make our voices heard and get angry, and then transform that anger into action.

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