Greta Thunberg to World Leaders at United Nations: ‘How Dare You?’

Environmental activist Greta Thunberg, of Sweden, addresses the Climate Action Summit in t
AP Photo/Jason DeCrow

Sixteen-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg addressed the United Nations General Assembly on Monday, where she scolded world leaders, saying, “You have stolen my dreams and my childhood.”

“This is all wrong,” Thunberg stated as she addressed the members. “I shouldn’t be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean, yet you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you?”

Thunberg went on:

You have stolen my dreams, my childhood, with your empty words and yet I’m one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. 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 fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you?

Thunberg also claimed the evidence of climate change has been “crystal clear” and that solutions to climate change are “nowhere in sight.”

“For more than thirty years, the science has been crystal clear. How dare you continue to look away and come here saying that you’re doing enough when the politics and solutions needed are are still nowhere in sight,” Thunberg asked, adding:

You say you hear us and understand the urgency. No matter how sad and angry I am, I do not want to believe that, because if you really understood the situation, and still kept on failing to act, then you would be evil and that I refuse to believe.

Last week, Tesla CEO Elon Musk praised Thunberg for having “better reasoning & more heart than the vast majority of political leaders.”

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