Greta Thunberg cut a frail and lonely figure when she started a school (1)___________ for the climate outside the Swedish parliament building last August. Her parents tried to dissuade her. Classmates declined to join. Passersby expressed pity and bemusement at the sight of the then unknown 15-year-old sitting on the cobblestones with a hand-painted banner.
Eight months on, the picture could not be more different. The pigtailed teenager is feted across the world as a model of determination, inspiration and positive action. National presidents and corporate executives line up to be criticised by her, face to face. Her skolstrejk för klimatet (school strike for climate) banner has been translated into dozens of languages. And, most (2)________________ of all, the loner is now anything but alone.
“It’s amazing,” she says. “It’s more than 71 countries and more than 700 places, and counting. It’s increasing very much now, and that’s very, very fun.”
A year ago, this was unimaginable. Back then, Thunberg was a painfully introverted nobody, waking at 6am to prepare for school and heading back home at 3pm. “Nothing really was happening in my life,” she recalls. “I have always been that girl in the back who doesn’t say anything. I thought I couldn’t make a difference because I was too small.”
“I overthink. Some people can just let things go, but I can’t, especially if there’s something that worries me or makes me sad. I remember when I was younger, and in school, our teachers showed us films of plastic in the ocean, starving polar bears and so on. I cried through all the movies. My classmates were concerned when they watched the film, but when it stopped, they started thinking about other things. I couldn’t do that. Those pictures were (3)___________ in my head.”
At about the age of eight, when she first learned about climate change, she was shocked that adults did not appear to be taking the issue seriously. It was not the only reason she became depressed a few years later, but it was a (4)_____________ factor.
The climate strike was inspired by students from the Parkland school in Florida, who walked out of classes in protest against the US gun laws that (5)____________ the massacre on their campus. “I painted the sign on a piece of wood and, for the flyers, wrote down some facts I thought everyone should know. And then I took my bike to the parliament and just sat there,” she recalls. “The first day, I sat alone from about 8.30am to 3pm – the regular schoolday. And then on the second day, people started joining me. After that, there were people there all the time.”
In meetings with political leaders, and with billionaire entrepreneurs in Davos she says “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,” she told them.
“They are still not doing anything. So I don’t know really why they are supporting us because we are criticising them. It’s kind of weird.”
No, I am not more hopeful than when I started. The emissions are increasing
To have any chance of avoiding climate change, it is said, emissions must fall rapidly by 2030. That will require far more pressure on politicians – and nobody has proved more effective at that over the past eight months than Thunberg.
“I don’t care if what I’m doing – what we’re doing – is hopeful. We need to do it anyway. Even if there’s no hope left and everything is hopeless, we must do what we can.”
While she has little time for chit-chat, she gets satisfaction from speaking to a big audience about climate change.(6)____________ of the size of the crowd, she says she does not feel the least bit nervous.
She lives her values. She is a vegan, and only travels abroad by train.
Politicians in the US and Europe are considering green New Deals that would ramp up the transition to renewable energy.
It can be (7) ________________. She still gets up at 6am to get ready for school. Interviews and writing speeches can leave her working 12- to 15-hour days. “Of course, it takes a lot of energy. I don’t have much spare time. But I just keep reminding myself why I am doing this, and then I just try to do as much as I can.” And now that she is active on climate, she is no longer lonely, no longer silent, no longer so depressed. She is too busy trying to make a difference. And enjoying herself.
EXERCISES
1. Put the words in the blank spaces
a. gruelling b. regardless c. strike d. striking
e. enabled f. stuck g. significant
2. Find in the text the synonims to the following words:
FRAGILE CELEBRATED REMEMBER HUNGRY WORRIED
BUSINESSMEN/WOMEN STRANGE SMALL TALK INTENSIFY
3. choose A, B, C from the following questions
1. When Greta Thumberg started her first scool strike…
a.- parents and students tried to change her mind
b.- parents tried to change her mind but students went to strike with her
c.- neither parents nor students supported her
2. when she meets with political leaders and business people she…
a.- finds a lot of opposition to her ideas
b.- see that they cannot bear her criticism
c.- feels it’s unusual that they back her and her ideas
3.- Greta Thumberg feels…
a.- there’s more room for optimism than when she started her protest
b.- the situation is the same
c.- things have worsened
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