Climate activist Greta Thunberg tells U.S. Congress: “I know you are trying but just not hard enough. Sorry.” – Barack Obama meets with Greta: “You and me, we’re a team”
By Lauren Gambino
17 September 2019
WASHINGTON, D.C. (The Guardian) – At a meeting of the Senate climate crisis task force on Tuesday, lawmakers praised a group of young activists for their leadership, their gumption and their display of wisdom far beyond their years. They then asked the teens for advice on how Congress might combat one of the most urgent and politically contentious threats confronting world leaders: climate change.
Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish activist who has galvanized young people across the world to strike for more action to combat the impact of global warming, politely reminded them that she was a student, not a scientist – or a senator.
“Please save your praise. We don’t want it,” she said. “Don’t invite us here to just tell us how inspiring we are without actually doing anything about it because it doesn’t lead to anything.
“If you want advice for what you should do, invite scientists, ask scientists for their expertise. We don’t want to be heard. We want the science to be heard.”
In remarks meant for Congress as a whole, she said: “I know you are trying but just not hard enough. Sorry.”
The audience laughed. Supporters broke into applause. Senator Ed Markey, the Massachusetts Democrat who co-sponsored the Green New Deal and leads the Senate task force, was perhaps surprised by her bluntness. But he smiled.
Seated at the table with the teens were some of the most sympathetic and vocal supporters of bold action on climate change in Congress. But facing a Republican-controlled Senate and a hostile White House, the prospect of enacting reforms at the scale and scope called for by activists – and many scientists – is bleak.
“We need your leadership,” he told Thunberg. “Young people are the army politically, which has arrived in the United States. You put a spotlight on this issue in a way that it has never been before. And that is creating a new X factor.”
Still, Markey vowed to try: “We hear you. We hear what you’re saying and we will redouble our efforts.” [more]
Greta Thunberg to Congress: ‘You’re not trying hard enough. Sorry’
Teen climate activist Greta Thunberg meets Obama
By Sarah Kaplan
17 September 2019
(The Washington Post) – Teen activist Greta Thunberg has a jam-packed itinerary for her trip to the United States: Lead a global climate protest; appear on “The Daily Show,” learn how to fist-bump a former president of the United States.
Thunberg, the Swedish 16-year-old whose year-long “school strike for climate” outside her country’s parliament has sparked a global youth movement, met with Barack Obama at his office in Washington Monday.
“All of these young people [in the United States] seem so eager, very enthusiastic,” Thunberg told Obama in a video of their short meeting released Tuesday. “Which is a very good thing. I mean, no one is too small to have an impact.” […]
In a Tuesday tweet sharing the video of their meeting, Obama called Greta “one of our planet’s greatest advocates.”
“You and me, we’re a team,” Obama told the teenager during their meeting Monday. (He didn’t specify what they’d teamed up on.) Then he wished her good luck, and, shaking his hand, Greta wished him luck in return. [more]
