Greta Thunberg

We are the change, and change is coming whether you like it or not.

Build back better. Blah, blah, blah. Green economy. Blah blah blah. Net zero by 2050. Blah, blah, blah. This is all we hear from our so-called leaders. Words that sound great but so far have not led to action. Our hopes and ambitions drown in their empty promises.

My message is that we'll be watching you. This is all wrong. 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!

You have stolen my dreams and 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!

The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us, I say: We will never forgive you. We will not let you get away with this. Right here, right now is where we draw the line. The world is waking up. And change is coming, whether you like it or not.

You are not mature enough to tell it like it is.

Adults keep saying we owe it to the young people, to give them hope, but I don't want your hope. I don't want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. I want you to act. I want you to act as you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if the house is on fire, because it is.

We can't save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed. Everything needs to change – and it has to start today.

When it comes to the climate crisis you are more likely to not accept it if your salary depends on it.

Today for the fifth day in a row, young people blocked entrances to the Swedish parliament to draw attention to the climate crisis and all those suffering from it today... This fight has only just begun.

At first when I heard about climate change, I was a climate denier. I didn't think it was happening. Because if there really was an existential crisis like that, that would threaten our civilisation, we wouldn't be focusing on anything else.

We have to tell it like it is. Because if there are no positive things to tell, then what should we do, should we spread false hope?

This ongoing irresponsible behavior will no doubt be remembered in history as one of the greatest failures of humankind.

We live in a strange world, where we think we can buy or build our way out of a crisis that has been created by buying and building things.

So everyone out there: it is now time for civil disobedience. It is time to rebel.

Nor does hardly anyone ever mention that we are in the midst of the sixth mass extinction, with about 200 species going extinct every single day.

To all of you who choose to look the other way every day because you seem more frightened of the changes that can prevent catastrophic climate change than the catastrophic climate change itself. Your silence is almost worst of all.

The climate crisis is both the easiest and the hardest issue we have ever faced. The easiest because we know what we must do. We must stop the emissions of greenhouse gases. The hardest because our current economics are still totally dependent on burning fossil fuels, and thereby destroying ecosystems in order to create everlasting economic growth.

We children are doing this to wake the adults up. We children are doing this for you to put your differences aside and start acting as you would in a crisis.

Our environment is being sacrificed for the opportunity for a very small number of people to continue making enormous amounts of money.