There have been LOTS of
songs about girls turning 16. The best version, by far, is the version that Chuck
Berry recorded in 1958.
The song came to mind this week when I got my latest copy of
TIME in the mail (trust me, there IS a connection here).
The title on the cover of the May 27 issue of the magazine was
“next generation leaders”. The story inside the magazine highlighted the
accomplishments of 10 “up and comers”. To be honest, I had only heard of one of
them.
Her name is Greta Thunberg, and she is from Sweden. She is 16
years old, and her passion is climate change.
She’s spoken to the U.K House of Parliament and the U.N. Climate
Change Conference in Poland. She has also berated the billionaires at the World
Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and she has also met with the Pope (who’s
written a book about climate change titled Laudato Si). On 24 November 2018,
she spoke at TEDxStockholm
Inspired by the survivors of the school shooting in Parkland,
Florida, she began a weekly schoolwork strike every Friday, turning to social
media to implore politicians to support and take steps toward halting carbon
emissions.
After she spoke at the U.N. Climate Conference, her followers
on Twitter exploded, and now number over 600.000. She also has 1.6 million
followers on Instagram. On March 15, an estimated 1.6 million people in 133
countries participated in a climate strike inspired by her solo action. In March 2019, three members of the Norwegian parliament nominated
Thunberg for the Nobel Peace Prize.
In addition to all of the above, she has also done a LOT more,
which you can read at the Wikipedia article below:
As you watch the video at the link below, remind yourself that
she is autistic, which should dispel any idea of what you might think “special
needs” means. She is also fluent in two languages, which few adults in our
country could claim to be.
When I was 16, I couldn’t possibly comprehend attempting to do
what this young girl from Sweden is doing,
but she is DEFINITELY an inspiration. Since I work largely with 16 years old
kids roughly 9 months of the year, I guarantee you that at least some of them
are going to know who Greta Thunberg is. If we had more kids like Greta or the
survivors in Parkland, the world would be a LOT better place.
An amazing young person! She is not in the news so much today, but I hope her fire still burns.
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