Too much of a Greta thing? Activist urges focus on others

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

Too much of a Greta thing? Activist urges focus on others

FRANK JORDANS and ARITZ PARRA
December 9, 2019

MADRID (AP) — With dozens of cameras pointing at her across a room full of reporters, celebrity teen environmentalist Greta Thunberg had an unexpected message: Look the other way.

“Our stories have been told over and over again,” the 16-year-old Swede said, explaining why she and prominent German activist Luisa Neubauer would be handing over the stage at the U.N. climate meeting in Madrid to other young activists.

“It’s really about them,” Thunberg added of the young activists from developing countries already facing the effects of climate change, including violent storms, droughts and rising sea levels. “We talk about our future, they talk about their present.”

Thunberg has become the face of the youth climate movement, drawing large crowds with her appearances at protests and conferences over the past year and a half.

Veteran campaigners and scientists have welcomed her activism, including her combative speeches challenging world leaders to do more to stop global warming. But some say that it’s time to put the spotlight on other young activists who also have a strong story to tell about climate change.

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Read more: https://apnews.com/baa29614a79cbcd2edb83b9e3f7de90f

[chia]

1. "We talk about our future, they talk about their present."

She's amazing.

[Beringia]

2. It seems like a human response

To want to make someone into a superhero, and then I think have some glee when they fall.

Like everyone wanting to applaud the rescue of a deer from ice, or a cute video of a saved puppy, when there are millions of deers wounded, killed, hit by cars that no one comments about.