uncertainty. Each year that we dump more
carbon into the atmosphere, the planet grows
nearer to a point of no return, where life on
earth as we know it will change unalterably.
Scientifically, the planet can’t afford another
setback; politically, this may be our best
chance to make sweeping change before it’s
too late.
Next year will be decisive: the E.U. is plan-
ning to tax imports from countries that don’t
tackle climate change; the global energy sector
faces a financial reckoning; China will draft its
development plans for the next five years; and
the U.S. presidential election will determine
whether the leader of the free world continues
to ignore the science of climate change.
“When you are a leader and every week you
have young people demonstrating with such a
message, you cannot remain neutral,” French
President Emmanuel Macron told TIME.
“They helped me change.” Leaders respond to
pressure, pressure is created by movements,
movements are built by thousands of people
changing their minds. And sometimes, the
best way to change a mind is to see the world
through the eyes of a child.
Thunberg is maybe 5 ft. tall, and she looks
even smaller in her black oversize wet-weather
gear. Late November is not the time of year to
cross the Atlantic Ocean: the seas are rough,
the winds are fierce, and the small boat—a
leaky catamaran—spent weeks pounding and
bucking over 23-ft. seas. At first, Thunberg got
seasick. Once, a huge wave came over the boat,
ripping a chair off the deck and snapping ropes.
Another time, she was awakened by the sound
of thunder cracking overhead, and the crew
feared that lightning would strike the mast.
But Thunberg, in her quiet way, was un-
fazed. She spent most of the long afternoons
in the cabin, listening to audiobooks and teach-
ing her shipmates to play Yatzy. On calm days,
she climbed on deck and looked across the vast
colorless sea. Somewhere below the surface,
millions of tons of plastic swirled. Thousands
of miles to the north, the sea ice was melting.
Thunberg approaches the world’s problems
with the weight of an elder, but she’s still a kid.
She favors sweatpants and Velcro sneakers, and
shares matching bracelets with her 14-year-old
sister. She likes horses, and she misses her two
dogs, Moses and Roxy, back in Stockholm. Her
mother Malena Ernman is a leading Swedish
opera singer. Her father Svante Thunberg is
distantly related to Svante Arrhenius, a Nobel
Prize–winning chemist who studied how
carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increases
‘WHEN YOU ARE A
LEADER AND EVERY
WEEK YOU HAVE
YOUNG PEOPLE
DEMONSTRATING WITH
SUCH A MESSAGE,
YOU CANNOT REMAIN
NEUTRAL ... THEY
HELPED ME CHANGE’
Emmanuel Macron, President of France