recalls. “This is not about me striking; this is
now us striking from school.” A few days later,
a handful more came. A Greenpeace activist
brought vegan pad thai, which Thunberg tried
for the first time. They were suddenly a group:
one person refusing to accept the status quo
had become two, then eight, then 40, then hun-
dreds. Then thousands.
By early September, enough people had
joined Thunberg’s climate strike in Stock-
holm that she announced she would con-
tinue every Friday until Sweden aligned with
the Paris Agreement. The Fridays for Future
movement was born. By the end of 2018, tens
of thousands of students across Europe began
skipping school on Fridays to protest their own
leaders’ inaction. In January, 35,000 school-
children protested in Belgium following Thun-
berg’s example. The movement struck a chord.
When a Belgian environmental minister in-
sulted the strikers, a public outcry forced her
to resign.
By September 2019, the climate strikes
had spread beyond northern Europe. In New
York City, 250,000 reportedly marched in Bat-
tery Park and outside City Hall. In London,
100,000 swarmed the streets near Westmin-
ster Abbey, in the shadow of Big Ben. In Ger-
many, a total of 1.4 million people took to the
streets, with thousands flooding the Branden-
burg Gate in Berlin and marching in nearly 600
other cities and towns across the country. From
Antarctica to Papua New Guinea, from Kabul
to Johannesburg, an estimated 4 million peo-
ple of all ages showed up to protest. Their signs
told a story. In London: The World is hoT-
Ter Than Young leonardo diCaprio. In
Turkey: everY disasTer Movie sTarTs
WiTh a sCienTisT Being ignored. In New
York: The dinosaurs ThoughT TheY had
TiMe, Too. Hundreds carried images of Thun-
berg or painted her quotes onto poster boards.
Make The World greTa again became a ral-
lying cry.
Her moral clarity inspired other young peo-
ple around the world. “I want to be like her,”
says Rita Amorim, a 16-year-old student from
Lisbon who waited for four hours in December
to catch a glimpse of Thunberg.
In Udaipur, India, 17-year-old Vidit Baya
started his climate strike with just six people
in March; by September, it was 80 strong. In
Brasilia, Brazil, 19-year-old Artemisa Xakriabá
marched with other indigenous women as the
Amazon was burning, then traveled to the U.N.
climate summit in New York City. In Guilin,
China, 16-year-old Howey Ou posted a picture
COURTESY THUNBERG-ERNMAN FAMILY (2)of herself online in front of city government
KID SISTERS
Greta, right, with her
younger sister Beata
in a family photo circa 2008THE THUNBERG FAMILY
Beata, Greta, their mother
Malena Ernman and father Svante
Thunberg with their two dogs
Roxy and Moses in 2018