Greta Thunberg: Global Climate Activist at 16 - Essay Sample

Introduction

Greta Thunberg is a female Swedish student who was born in 2003, now aged 16 years of age. She is known for her work in raising global awareness on matters concerning risks caused by climatic change. Greta is also known for holding accountable politicians for taking no action on the subject in what she dubs 'climate crisis.' In the summer of 2018, she took time out of school to protest outside the Swedish parliament. During her famous demonstration, she held out a sign that was in Swedish and translated to 'school strike for the climate' which was her cry for bold climate action. This incident attracted the attention of the media, and other students took part in similar demonstrations in their communities. Together, they organized and came up with a movement which was named Fridays For Future (FFF), also referred to as Youth for Climate or Youth Strike 4 Climate. In this book, we are going to explore the following philosophical questions:

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Order now

• Are the efforts of the Friday for Future movement futile?
• Is the world listening to Greta Thunberg?
• Is the world better with Greta Thunberg?
• What is there to show the alleged support for Greta Thunberg's work?

The questions will help us gain more understanding of Greta Thunberg both as a person and her career as an activist. The questions also help us understand her work, her motivations, and whether she is given more credit than she deserves. Philosophy aims to ask questions and examine all angles. This is the nature of analysis we will accord to Thunberg and her work and what will be part of her legacy in the years to come. The aim of this book is not to give answers but rather take an explorative perspective of the matter.

Are the efforts of the Friday for Future movement futile?

The School Strike for Climate, also known as Fridays for Future, is an international crusade of school students who take some time out of school each Friday of every school week, to take part in protests. The protests demand action and accountability from politicians and influential business people or anybody really with the capacity to help to deter from further global warming and climatic change. This chapter discusses the various events that support arguments aimed to either debunk or support the prospect of the futility of the efforts of the Fridays for Future movement and also serves as a thesis statement of the chapter.

There two significant ways to judge the futility of the actions of the movement, and we will look at both approaches. The first is to look at how much support they have gathered. It can be argued that the measure of their success can be measured by the numbers that they have, for instance, the more their numbers, the more they are able to make their voices heard. Thus, judging from their large numbers, we can thus conclude that their efforts are worth pursuit. The other way is to actually look at the feasibility of the movement's objectives and how much they have achieved thus far. This statistic is somewhat crude, but it will serve as a stepping stone in our journey to understand the dynamics of the subject matter. According to Watts (2019), approximately 1.4 million individuals are conglomerated with the movement as at 15th March of 2019. Now, what does this tell us? This could mean that people indeed support her work and appreciate her efforts. The image of a little, innocent girl taking her time off school to fight for her future that is being destroyed by the egocentric and short-sighted individuals might have touched the hearts of many. The former, fueled by the media's unique capacity of embellishment, won her over to the world. The movement is ever-growing and gaining widespread acclaim with every passing moment. Thunberg has been invited to several conferences ever since the events of August 2018, and within such a short period, she has won the hearts of many. In conclusion, from the evidence that we have encountered from above, we have observed that she has gathered a large and exponentially growing audience which serves as a premise from which we can safely deduce that indeed her efforts are not futile.

Now, let us look at the second statistic, which is the feasibility of the movement's objectives and their achievements thus far. The faction has held several rallies to raise awareness. It can be argued that numbers in their own right, however important, cannot by themselves win such a huge battle that Greta is fighting. An analogy can be drawn from the second world war where the Soviet Union, which was a very large country with large numbers was almost overthrown by Germany, a much smaller country with lesser numbers, but with greater determination and better tact. The same reasoning can be borrowed and applied in this context; that as important as numbers are, a proper plan and methodology of executing the plan is imperative; else everything falls apart. In an article written by the journalist Christopher Caldwell in the New York Times, Greta's simple and straight-forward method of approaching the issue will ultimately bring the protestors into conflict with the immense technicalities of decision making in the western democracies. Greta is a minor, and without a doubt, her opinion will be easily looked down upon despite what everyone might try to show in the eyes of the press. She is very young and not advanced very far in her education, and her opinion thus might not be respected in the event if rivalry with say, a scientist in opposition. Some might also argue that all the awards, conferences, sponsored trips, and apparent show of support by politicians are all smoke and mirrors to keep her distracted from her actual work. Get her thinking that maybe she is indeed making a difference, which would be a small price to pay on the part of those that have much to lose if her crusade were to succeed. The alternative would be to eradicate her, but maybe she is not regarded to be much of a threat considering that many have come and gone before her. She may have charisma, but she is naive to think that she is going to change everything in one night. Plus, right now, it may be argued that possibly people may not think that she will indeed succeed in her quest but serves as a mascot but has no palpable effect at the end of the day. She may have the numbers for now, but if she does not come up with a strategy then over time if this keeps up with no change, then the opposing forces may win and be able to enforce the policies of having the children go back to school. Maybe even the children themselves will be worn out of going to pointless campaigns if nothing is going to change.

Let us break down the issue and examine what Thunberg and her movement are really up against. This will act as a foundation from which we will be basing our arguments in this chapter. It deviates from philosophy but is a necessity for a rigorous treatment of the subject. As a prerequisite, we will first define a few terms to deter from ambiguity and foster clarity when we use said terms in our arguments. Global warming is the ultimate increase in the net temperature of the earth's atmosphere primarily credited to the greenhouse effect, which itself is brought about by elevated levels of Chlorofluorocarbons, carbon dioxide among other pollutants. Now, why is this a bad thing? One might ask. Well, the adverse effects of global warming and resultant climatic change include greater occurrences of severe weather events, including heatwaves and the increment of both the size and number of deserts. Climatic changes threaten to shrink crop yields threatening food security and the rising of sea levels may make the habitation of coastal regions a nightmare due to constant floods in the areas. Environmental effects involve the relocations or worse the extinction of some species due to drastic changes in the environmental conditions that otherwise made the species thrive. This paragraph simply describes why there is need actually to fight for the climate and we can thus conclude that since humans all fear mortality and have an innate desire to survive, then a logical action would be to put up measures that would maximize our potential to survive. The issue, however, is not however in black and white. As society becomes complex with the advent of new technology and major leaps in the sciences avenues of making profit arise and the few individuals that happen to control these systems tend to keep it that way. They want to always be in control and do not feel obliged to relinquish their power; in layman terms, they experience greed and egocentricity. These individuals with the power they have thus may have the capacity to actually commit an atrocious act and get away with it, a feature that makes them extremely dangerous. They are cancer that is an enemy of progress and have to be eradicated are we to evolve as a species. With that said, taking them down and/or their infrastructure is usually not an easy job but there is the belief in the power of togetherness or 'ujamaa,' where individuals coming together may achieve just about anything. It is becoming a part of something bigger than oneself that makes an individual experience focus, a sense of belonging and is able to realize his/her full potential. Greta, thus, it can be argued that she has the right idea; she knows it is not an easy task. It may take the task ages to be completed, maybe not in her life but all that she is sure about is that it has to be done and she truly believes in it, and that is indeed all that it takes. Then preaching that belief to others and indeed people are listening. She has the right idea, and maybe the futility of her actions will be judged by the results that they bear. Or maybe they will be judged by the little things that she does along the way. Maybe it is the little things that will make the difference. Irrespective, she is on the right side of history, as the saying goes, and she has the determination to see her goals through, and most would argue that that is all that counts to judge the futility of her actions.

It is a well-established fact in the mainstream that much of the contribution to the greenhouse gases come from fossil fuels and industries. Even most of the emissions arising from the use of land, deforestation can be regarded as done to make room for the large industries. Now that we have identified the problem and the source, is it enough to say we can stop using the fossil fuels for an alternative source of energy which is cleaner? Say, for instance, solar or wind? We ask the questions above because FFF, in their list of demands is complete abandonment of the fossil fuels and transition to 100% use of green fuels. Well, these alternative sources have already been implemented, and various modifications have been done to limit the amount of emission, but the truth is that fossil fuels, greenhouse gaseous emissions notwithstanding are the cheapest form of energy. This is because infrastructure has already been set up all over the world to support the consumption of fossil fuels. This infrastructure has been a work that has spanned centuries with the involvement of different nations and has made multibillion companies that support even governments and tearing all this down is going to take more than just simple protests to make a big difference. These industries support the economies of entire counties and thus shutting them down in favor of industries would be totally out of the question. This is what makes the task outright daunting; however, Greta has proved herself countless times that she is up to the task, it is argued that if one puts their mind towards accomplishing a given task, they will indeed accomplish it eventually.

Early in the year, approximately 3400 scientists Associate in Nursing teachers signed a letter in supp...