WASHINGTON - Swedish teenager Greta
Thunberg, who has shot to global fame for inspiring worldwide
student strikes to promote action against climate change, took
her mission to President Donald Trump’s doorstep on Friday with
a protest outside the White House.
Hundreds of mostly young people gathered across the street
from the White House to meet her carrying signs reading "People
or Profit?" and "Warming!", chanting "This is a crisis, act like
it!" and "Business as usual is not enough."
Jennifer Morash, a doctoral candidate in plant science,
brought her daughter Adeline, 9, to the rally after getting
permission from her school in Maryland.
"I just want to make
sure we all have a happy future and for people to take climate
change seriously," Adeline said."
Many protesters laid down and kept still for 11 minutes for
a "die in" representing 11 years they said that scientists
believe the world has to make changes needed to stave off
dangerous climate change.
The demonstration marked the first high-profile event of
Thunberg's six-day visit to Washington, intended to pressure the
Trump administration ahead of a United Nations climate summit,
where world leaders will be asked to ramp up their-carbon
cutting ambitions to fend off global warming.
Trump is among a small minority of global leaders who has
openly questioned the science of climate change. He has
announced his intention to withdraw the United States from the
Paris Climate Agreement – a global pact to stem the rise in
global temperatures - and has a policy of maximizing American
production of fossil fuels.
Thunberg has said she does not believe she can convince
Trump or other climate change doubters that global warming is
real, but hopes they will take briefings from “actual scientists
and experts in this area.”
The 16-year-old activist last year started skipping school
every Friday to demonstrate outside Sweden's parliament and is
bound for New York later this month, where she will take part in
the U.N. climate summit.
Prior to that, Thunberg will address Congress on climate
change and later join Democratic lawmakers and plaintiffs in the
Juliana v the United States case - in which a group of young
people sued the government for failing to address climate change
– at the Supreme Court.
Thunberg was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize earlier this
year after the number of students taking part in the “Fridays
for Future” school strikes broke 2 million across 135 countries. She was named one of the world’s most influential people by
Time magazine in May.
Conservative and far-right lawmakers in Europe have
ridiculed Thunberg, mocking her as a “guru of the apocalypse”
and a “Nobel prize of fear.” She was also described as a “deeply
disturbed messiah” leading a “cult” in an opinion column by
conservative Australian commentator Andrew Bolt.
Thunberg arrived in the United States last month on a racing
yacht equipped with solar panels and underwater electricity
turbines to ensure that it left no carbon footprint. She is
taking a year off from school to travel around the Americas.