While only in high school, Greta Thunberg, center, has accomplished what few purpose-facing brands have been able to do—become a mobilizing force for climate change activism.Standing before an assembly of world leaders in September, a Swedish teenager delivered a blistering critique of global inaction on the climate crisis.

"Fridays For Future is a global movement founded by me," she wrote.

A quarter of a million people gathered to hear her speak in Lower Manhattan, and the city gave students excused absences so they could attend, as did Boston and Chicago. Though she is only in high school, she has quickly become the most famous climate advocate since Al Gore. Fox News’ Laura Ingraham compared her movement to the child-led cult from “Children of the Corn.” After her caustic speech at the UN, President Donald Trump, apparently threatened by the actions of a young girl—a turn of the tables if ever there was one—sarcastically tweeted: “She seems like a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future. Greta Thunberg: The teenage old soul of the climate crisis The teenager said this has happened in marketing with products being sold and people collecting money in her and the movement's name. Since 2018, climate activist Greta Thunberg hasn’t had any issues speaking her mind. “You say you hear us and that you understand the urgency,” she told the UN. "It belongs to anyone taking part in it, above all the young people. Inspired by Thunberg’s lonely vigil in front of the parliament building in Stockholm a year prior, students rallied parents, teachers and concerned adults to take to the streets.Images of Thunberg with a hand-lettered sign declaring a “school strike for the climate” had struck a chord with other young people alarmed by rising seas, extreme weather and the unrelenting increase of atmospheric carbon—the highest levels the Earth has seen in at least 3 million years, according to the World Meteorological Organization.Thunberg isn’t a typical, or even intentional, marketer, but she drives attention and action in organic ways that purpose-led brands wish they could. “But the young people are starting to understand your betrayal. Greta Thunberg: Wirbel wegen Foto mit Vermummten - Vater äußert sich rigoros Update vom 14. But she speaks with a single-mindedness and clarity of purpose that cuts through the rhetoric and platitudes of leaders many times her age.As testimony before the UN, Thunberg merely submitted the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report that laid out the case for drastic reductions in carbon emissions. We need to do more,” and pledged to fund the planting of 2 billion trees.Thunberg seems an ideal messenger for the movement. 8: Greta Thunberg Cutting through rhetoric and platitudes, teenager is ideal messenger for the environmental movement By I-Hsien Sherwood . Her power comes not from detailed policy proposals, but from her unflinching willingness to say what people don’t want to hear. Ben & Jerry's and Patagonia closed for the day.She’s a newsmaker, so the media follows her every move. Because if you really understood the situation and still kept on failing to act, then you would be evil. So nice to see!”Thunberg promptly changed her Twitter bio to reflect that taunt. Earlier this year, Thunberg was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

It can -- and must -- not be used for individual or commercial purposes. It was the same kind of Gen Z social media savvy that birthed retorts like “OK, Boomer,” an expression of frustration with older generations that seem unwilling to change even in the face of empirical evidence.In many ways, Thunberg is the latest inspiring teenager to hold a mirror to society and ask why it has to be this way. Chat with us in Facebook Messenger. In the weeks after she arrived in New York aboard an emission-free, solar-powered yacht, she fist-bumped former President Barack Obama and met with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who—in the middle of a hard-fought re-election campaign—declared, “I agree with her entirely. Unless you are living under a rock or have taken a social media hiatus, you would have heard about 16-year-old Greta Thunberg.