“Our house is on fire.” 16 year-old Greta Thunberg wants action

“I don’t want your hope. I want you to panic…and act.”

Greta Thunberg does not mince words when speaking truth to power, and her soft voice silenced a room full of global leaders from the financial, political and media sectors.

“Our house is on fire,” said the Swedish student activist who has galvanized 100,000 fellow teens around the world to follow her example in striking for the climate. “At Davos, people like to talk about success, but financial success has come with a price tag, and on the climate we have failed. And unless we recognize the failures of our system, there will be unspoken suffering.”

Thunberg dismissed the usual admonishments that climate is complex. She has grown impatient when grown-ups explain to her that structural reform is hard, sensitive, intricate, takes time, and that nothing in life is black and white. “That is a lie,” she countered. “Either we prevent temperatures from rising above 1.5 degrees (Celsius), or we don’t. Either we avoid chain reaction of unravelling ecosystems, or we don’t. That’s as black or white as it gets. Now we all have a choice: we can either create transformational action or continue with business as usual and fail.”