Swedish 16-year-old Greta Thunberg has become the face of a new youth movement on climate change. Most of us hadn't heard of her until she took to the microphone in front of the United Nations, and delivered an angry emotional plea for action. Now she's been named Time Magazine's Person of the Year. We asked people on the streets of Kelowna for their take on Time's choice.
The comments came at the UN Climate Summit.
“I shouldn't be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean," Thunberg told the assembly. "Yet, you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you? You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. Yet, I am one of the lucky ones. People are suffering.”
.@GretaThunberg is TIME's 2019 Person of the Year #TIMEPOY https://t.co/YZ7U6Up76v pic.twitter.com/SWALBfeGl6
— TIME (@TIME) December 11, 2019
Most people we spoke to are positive about Time's decision. "Who else are you going to give it to?" asked one man. "It's going to take youth to make changes right? Marvellous, I think," said another.
But after Thunberg travelled to the heart of Canada's oil industry to push for change, there was some fairly angry push-back.
Edmonton AB, right now!! #FridaysForFuture #ClimateStrike pic.twitter.com/LAyCIYlqQG
— Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) October 18, 2019
Some people we spoke to seemed to find Thundberg's Canadian visit offensive.
"She's very right about a lot of things," said one Thunberg critic. "But trying her best to crash Canada's economy, might not be the best way to go about things."
"I have mixed feelings about it," said one woman. "I'm probably for the pipeline."
If you get value from KelownaNow and believe local independent media is important to our community we ask that you please consider subscribing to our daily newsletter.
If you appreciate what we do, we ask that you consider supporting our local independent news platform.
