At 15, Greta Thunberg began her journey into activism when she demanded action on climate change outside the Swedish Parliament. In the years following, she became a leading voice in the fight to protect the environment as countries across the world battle raging wildfires, drought, deadly heat waves and more. She’s spoken with world leaders, joined protests, and publicly called upon countries to do more to fulfill their commitment to the Paris Agreement.
Gardner: That’s one of the things in the documentary that jumped out to a lot of us who were watching it. You have a lot of empathy for the people on the front lines who maybe their culture is even caught up in the fossil fuel industry, like the Polish miners that you go to see. It’s not often that in these types of films people say, well how is their culture going to be impacted or changed, how do they shift?
The same thing is in the States in the U.S., you know, the coal industry. It seems to be more about a culture having to shift than losing jobs and support. And it seems to me that it’s about cultural choices that society has made about who they want to be. Is that part of your message?
Thunberg: Yes of course. Our culture, our identity right now is based on that we humans are above everything else. That we have the right to exploit other humans, other cultures, other animals in nature as well, so that’s what we have based our society on and our culture of course. So if we are going to change we are of course going to have to change our mindsets and we have to see nature for what it actually is. We have to value nature and each other differently. So it’s a lot about a cultural shift as well.
Gardner: There’s a lot of conversation about how the pandemic experience will change things. I think you’ve gone on record that you’re not sure that that’s true and I happen to agree with you – maybe for a short time. Do you see any hope that maybe some people may think differently or behave differently because of what we went through?
Thunberg: Maybe. And of course there is lot of hope and possibilities that we will change but maybe the pandemic will not be the main reason for that but rather that we start actually treating the crisis like a crisis. We humans are social animals. Just imagine if, for example, the media or people in power or our leaders would actually start treating the crisis like a crisis that would have a snowball effect and people would start to change and since we copy each other’s behavior, we look at people around us, what they are doing and that could change things overnight. And so I think rather that is what we are waiting for.
We say that it’s not until our backyard is on fire that we start to take action but we can see for example if you just take some examples from the Western world like California or the bush fires in Australia – it’s so clear that they have connections to the climate crisis. But of course the people there didn’t change. So it’s going to require much more than that. It’s going to require a social change — a shift — in our norms. That is the only way forward because that’s the only way we are going to take action.
Gardner: To that point, what we have now is the Paris Agreement, such as it is. There’s a lot of loopholes in it; countries tend to go back and forth whether they get involved or honor it. Do you think that these agreements are actually meaningful and useful or the best we have at the moment? You speak about it a lot - about people not living up to the commitments which even they’re not enough themselves. Do you think it’s about international agreements or something different?
Thunberg: I think the Paris Agreement has had a huge impact. It has been absolutely crucial. I mean just imagine if we didn’t even have the Paris Agreement. And of course it may be non-binding and so on, but it, as you say, it’s the tool that we have at hand right now. And so it may be incomplete but at least it’s what we have.
People say that we shouldn’t use morals or morale and what is right and wrong because that will only shame people. But of course since we don’t have any global binding commitments or treaties then of course morale is all that we have. It’s our only tool. And even if the Paris Agreement hasn’t reduced emissions in practice it’s still a priceless tool to have to actually hold them accountable to their words, to their promises.
For example, the school strike. A school strike won’t lead to any literal emission reductions but the school strike is a method in order to create awareness and to create public opinion and that in turn will lead to one thing that will lead to one thing and that will at the end hopefully lead to emission reductions.
