Greta Thunberg, who has Aspergers, started her protests about the failure of adults to deal with climate change by protesting alone outside the Swedish Parliament last August. Her solitary protest has cascaded into a worldwide student protest movement that has already staged several protests and will be holding more protests on March 15th and May 3rd. On March 15th there will be 1301 protests in 99 countries, in response to one autistic girl's actions.
I felt it was important for a change to celebrate someone who is not neurotypical or physically typical rather than always dealing with the problems that they face.
Greta Thunberg strikes outside the Swedish parliament last summer. Photograph: Michael Campanella/The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/15/the-beginning-of-gre...
The following article describes the connection between her autism and her climate change protest that became a global movement. The article also includes a video of her 11 minute TED speech.
As youth climate campaigners in the U.S. city of Brooklyn on Wednesday plan to continue a climate strike at least partly inspired by the ongoing vigil begun by 15-year-old Greta Thunberg in Sweden earlier this year, a new TEDx Talk released this week reveals that what inspired the Swedish teenager to take action was as simple as it was profound: she fell into sadness as she saw the leaders of the world—even those who admitted human-caused global warming was an "existential crisis"—continue to act and make policy decisions as though no emergency existed.
Everyone keeps saying, Thunberg declares in the 11-minute talk, that climate "is the most important issue of all, and yet they just carry on as before. I don't understand that. Because if the emissions have to stop, then we must stop the emissions. To me that is black or white. There are no gray areas when it comes to survival. Either we go on as a civilization or we don't. We have to change."
As a key part of the talk, Thunberg describes how at the age of eleven, several years after learning about the concept of climate change for the first time, she fell into a depression and became ill. "I stopped talking. I stopped eating," she explains. "In two months, I lost about ten kilos of weight. Later on I was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, OCD, and selective mutism—that basically means I only speak when I think it's necessary." After a short pause, she adds, "Now is one of those moments."
"For those of us on the spectrum," Thunberg explains to the audience, "almost everything is black or white. We aren't very good at lying and we usually don't enjoy participating in the social game as the rest of you seem so fond of. I think in many ways we autistic are the normal ones and the rest of the people are pretty strange—especially when it comes to the sustainability crisis."
Towards the conclusion of her talk, Thunberg says that "this is when people usually start talking about hope—solar panels, wind power, circular economy, and so on—but I'm not going to do that." And continues, "We've had thirty years of pep-talking and selling positive ideas. And I'm sorry, but it doesn't work. Because if it would have, the emissions would have gone down by now—they haven't." Finally, she says: "Yes, we do need hope—of course, we do. But the one thing we need more than hope is action. Once we start to act, hope is everywhere."
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/12/19/depressed-and-then-diagnose...
Greta Thunberg's nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize hopefully will begin to help change people's attitudes towards those who are autistic.
https://vegconomist.com/society/teenaged-activist-greta-thunberg-raises-...
I think this thread is highly disrespectful and is in the wrong forum. The main thrust of Thunberg's activism is taking action to deal with climate change, so it belongs in the Environmental Justice forum. So what if she has autism? What does her autism have to do with any of this?
Agreed
Highlighting her Asperger's diagnosis is abelist and sends the message that people with an Asperger's diagnosis doing something impressive is so rare as to be newsworthy.
Her activism and the global response is awesome but her privileged background in one of the richest societies on the planet is what has allowed her a platform to inspire other youth. When I was eighteen I believed in the YIPPIE saying; Never Trust Anyone Over Thirty. I think today's youth need to adopt the same attitude. Of course age in some respects is a state of mind.
So since I first raised the issue of disrespect, a few people have agreed with this contention, and nobody has disagreed. Is it possible to change the thread title and move this into the environment forum?
*Ahem*
This thread has been flagged as problematic, and nobody has contested that assertion. Can we please act on the recommendations and fix it?
Aristotle, the OP includes an excerpt of Thunberg’s Ted talk where she draws the connection between her autism and her activism.
Obviously her work can stand on its own merits, but I thought this observation was an interesting one and illustrates how important a neurodiverse perspective can be when allistic society needs a G.D. Wake up call.
Guardian: Greta Thunberg hits back at Andrew Bolt for 'deeply disturbing' column
Welcome to New York
2019 Person of the Year:
Congratulations Greta. Well deserved.
..yes well deserved. she's under incredible pressure. watched a meeting at cop25 earlier today where she shared the stage with other young activists. the audience kept asking her questions and at one point she asked them to stop doing that. that there were other people up front. the audience took no heed of her request and kept questioning her. she answered their questions but you could see her deflate.
Thanks Kropotkin and Robbie Dee. I hadn't seen these comments until today. As a father of son with an official diagnosis of autism and with a wife who thinks I display some of the characteristics of autism (by the way we've been married 30 years to break down another stereotype), I was trying to get across to readers a positive image of those with autism. To get my son the help that he needed as a child we had to fight for years through five different specialists. I won't bore you with the details. While my son is university and doing well now, I understand autistic stereotypes mean he will have challenges finding employment after graduation.
The 2012 "employment rate for autistic adults was 14.3 per cent, compared to 92.7 per cent for the general population" (https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/86-of-adults-with-autism-are-unem...). This means their unemployment rate is 85.7%. The biases encountered by autistic people from those who know little or nothing about autism need to be countered and this can only be done by talking about it and by using positive role models to help break down stereotypes.
Greta has been a role model for many with autism as the articles below testify.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/people-asperger-s-role-model-emerge...
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/09/27/teen-climate-activ...