“With Greta with Greta let’s save the planet”: A multi-faced rebellion to get action on climate change

Abstract

In this brief report, I try to make a portrait of Greta Thunberg’ life, outline the main goals of the movement, discuss the criticisms Greta has received, and reflect on my experience as a ‘grandmother’ activist in the FFF movement in Rome. I outline, how Greta began to worry about climate change and how she started the Fridays for Future Movement, by launching a school strike to demand action against climate change and how she gained youngsters’ support worldwide. Climate strikers underline that they are scared and angry because their future is being “robbed”. They take seriously the scientists’ warning that we have about 12 years to make drastic changes before rates of planetary warming will lead to irreversible consequences. They ask governments to declare a state of emergency and to “tell the truth” about the environmental situation worldwide. FFF want politicians to take extraordinary measures, to reach not only the goals set in Paris in 2017, but to arrive at zero emissions.
Reading the book her mother wrote and hearing and seeing little Greta speak in Rome, I was moved to see how she and her family were able to transform huge family and personal problems- which included having to deal with Greta being an Asperger, who had trouble fitting in at school, had periods of selective mutism, and refusing to eat and also to come to terms to Greta’s sister severe anorexia,- into empowering opportunities for themselves and for the world, as we community psychologists maintain, all should do. I also share how I began to see the limits of identity politics that justly promoted the rights of all minorities, but also increased divides between men and women, young and old, straight and gay and fragmented all us of in different hostile tribes. Finally, I discuss why I have become a grandmother activist in FFF because I am fascinated by their efforts to build a community that attempts to go beyond identity politics that divides people into tribes, in order to unite everyone under a common urgent goal.