Teen environmental activist Greta Thunberg delivered an emotional and scathing speech at the United Nations on Monday, accusing world leaders of stealing her dreams and her childhood with their inaction on climate change. “I shouldn’t be up here. I should be back at school on the other side of the ocean,” the 16-year-old from Sweden told the United Nations Climate Action Summit. “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.” Thunberg slammed the members of the U.N. for caring more about money and “fairytales of eternal economic growth” than collapsing ecosystems, mass extinctions and people suffering due to climate change. “You say you hear us and that you understand the urgency, but no matter how sad and angry I am I do not want to believe that because if you really understood the situation and still kept on failing to act, then you would be evil, and that I refuse to believe,” Thunberg said. She also said that the “popular idea” of cutting emissions by 50 percent in 10 years only yields a 50 percent chance of keeping the earth’s warming trend below the 1.5 degree Celsius threshold, which could set off “catastrophic chain reactions beyond human control” if breached. “A 50 percent risk is simply not acceptable to us — we who have to live with the consequences,” she said. To view the full article visit NBC News.
