Swedish teen climate activist Greta Thunberg was named Time's 2019 Person of the Year on Wednesday, becoming the youngest individual to get the award
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 11th December, 2019) Swedish teen climate activist Greta Thunberg was named Time's 2019 Person of the Year on Wednesday, becoming the youngest individual to get the award.Last year, the award was granted to murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
"For sounding the alarm about humanity's predatory relationship with the only home we have, for bringing to a fragmented world a voice that transcends backgrounds and borders, for showing us all what it might look like when a new generation leads, Greta Thunberg is TIME's 2019 Person of the Year," Edward Felsenthal, the magazine's editor in chief, said.
He added that at the time when "so many traditional institutions seem to be failing us," the world is seeing "new kinds of influence take hold."
"It is wielded by people like Thunberg, leaders with a cause and a phone who don't fit the old rubrics but who connect with us in ways that institutions can't and perhaps never could," he stated, describing the girl's fame as "most unlikely and surely one of the swiftest ascents to global influence in history."
Thunberg became an international celebrity in August 2018 when she had her first "climate strike" by skipping school to protest outside the Swedish parliament. She later continued to do this every Friday. Her actions inspired the Fridays for Future initiative, which swept Sweden and other countries, uniting young people who are dissatisfied with the lack of climate action by authorities.
The young activist has since become the main guest of major environmental events, making her most famous appearance at the United Nations in September. Back then, the indignant girl reproached political leaders from the UN tribune ("How dare you?!") for "stolen" dreams and childhood, saying that their inaction leads to people suffering and dying from climate change.
