Canadians take to the streets in climate strike

OTTAWA—The 16-year-old Swedish activist who started the global climate protest movement, pushing thousands of Canadians to the streets today, says she thinks the nasty backlash she has faced from some leaders is proof positive the message is getting across.

Greta Thunberg has been mocked and ridiculed by some of the world’s most powerful people, including U.S. President Donald Trump, who dismiss her calls to climate action as the musings of silly school girl. In Canada, People’s Party Leader Maxime Bernier dismissed her as a mentally ill pawn of adults.

But Thunberg, who is in Montreal for a massive climate march on an international day of climate action, said that if adults are mocking children, then they must be feeling the heat.

“I don’t understand why grown-ups would choose to mock children and teenagers for just communicating and acting on the science when they could do something good instead,” she said in response to a reporter’s question.

“But I guess they must feel like their world view or their interests or whatever it is, is threatened by us. We should take as a complement that we are having so much impact that people want to silence us. We’ve become too loud for people to handle so they try to silence us.”

TorontoStar

✔@TorontoStar

.@GretaThunberg when asked why grown men like @realDonaldTrump and @MaximeBernier choose to target her: “I don’t understand why grownups would choose to mock children… when they could do something good instead. They must feel like their interests are threatened by us.”

10:58 AM – Sep 27, 2019

Thunberg began weekly sit-ins outside the Swedish legislature last year, which over the course of a few months grew into a global phenomenon. One week ago, millions of people around the world marched in protest against governments not taking drastic climate action. Another day of global protest is happening Friday, including in Canada.

More than 300,000 people are expected at the march in Montreal, with tens of thousands more planning to march in 85 different Canadian cities and towns from St. John’s, to Tofino, B.C., and as far north as Inuvik in the Northwest Territories.

Their message is clear: bolder action is urgently needed to save the planet from the crisis of climate change. MORE

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