The Greta Thunberg Problem

An article written for the school newspaper.

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Ever since she was first photographed sitting outside of the Swedish parliament, holding a sign that read “School Strike for Climate,” Greta Thunberg has become recognizable to the average person as the face of the environmental movement. Through feats like sailing halfway across the ocean in a solar-powered boat and speaking at the UN Climate Action Summit, she has managed to raise awareness about the environment on an unprecedented scale and jump-start the world into going green. Yet regardless of all her contributions, it may be best for the environmental movement to move away from having a single prominent leader.

Thunberg and environmental movements alike share the goal of spurring global leaders to take the dive into eco-friendly policies and pledge to go net-neutral. And this is where the problem begins. Despite wanting change everywhere, these collectives highlight only Thunberg, who cannot promote international policies and change alone. The topic of climate change spans a multitude of different issues, ranging from pollution to ocean acidification, so Thunberg’s spotlight draws the curtain on the subjects she cannot cover. Though she is vital for the push for change, the public associates only her with climate change activism—which will inevitably devolve into a “heropreneurship,” which is essentially when a single figure is seen as the source behind social progress. Thunberg has become too big, too great, to the point where activism in the movement is portrayed to be mostly her work when it is not.

Those behind the curtain of the movement, such as other youths who have taken action to specifically better their own communities, then go unnoticed. Mari Copeny, for example, has utilized her social media handles and other online platforms to promote her GoFundMe for water filters in Flint, Michigan, and raised awareness by retweeting pressing concerns about the environment to her 150,000 followers. By sending a letter to President Obama about Flint’s water crisis in 2016, she successfully secured change for her community. Activists such as Copeny are what the movement needs: localized leaders who can advocate for specific issues and gather the support of their communities.

A decentralized movement, or a movement with a variety of ground-level leaders, is not a wholly new concept, either. When trying to tackle such a broad topic, diverse leaders are imperative to sustain the movement to stop it from dissolving. This way, environmental movements in other countries can gain more credibility in their own right, and implement legislative change worldwide through bottom-up change. For example, in the movement for gun control, the “March For Our Lives” and “National School Walkout” advocacy groups created 50 new gun laws in the United States—which not-so-coincidentally employed a variety of different leaders such as Sofie Whitney, Sarah Chadwick, Sam Deitsch, and more. Following such a model, the environmental movement could later hold enough influence to pass hard-line, noteworthy legislation.

When citizens and governments denied the attention climate change rightfully deserved, Thunberg was a “must” to grab their attention. Fortunately, there has been a brief burst in the number of meaningful improvements, better policies, and awareness. But for the movement to be sustained, Thunberg must let others shine. Especially in a time when she has taken a break from speaking at public events, the need for leadership on all levels of the movement has only become greater. Only this way can the Earth get all the help it needs.