16-Year Old Activist Wins ‘Time Person Of The Year’

A Swedish teenage girl, Greta Thunberg has emerged the winner of the ‘Time Person of the Year’, bypassing strong nominees like Donald Trump, Nancy Pelosi and the Hong Kong Protesters.

The announcement was made on Wednesday and broadcasted live on America’s National Broadcasting Company (NBC) TV show.

Person of the Year is a yearly issue of the US based news magazine Time that features and profiles a person, a group, an idea, or an object that “for better or for worse, has done the most to influence the events of the year.

In the words of TIME’s Editor-in-Chief and CEO Edward Felsenthal, Greta was one of the influential individuals in 2019 who played a vital role in calling the world’s attention to a major issue affecting the earth – climate change.

“Thunberg has become the biggest voice on the biggest issue facing the planet—and the avatar of a broader generational shift in our culture that is playing out everywhere from the campuses of Hong Kong to the halls of Congress in Washington.

“This was the year the climate crisis went from behind the curtain to center stage, from ambient political noise to squarely on the world’s agenda, and no one did more to make that happen than Thunberg,” he said.

The young girl came into spotlight in August 2018 when, at age 15, she spent most of her school days outside the Swedish parliament calling for greater political will towards global warming.

Global warming is a gradual increase in the overall temperature of the earth’s atmosphere generally attributed to the greenhouse effect caused by increased levels of carbon dioxide, CFCs, and other pollutants.

She was able to gather other students to join the protest in various communities.

Thunberg was later invited to address the 2018 United Nations Climate Change Conference.

In 2019, there were at least two coordinated multi-city protests involving not less than one million students each.

The teen also compelled her parents to reduce their own carbon footprint by giving up air travel and not eating meat.

In her reaction, Greta said “we can’t just continue living as if there was no tomorrow, because there is a tomorrow.”