Greta Thunberg Celebrates 17th Birthday by Calling for Children to Skip School

Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg poses for pictures as she takes part in the
CLAUDIO BRESCIANI/TT NEWS AGENCY/AFP via Getty Images

Climate change poster child Greta Thunberg opted on Friday to celebrate her 17th birthday on the steps of the Swedish parliament, at the same spot where she ditched school as a 15-year-old to chide adults for their lack of action in fighting so-called man-made climate change.

Since then she has been touted by the left as everything from a prophet and savior to the person of the year, according to Time magazine, for scolding adults at the United Nation’s climate change summit last summer in New York City and elsewhere around the U.S. and Canada.

Thunberg made international headlines when she shunned air travel from Europe to the U.S. in August as she traveled in a solar-powered racing yacht to avoid a “carbon footprint.” Reports showed, however, that while the boat didn’t use a gas-powered engine, the material the boat was made of was fossil-fuel based.

Thunberg tweeted a picture of herself protesting on Friday with a sign in Swedish that she carried around during her travels to advance her “school strikes for climate” agenda.

The Daily Mail reported more than 100,000 children and teens have ditched class to take part in the protests since Thunberg started them, but Thunberg is skipping school every day.

“Greta is currently on a gap year from her education and heads back to school in August,” the Mail reported.

As Breitbart News reported, Greta’s father, Svante Thunberg, denied promoting his daughter and claimed he wasn’t supportive of her activism until he saw it help with her health problems, including depression and “selective mutism.”

Svante Thunberg traveled with Greta and also with his other daughter, Beata Ernman Thunberg, last year in her effort to pursue a singing career.

“It really helps in getting out of that depression because it gives a feeling you are having an impact,” Greta said in an appearance on the Radio 4 program. “Just being part of a movement that has so much impact on the world is an amazing feeling. I wish that more people could feel like that.”

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