Notorious climate activist Greta Thunberg has finally ended her years-long school strike and has managed to graduate high school at 20-years-old.
Thunberg, who has been criticized over the years for her activism, and even had run-ins with The Counter Signal’s Keean Bexte, took to Twitter to explain that she has ended her 251-week run of striking.
“School strike week 251. Today, I graduate from school, which means I’ll no longer be able to school strike for the climate. This is then the last school strike for me, so I guess I have to write something on this day,” she wrote.
Thunberg started her strike in 2018
“When I started striking in 2018 I could never have expected that it would lead to anything. After striking every day for three weeks, we were a small group of children who decided to continue doing this every Friday. And we did, which is how Fridays For Future was formed,” she continued.
While she has yet to embark on any post-secondary schooling, Thunberg already has an honorary degree. Thunberg received her degree from the University of British Columbia Okanagan in 2021, interestingly enough at the same time as British Columbia’s provincial health officer Bonnie Henry received her degree from the Vancouver campus.
“We’re still here, and we aren’t planning on going anywhere. Much has changed since we started, and yet we have much further to go. We are still moving in the wrong direction, where those in power are allowed to sacrifice marginalised and affected people and the planet in the name of greed, profit and economic growth,” she went on.
Skeptics challenge Thunberg
Thunberg has been often challenged for the way she frames certain situations, though. In late 2019, Thunberg got into a quarrel with a German train company after she characterized her travel as if she was sitting on the floor of an overcrowded train. The train operators replied saying “it would have been even nicer, had you also reported how friendly and competently you were looked after by our team at your seat in the first class.”
The Swede was also accused of staging a photo op with German police in January 2023, where she appeared to be handcuffed in photos, only for video to surface of her joking with authorities at the same protest.
The protest will continue
The activist said she still plans to be a part-timer however, and that she’ll “continue to protest on Fridays, even though it’s not technically ‘school striking’.” She urged fellow activists to “do everything we possibly can,” because they simply “have no other option,” as she pledged herself to approximately one-fifth her previous rate of activism.
