Teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg is TIME’s 2019 Person of the Year, the magazine announced on Wednesday.
The 16-year-old, who has become the public face of climate change activism since leading school strikes in her home country of Sweden, topped President Donald Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to win the accolade. “I’d like to tell my grandchildren that we did everything we could,” she told TIME magazine. “And we did it for them and for the generations to come.”
Jim Acosta ruthlessly mocked for comparing removal of Trump’s name from Kennedy Center to fall of Berlin Wall
Haitian fraudster’s eye-popping taxpayer-backed drug scam puts Congress on the hunt
Horror Discovery: Remains of More Than 30 Unborn Babies Found in Pathologist’s Garden
Stephen A. Smith says ‘Karmelo Anthony murdered Austin Metcalf’
Iran Says Fighting Will End ‘Immediately and Permanently’ After Trump Announces Peace Deal
Zelensky laments Russian attack that damaged 1,000-year-old church
Trump Announces Iran Deal Is Complete, Says Military Operations Will End Immediately
Missouri skydiving plane crash that killed all 12 aboard is a ‘devastating loss,’ company says
Trump bet tariffs would bring back American factory jobs. New report says it didn’t work
Trump heads to G7 with Iran deal momentum, trade fights waiting
Both gubernatorial candidates look to Make Iowa Healthy Again
Immigrants filed tens of thousands of lawsuits in Trump’s first year
Detroit sisters accused of stabbing restaurant worker after wrong food order
Trump mixes sports and patriotism with UFC Freedom 250 ‘spectacle’
UFC Freedom 250 White House event: Photos
.@GretaThunberg is TIME's 2019 Person of the Year #TIMEPOY https://t.co/YZ7U6Up76v pic.twitter.com/SWALBfeGl6
— TIME (@TIME) December 11, 2019
TIME’s editor-in-chief, Edward Felsenthal, unveiled this year’s winner on NBC’s Today Show, describing Thunberg as the “biggest voice on the biggest issue facing the planet.”
“She became the biggest voice on the biggest issue facing the planet this year.” TIME Editor-in-Chief @efelsenthal talks about why TIME chose @GretaThunberg to be Person of the Year.
Thunberg, 16, is also the youngest person to ever receive the honor. pic.twitter.com/eTvLAiRtFW
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) December 11, 2019
Jim Acosta ruthlessly mocked for comparing removal of Trump’s name from Kennedy Center to fall of Berlin Wall
Haitian fraudster’s eye-popping taxpayer-backed drug scam puts Congress on the hunt
Horror Discovery: Remains of More Than 30 Unborn Babies Found in Pathologist’s Garden
Stephen A. Smith says ‘Karmelo Anthony murdered Austin Metcalf’
Iran Says Fighting Will End ‘Immediately and Permanently’ After Trump Announces Peace Deal
Zelensky laments Russian attack that damaged 1,000-year-old church
Trump Announces Iran Deal Is Complete, Says Military Operations Will End Immediately
Missouri skydiving plane crash that killed all 12 aboard is a ‘devastating loss,’ company says
Trump bet tariffs would bring back American factory jobs. New report says it didn’t work
Trump heads to G7 with Iran deal momentum, trade fights waiting
Both gubernatorial candidates look to Make Iowa Healthy Again
Immigrants filed tens of thousands of lawsuits in Trump’s first year
Detroit sisters accused of stabbing restaurant worker after wrong food order
Trump mixes sports and patriotism with UFC Freedom 250 ‘spectacle’
UFC Freedom 250 White House event: Photos
“She also represents a broader generational shift in the culture that we’re seeing from the campuses of Hong Kong to the protests in Chile to Parkland, Florida, where the students marched against gun violence where young people are demanding change urgently,” said Felsenthal.
Thunberg garnered headlines earlier this year for sailing — rather than flying — from England to New York City to attended the United Nations climate summit. During the conference, Thunberg raised eyebrows for a pointed speech in which she angerly accused world leaders of robbing her and other young people of their future due to their inaction on so-called global warming.
“This is all wrong. I shouldn’t be up here,” she said in her remarks. “I should be back in school, on the other side of the ocean. Yet you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you!”
Thunberg and a dozen other activists also lodged a complaint with the U.N. that accused France and four other countries of failing to adequately address the issue, a move that drew scorn from French President Emmanuel Macron.
Speaking at the time with Europe 1, Macron branded the complaint as “very radical” and warned it would likely “antagonize societies.”
“All the movements of our youth — or our not-so-young — are helpful,” explained the globalist leader. “But they must now focus on those who are furthest away, those who are seeking to block the way.”
Thunberg is the youngest person ever to be named the magazine’s “Person of the Year.”
TIME selected “The Guardians and the War on Truth” — a group of imprisoned and killed journalists — as its “Person of the Year” in 2018.
Story cited here.
