Frustrated by the lack of attention paid to the existential threat of global warming — not least by politicians campaigning for upcoming elections — skipping school on Fridays to protest in front of the Swedish Parliament with a water bottle, her rucksack filled with books and snacks and a homemade sign announcing her “School Strike for Climate.” “I tried to bring people along to join me,” she says — she’d been inspired by the Parkland, Florida, students who walked out of class to protest gun violence. She said: “but no one was really interested, and so I had to do it by myself.”

The movement which is started by Greta Thunberg is called "Fridays for Future," to protest the lack of action on the climate crisis. She then encouraged others students to skip school to join protests demanding faster action on climate change.

Last August, When the Local met her on the fifth day of her strike, the teenager had been joined by fellow students, teachers, and parents who supported her calls for "radical action".

Initially, Greta had no expectations that her protest would grow. “The idea was to sit outside the Swedish parliament for three weeks. I think the timing and the concept must have been right,” she told New Scientist.

Even though she finds personal attention a little strange, she says, “As soon as they write about me they have to write about the climate, so that’s good.

“In five years, I hope I don’t work on the climate because that would mean that everything is OK,” says Thunberg. “But I probably will, and many other people will because of where we are at. We see the consequences of it today, and we will see it more clearly then.

Greta documented all of her activism on social media, where her posts soon went viral, inspiring youth on a global scale.