Greta Thunberg has proven once again she is more than capable of handling herself, after shutting down a heckler at a climate change rally in North Carolina over the weekend.
The 16-year-old climate activist was addressing a large crowd in Charlotte on Friday, November 8, when she was rudely interrupted by someone who clearly disagreed with her speech.
Echoing her earlier statements that climate change needs to be tackled ‘right now’, Greta Thunberg told the 1000-strong crowd people like them are now ‘our greatest source of hope’ – although she did admit it ‘can be hard’ to find hope in times like this.
Greta went on to chastise adults for their inaction on fighting climate change, saying: ‘If the adults and people in power are too immature to realise that, then we need to let them know – change is coming whether you like it or not.’
The 16-year-old was imploring fellow youth leaders to speak out in the fight against global warming when she was forced to halt her speech as someone near the stage interrupted her, as Yahoo News reports.
The unknown person started shouting Greta’s name before saying something to her, although it is unclear what the heckler actually said.
Greta then responded saying:
I think if you want to speak with me personally, maybe you can do it later.
At this point, the crowd erupted into cheers with thousands of people chanting the activist’s first name, resulting in Greta having to pause for around 30 seconds before she could resume her speech again.
The 16-year-old, who has been travelling around North America to raise awareness about climate change, continued with grace with the rest of her speech.
She explained:
While we young people may not be able to vote or make decisions today, we have something just as powerful. And that is our voices. And we need to use them.
It is we young people who are the future. There is not enough time to wait for us to grow up and become the ones in charge because we need to tackle the climate and ecological emergency right now.
This isn’t the first time Greta has had to deal with hecklers. In fact, it’s not even the most prominent heckler she’s ever had to deal with.
Nope, that title would belong to the one and only Donald Trump, who seemed so put out by Greta’s (very true and important) claims when she spoke at the United Nations Climate Summit that he chose to have a dig at her.
Instead of praising the 16-year-old for starting an important conversation about climate change when fully-grown world leaders – such as himself – have failed to do so, Trump instead sarcastically described Greta as a ‘very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future’.
Which, far from being the incredible burn I imagine Trump believes it to be, is actually just further evidence that a 16-year-old girl is much more mature than a 73-year-old man who currently holds the most powerful position in the world.
Not to worry though, because Greta recognised Trump and other like-minded adults who continue to insult and criticise her on a daily basis are simply ‘threatened‘ by her generation – a generation whose primary focus is to make a difference and save the planet.
Keep doing you, Greta.
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A Broadcast Journalism Masters graduate who went on to achieve an NCTJ level 3 Diploma in Journalism, Lucy has done stints at ITV, BBC Inside Out and Key 103. While working as a journalist for UNILAD, Lucy has reported on breaking news stories while also writing features about mental health, cervical screening awareness, and Little Mix (who she is unapologetically obsessed with).