Climate Activist Greta Thunberg Responds to Harassment

If you still don’t know who Greta Thunberg is, you will soon. The 16 year-old climate activist has been pretty busy saving the world; her movement, Fridays for Future, has been spreading internationally at an incredible pace.

And just this week, Greta arrived by zero-emission sailboat to New York City in order to attend the United Nations Climate Summit. You’d think that someone who’d just sailed for days from Sweden to the USA wouldn’t have much to deal with in the way of online bullying, and yet, four days ago, Greta made a bold statement on Instagram.

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When haters go after your looks and differences, it means they have nowhere left to go. And then you know you’re winning! I have Asperger’s syndrome and that means I’m sometimes a bit different from the norm. And – given the right circumstances – being different is a superpower. I'm not public about my diagnosis to "hide" behind it, but because I know many ignorant people still see it as an "illness", or something negative. And believe me, my diagnosis has limited me before. Before I started school striking I had no energy, no friends and I didn’t speak to anyone. I just sat alone at home, with an eating disorder. All of that is gone now, since I have found a meaning, in a world that sometimes seems meaningless to so many people. #aspiepower #neurodiverse #npf

A post shared by Greta Thunberg (@gretathunberg) on Aug 31, 2019 at 3:01pm PDT

Greta Thunberg Proves Autism Isn’t Something to Be ‘Cured’

It’s pretty messed up that those who are trying to undermine Greta’s work would attack her for having autism, but that’s the world we live in. It seems like in the modern political climate, right-wing climate deniers don’t mind how low they stoop to protect the interests of those companies still responsible for climate change.

Thankfully, we have activists like Greta Thunberg, who has a platform to point out that our society’s understanding of autism has progressed, and it’s not something we should see as a problem or something to be ‘cured.’

Greta’s work does a lot to undo the stigma against neurodiverse people. She has the visibility to make statements like the one she made on Instagram, but her work also speaks for itself as a huge achievement, that should challenge the way many people think about those with autism.

”Being different is a superpower.”

Thunberg said in her post that she usually doesn’t talk much about having Asperger’s, because other people often misconstrue it as a problem with her. But she wanted to be clear that she doesn’t shy away from talking about it out of shame.

Instead, she says that since she began working for action against climate change, “I have found a meaning, in a world that sometimes seems meaningless to so many people.” In other words, she’s too focused on her activism to spend time worrying about her diagnosis, and what it means for the way she’s perceived.