“We’ll be watching you.”

Sometimes the most important messages come from the unlikeliest of messengers.

No one would have thought that a 16-year old girl with  Asberger’s syndrome would be the potential catalyst for comprehensive worldwide action against climate change.

Enter Greta Thunberg. 

The Swedish high school student first made headlines last year by ditching school to perform a one-person climate strike outside of the Swedish parliament. But over the last year, Greta’s blunt message on the climate has inspired millions of young people to take up the mantle. 

This week saw climate strikes in cities across the world.

In New York, Greta addressed world leaders at the UN Climate Action Summit. Choking back tears, Thunberg laid out a bleak, but honest, assessment of worldwide inaction on the climate crisis:

“My message [to world leaders] is that we’ll be watching you,” Greta said to laughs and cheers from the crowd. “This is all wrong. I shouldn’t be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet, you come to us young people for hope. How dare you! You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words and yet I am one of the lucky ones.”

See the full video below:

Greta’s strong message and the outpouring of support across the globe led UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres to call it a “turning point” on climate. 

But with the Amazon burning, reports of unprecedented and unexpected warming of the earth’s ocean, as well as the deepening threat of the plastics crisis across the world, it’s easy to be cynical.

The good news? There’s all something we can do.

It may not be going on strike or protesting in the streets--we have Greta for that. 

But, if everyone could make at least one small change in their lives--whether it’s how they travel, or what products they buy, or which companies they support--it may just be enough to truly turn the tide against the climate crisis.

It’s time for everyone to #ThinkReusable.