September 18, 2019

Greta Thunberg Just Pulled an Iconic Move in Front of Congress

The 16-year-old climate activist says it’s time for lawmakers to listen to science.

Olivier Douliery/Getty

Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish environmental activist who has inspired weekly school strikes for climate action around the world, dedicated her Wednesday morning Congressional testimony to the scientists who have outlined the irrefutable facts of climate change.

Instead of delivering prepared remarks at the joint hearing between the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Energy, and the Environment and the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, Thunberg submitted to lawmakers a copy of the 2018 report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on the effects of global warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius.

“I am submitting this report as my testimony, because I don’t want you to listen to me,” Thunberg said. “I want you to listen to the scientists, and I want you to unite behind the science, and then I want you to take real action.”

 

Last month, Thunberg sailed across the Atlantic Ocean in an emissions-free boat so that she could attend the United Nations Climate Summit in New York. She has taken a year off from school to pursue climate activism and has joined student strikers in New York and Washington, DC. in their weekly climate protests, known as Fridays for Future.

On Friday, September 20, Thunberg returns to New York to lead students and adults in a Global Climate Strike one day before the United Nations Youth Climate Summit. New York City’s 1.1 million public school students will be excused from classes Friday, and people around the world are expected to skip school and work to protest the lack of meaningful governmental action against climate change.

Thunberg’s efforts have earned the praise of prominent politicians, including former President Barack Obama.

More Mother Jones reporting on Climate Desk

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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