Leadership: Who will save the planet? - 1↵
One teenager walked out of school and made the world take climate change seriously. Another wants the world to have all the facts on climate change. "I'm disappointed because we are not only mourning the loss of our planet, but also the destruction of our futures." We will show you why they are leaders in efforts to save the planet, and how you can be too.↵
Greta Thunberg is arguably the world's most famous campaigner on climate change. At fifteen, she stopped going to school and instead sat outside the Swedish Parliament demanding politicians reduce carbon emissions. Her strike caught on: millions of people around the world began protesting for more action to tackle climate change. Greta has travelled by boat, rail and bus to many parts of the world to raise awareness.↵
If we don't realize that it is an emergency, we won't be able to do anything about it and humans are social animals: we look to the people around us and we look to our leaders for guidance and if they are not treating it as a crisis and they are not behaving as if this was a crisis, we won't understand that it is a crisis and then we will just continue like before.↵
She famously spoke at the United Nations, telling leaders they had stolen her dreams and her childhood with their empty words. So, what can you learn from this teenager who woke the world up to the climate change emergency?↵
She was very, very successful in disrupting the status quo, because her message was very simple and she was able to deliver it in very direct ways in the face of a lot of criticism. So, she was very resilient. She was able to be incredibly disruptive in the face of world leaders.↵
Greta Thunberg had a simple message and a direct way of delivering it, both of which had a big impact.↵
She was other-directed and collaborative. She was democratic. All she wanted was to raise awareness and when people joined her, she wanted to be collaborative, whether it was with politicians, scientists, or schoolchildren.↵
Greta is collaborative: she is willing to work with others who believe the climate is in crisis. What other qualities does she show?

Leadership: Who will save the planet? - 2↵
Knowledge is power and she had facts that she was able to communicate in very direct ways. So, she was able to raise the status of science, where at the time politicians and world leaders were downplaying the role of facts from scientists.↵
Greta knows the facts on climate change, which gives her message authority. This has put her in stark contrast to some world leaders.↵
So, if you want to be like Greta?↵
My advice is to be persistent, to continue to think about how to keep that clear message, to work through the barriers that you will face on that journey and to mobilise and to grow your message and your movement with like-minded people across... across differences.↵
You should be persistent. This quality will help you to carry on even in the face of challenges and criticism.↵
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In 2020, Sophia set up Climate Cardinals, a thousands-strong group of volunteer translators, trying to make the latest research on climate change available in as many languages as possible.↵
I started Climate Cardinals because it really stemmed from an experience that I had in Middle School, when I took a two-month trip to Iran, which is my parents' home country. While I was there, I realised that my relatives knew very little about climate change and that's there was almost no information available in Farsi, which is their native language. And so, I worked to translate information to Farsi to teach my relatives about climate change and I wanted Climate Cardinals to continue the work that I was doing on a larger scale, which is why we use student volunteers to translate climate information into over 100 languages.

Leadership: Who will save the planet? - 3↵
"First, I started with the basics. We came up with the name and a logo, found a website, and also took legal steps necessary to become an official non-profit. Then, we finally launched using social media, primarily TikTok, to reach hundreds of thousands of students and recruiting thousands of them to sign up to volunteer with us."↵
"I think that young people play a very crucial role in getting people mobilized and out onto the streets. I think that we, as young people, have become very adept at using social media and our platforms to spread messages, as well as having very difficult conversations with people older than us, like our parents and our relatives, in order to make sure that they're informed when it comes to voting and we're getting climate-progressive candidates into office."↵
The biggest advice I would give to other young people, who are interested in getting involved in the climate space, is put yourself out there: reach out to people that you're inspired by. I started out by just DM-ing random climate activists on Instagram and sending them emails, and just asking how I could work with them and how I could contribute to the work that they were doing. And that's how, initially, I got involved in a number of different climate organizations such as↵
Fridays For Future, Extinction Rebellion, Zero Hour."↵
So, reach out: collaborate, work with others and make contact.