What You Don't Know About Greta Thunberg

The following article includes mentions of mental health issues and an eating disorder.

No one is too small to make a difference. That's what climate activist Greta Thunberg has always maintained. Ever since the teen was first propelled to international stardom in 2018, Thunberg has inevitably been subjected to intense scrutiny. From critics questioning her perceived unconventional appearance and family background to trolls spreading baseless conspiracy theories, it's not easy being Greta. But she is so much more than the "elfin-like and earnest" climate savior that the media often depicts her as.

Thunberg is undoubtedly an idiosyncratic figure. With her childlike gait and immediately identifiable oratory style, much of her fame and rise to power lies in her uniqueness. Accordingly, she has been able to embrace being different to her advantage, encouraging a whole new generation of kids to follow suit and rebel. "We can't save the world by playing by the rules," she once said (via The Guardian). "Because the rules have to be changed. Everything needs to change. And it has to start today. So, everyone out there, it is now time for civil disobedience. It is time to rebel."

In addition to being a fervent climate activist, Thunberg has numerous other hobbies and pursuits, many of which are pretty surprising considering that she is frequently portrayed as a somber doom monger. From famous pals to trolling the former President of the United States (guess which one), here's what you don't know about the force-of-nature teen that is Greta Thunberg.

In 2018, the world was left in shock after a gunman stormed Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, leaving 17 people dead, 14 of whom were school children. The tragedy propelled a group of survivors, including the dynamic David Hogg, to take action by staging a series of protests against gun violence. Eagerly watching these events unfold from her home in Sweden, Greta Thunberg grew inspired to start her own social movement.

According to Time, it was the Parkland activists who motivated Thunberg to initiate a school strike. Accordingly, she arrived outside the Swedish parliament armed with a sign that read: "My name is Greta, I am in ninth grade, and I am school-striking for the climate. Since you adults don't give a d**n about my future, I won't either." The protest led to the precocious schoolgirl quickly becoming a celeb. Subsequently, the passionate youngster was invited to the United Nations Climate Action Summit the following year, in which she gave a powerful, rousing speech. "I shouldn't be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean," she declared, per NPR. "Yet you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you!" 

As Time notes, kids around the world were in turn inspired by Thunberg and emulated her activism. The Parkland activists and Thunberg prove that one solitary voice can indeed make a huge difference.

Don't be fooled by her diminutive appearance: Greta Thunberg is prepared to take down her haters in the most savage way. The teen has long had a feud with former President Donald Trump — but then again, who hasn't had beef with the reality TV star turned POTUS? 

The heated clash between Trump and Thunberg all began in 2019. A vocal climate change sceptic who has routinely questioned the expertise of scientists, Trump tweeted about the then 16-year-old following her powerful speech at the U.N. Climate Summit. "She seems like a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future. So nice to see!" Trump wrote in his typically exclamation mark-filled fashion (via The Guardian). Trump may have been a professional Twitter troll prior to being banned, but two can play that game. In response to the president's tweet, Thunberg changed her Twitter profile to read, "A very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future," per ABC News. 

But the shade didn't stop there. When Trump grudgingly left the White House in 2021, Thunberg — who seems to have a mega troll lurking in her — captioned an Instagram photo of the ex-POTUS boarding the Marine One helicopter with, "He seems like a very happy old man looking forward to a bright and wonderful future. So nice to see!" Ouch. 

Looks like Greta had the last laugh, but perhaps the septuagenarian former president had it coming after mocking a literal child.

Greta Thunberg has been open about her diagnosis of Asperger's Syndrome, which is a type of Autism Spectrum Disorder. Subsequently, the teen wears her neurodiversity with pride. In fact, Thunberg tweeted that her Asperger's is her "superpower" in 2019.

The activist views the syndrome as a "gift," telling the Financial Times that it's enabled her to see things as they really are. "If I would have been normal like everyone else, I could just continue like everyone else," she reflected. "And get stuck in the social game, and just continue like before. But since I was different, I see the world from a different perspective, I see things very black and white."

Additionally, Thunberg has discussed how her neurodiverse perspective is paramount to her impassioned activism, emphasizing that environmentalism is her "special interest." "A lot of people with autism have a special interest that they can sit and do for an eternity without getting bored. It's a very useful thing sometimes," she told The Guardian. "Autism can be something that holds you back, but if you get to the right circumstance, if you are around the right people, if you get the adaptations that you need and you feel you have a purpose, then it can be something you can use for good. And I think that I'm doing that now." 

In 1955, Rosa Parks changed the world. At the height of racial segregation in Alabama, Parks refused to give her seat on a bus to a white man and was arrested as a result, leading to mass protests. Dubbed "The mother of the civil rights movement," Parks was instrumental in advancing the end of segregation in the United States through a simple act of civil disobedience. It comes as little surprise, then, that Greta Thunberg looks up to a fellow powerful woman.

When interviewed by Rolling Stone in 2019, Thunberg revealed that Parks is a major inspiration for her. "The first woman that really made an impression on me was maybe Rosa Parks," she enthused. "One person can make such [a] huge difference just by refusing to do something. She didn't say anything new. ... It was just that the timing was right. Later on I learnt that she was an introvert, and I'm also an introvert. And then I thought that it's not just extroverts; we introverts can also make our voices heard." Thunberg's emphasis on both she and Parks' introversion illustrates that sometimes the most powerful gestures can be made by seemingly understated individuals. As Thunberg, who's even turned down an award for her activism, once wrote, "A whisper sometimes is louder than shouting."

While Parks played a monumental role in the Civil Rights movement, Thunberg has been vital in spearheading climate activism for a younger generation. Accordingly, a push for carbon offsetting has been attributable to the "Greta Thunberg Effect," per The Guardian.

Opera singer Malena Ernman and actor Svante Thunberg are Greta Thunberg's proud parents. But they had to pay a major price for their daughter's wellbeing. As Ernman recalled to The Guardian, her daughter was once furious when she greeted her father at an airport. "You just released 2.7 tonnes of CO2," Greta told her dad. "And that corresponds to the annual emissions of five people in Senegal." The teen activist is an avowed opponent of airplane travel. Famously, she travelled 3,000 miles from the United Kingdom to New York entirely by boat when she was asked to speak at a U.N. Climate Summit, per the BBC.

Seeing their daughter's commitment to climate activism, Thunberg's parents agreed to no longer fly. For her mom, in particular, this was the ultimate sacrifice. As an opera singer, Ernman couldn't perform overseas, with the no-flying rule effectively ending her international singing career. Chatting to the BBC, Svante Thunberg said that he and his wife stopped flying for the sake of their daughter's happiness, as opposed to it being a politically motivated decision. "I didn't do it to save the climate, I did it to save my child," he admitted.

Since turning 18 in 2021, Greta Thunberg has mellowed somewhat with regards to her fury at those who fly. While she continues her self-imposed airplane ban, she insisted to The Times, "I'm not telling anyone else what to do."

An increasingly high number of celebs are embracing a plant-based diet, from Billie Eilish to muscle-man Arnold Schwarzenegger. There are a myriad of reasons why people go plant-based, from concerns for animal welfare to the reported health benefits of eliminating animal products, but Greta Thunberg is a passionate vegan due to the impact of meat and dairy consumption on the climate. 

According to a 2021 study published in Environmental Communication, "Animal agriculture is a major producer of greenhouse gas emissions, equivalent to 14.5% of global emissions, which is approximately the same size as the transportation sector." As such, Thunberg believes that animal agriculture and climate change are inextricably linked. It is not known exactly when she adopted a vegan lifestyle, but she has been vegan since she was at least in her early teens, as noted by a BBC interview with her father, in which he stated that he also became vegan for the sake of his daughter.

In 2021, Thunberg collaborated with Mercy For Animals, an animal welfare organization, and appeared in a short film entitled "For Nature," in which she encourages people to stop consuming animal products. "If we don't change, we are f**ked," she says in the film, adding, "If we keep making food the way we do, we will also destroy the habitats of most wild plants and animals, driving countless species to extinction. This really sucks for us, too — they are our life's supporting system. If we lose them, we will be lost, too."

There have been a number of conspiracy theories surrounding Greta Thunberg's rise to fame. In particular, there are unfounded claims that she is a political pawn for her parents and global elites, but this couldn't be further from the truth.

In actuality, it is not Thunberg's parents who are penning her speeches and coaching her against her will — rather, the precocious teen is responsible for all of her speeches. "I write all of my own speeches," she told GQ. However, she does occasionally ask her parents for ideas, albeit minimally. As she elaborated to GQ, her father "sometimes tries to tone them down a little. He's a bit worried I might say something bad, which I'm already doing, but he's still scared." As Thunberg illustrated, her parents weren't actually as committed to the climate cause as she is, at least at one point. "Greta said: 'Whose human rights are you standing up for?', since we were not taking this climate issue seriously," her father told the BBC.

Since Thunberg is a powerful orator, with her speech at the U.N. Climate Action Summit bringing tears to her eyes, she is evidently passionate about the issues she discusses. As The Atlantic notes, it is Thunberg's intellect and maturity that cause some adults to fear her and subsequently create baseless conspiracy theories: "Thunberg is an especially flummoxing figure. She looks younger than her years, yet her speeches take a shaming, authoritative tone that is, at the very least, unusual for a child."

What does a superstar activist do in her spare time? It's not all angry speeches and making protest signs for Greta Thunberg. As it turns out, she knows how to have a good time, albeit in her own quirky way.

When asked by The Guardian whether she wants to party like many of her fellow teens, Thunberg gave an emphatic negative. "No, definitely not. I don't have an urge to party or drink alcohol or do whatever teens normally do. I enjoy much more doing this and being a nerd!" she joked. As for her actual hobbies, they're rather surprising. "I listen to music, and podcasts. But I do other things. I do embroidery," Thunberg added, noting that she was embroidering something for a special someone during the actual interview, though she was tight-lipped about to whom the adornment would be gifted. When she ventures outside in her spare time, she's happy to simply bask in the beauty of nature with a long walk and enjoys spending time with her furbabies. "I read and I go for walks. When I'm home, then I am with my dogs — Moses and Roxy," Thunberg told People.

And Thunberg has another interest that shocked her fans: Karaoke. In October 2021, she stunned a crowd at Climate Live when she gave an impromptu rendition of Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up," complete with enthusiastic dance moves. Never Greta give you up! 

Before Greta Thunberg, there was another teen activist taking the world by storm. That activist was, of course, Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani teen shot by the Taliban at the age of 15 for protesting the right for girls to be educated. Yousafzai paved the way for prominent activists in the media like Thunberg, becoming a household name when she famously appeared on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" to give a commanding speech about the rights of women and girls.

When Yousafzai and Thunberg met for the first time in 2020 at Oxford University, where Yousafzai was studying philosophy, politics, and economics, they hit it off. After meeting, Thunberg posted photos of herself and Yousafzai on Twitter, sweetly writing, "So... today I met my role model. What else can I say?" Likewise, Yousafzai tweeted, "She's the only friend I'd skip school for."

During an interview with Teen Vogue a year earlier, Yousafzai expressed her admiration for Thunberg. "Sometimes in rooms with decision-makers, they don't have any young people at the table; they don't even have women," she told the mag, adding, "So just to have the voices of young people present there, just to have women being present at those tables, I think it's a huge difference ... and now to see that young [people] like Emma [González] and Greta are coming forward and they're talking about climate change ... and they're talking about these different issues that are impacting all of us."

In an interview with New Scientist during the start of the coronavirus pandemic in March 2020, Greta Thunberg said it's likely that she had COVID-19, though she was unable to be tested at the time due to Sweden's rigid testing rules. Subsequently, she stressed the importance of taking the highly contagious virus seriously. 

"The important thing is, I didn't basically feel that I was ill. It could be that I was feeling unusually tired, I was coughing a bit," she explained. "That also is very dangerous because you don't know you have it. If [it] wouldn't have been for my father getting it at the same time and much more intense than me, I might not even have noticed it, that I was sick." Now that studies have proven that COVID-19 patients can indeed be both asymptomatic and have a highly transmissible form of the disease (via the American Chemical Society), Thunberg was pioneering when she acknowledged the potential for the virus to be even more dangerous than first believed.

Since recovering, Thunberg has devoted much of her time campaigning for coronavirus vaccine equality. During a World Health Organization conference (via NPR), Thunberg boldly stated, "The only morally right thing to do is to prioritize the people who are the most vulnerable, no matter whether they live in a high-income country or a low-income country. The international community, governments and vaccine developers must step up their game and address the tragedy that is vaccine inequity."

Standing at less than five feet tall, Greta Thunberg is known for her slight, childlike appearance. Despite celebrating her eighteenth birthday in 2021, Thunberg has a seemingly otherworldly appearance that makes her look years younger than she is. But there is a tragic reason behind her petite stature.

As illustrated in a 2019 GQ profile, "She looks more like 12 than 16. This is the result of a bout of severe depression when she was eleven and a serious eating disorder that followed. In two months, she lost ten kilos [22 lbs.] and stopped talking." As a result, Thunberg's mom had to take note of everything her daughter ate and eventually took her to therapy, where she was diagnosed with an eating disorder, as noted by GQ.

Speaking to The Guardian about the depression that would eventually impact her adolescent growth, Thunberg said that the apathy of adults led to her losing her appetite not just for food, but for life. "One of the reasons was I couldn't wrap my head around the fact that people didn't seem to care about anything, that everyone just cared about themselves rather than everything that was happening with the world," she reflected poignantly. "And being an oversensitive child with autism, it was definitely something I thought about a lot, and it made me sad."

If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health, please contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741, call the National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264), or visit the National Institute of Mental Health website.

If you are struggling with an eating disorder, or know someone who is, help is available. Visit the National Eating Disorders Association website or contact NEDA's Live Helpline at 1-800-931-2237. You can also receive 24/7 Crisis Support via text (send NEDA to 741-741).

Ever since she was catapulted into the media spotlight, Greta Thunberg has faced the wrath of bullies. As a young woman in the public eye, Thunberg is sadly a prime target for online trolls, with Salon noting that the severest forms of online harassment disproportionately affect women and girls. What's more, being neurodiverse has compounded the targeting of Thunberg, as her perceived "differences" are frequently under attack. As Thunberg noted on Twitter in 2019, bullies were "going after me, my looks, my clothes, my behaviour and my differences."

But the sad truth is, Thunberg's suffering at the hands of bullies didn't start with internet trolls. In fact, she was intimidated relentlessly at school, to the point that she no longer wanted to attend despite being a highly intelligent child. As Rolling Stone notes, "Sometimes she would come home after being bullied at school — recess was spent hiding out in the bathroom — and either spend hours petting her dogs or crying at her own pain."

However, now that she's habitually hounded in the public eye, often by grown adults, the teen activist takes a different approach to being bullied. "It's just the people with 10 accounts who sit and write anonymously on Twitter and so on," Thunberg told Rolling Stone. "It's nothing you can take seriously." Thunberg's laudable dismissal of bullies is a message that both the perps and victims of bullying can learn from.

Don't expect to see Greta Thunberg shopping at the local mall any time soon; it's second hand or nothing for the young activist. Studies show that the fast fashion industry makes a colossal contribution to climate change. According to the U.N., "The fashion industry produces about 20% of global waste water. Furthermore, 85% of textiles end up in landfills or are incinerated when most of these materials could be reused." As such, there has been a sustainability movement among fashion forward communities. Sustainable fashion comes in the form of purchasing ethically made clothing from independent brands, as well as embracing thrift stores. 

Known for her rotating wardrobe of baggy jeans, parkas, and sweatshirts, Thunberg has a distinctive sense of style. During an interview with Vogue Scandinavia, she was asked about her sartorial tastes. "The last time I bought something new was three years ago and it was second-hand. I just borrow things from people I know," the activist stated. Additionally, Thunberg told The Times, "I don't need new clothes. ... I don't need to buy clothes I don't need, so I don't see it as a sacrifice."

As noted by The New Yorker, Thunberg forgoes fashion not merely because of the environmental impact of consumerism, but because fashion is something that she has little to no interest in. However, she also acknowledges that ceasing to purchase new clothes can be difficult for many people: "I understand that, for many, this can be an important part of their identity."

She may still look years younger than she is, but Greta Thunberg is actually a young woman. And with a whopping reported net worth of $1 million, Thunberg can now afford to move out of her parents' house, which is a pretty impressive feat considering that the number of young adults still living with their parents is steadily on the rise, with little sign of dissipating.

During an interview with UN Dispatch in October 2021, Thunberg stated that she had moved into her first apartment, but she was quick to note that she does not own her home. "It's a borrowed flat, and I live here, and with people come and go a bit," she said. "Borrowing" is a frequent term in the Thunberg lexicon, reflective of her apparent collectivist leanings. Thunberg's father is immensely proud of his once withdrawn daughter's ability to live independently, viewing it as a major achievement. As he told The Guardian, "The main thing I'm concerned about is my children being well, and the fact that Greta is now living by herself, coping by herself, travelling by herself is amazing." 

And he's right: Perhaps due to her struggles, Thunberg is able to fully appreciate something as seemingly simple as leaving her parents' home, which may be inspiring for both neurodiverse individuals and anyone who has ever felt like an outsider. In the immortal words of Greta Thunberg, "Being different is a superpower."