Climate activist Greta Thunberg drew criticism online after footage showed her laughing when told that Fridays for Future, the youth climate movement she founded in 2018 at age 15, was still holding protests.
The moment was captured during filming for a documentary titled “On Tanks into the Climate Crisis: How Activism is Criminalised.” According to accounts of the footage, Thunberg, now 23, appeared surprised when informed that Fridays for Future was staging a demonstration in Berlin on the same day she was being filmed.
“Is it?” she reportedly asked, before breaking into laughter. “Really? They still do that?”
Thunberg can be heard calling for filming to stop, yelling “Cut!” as she and a friend continued laughing, though she was not the documentary’s director.
The clip circulated widely online, with some commentators characterizing her reaction as directed at the younger activists still carrying on the demonstrations she started.
Thunberg rose to international prominence after founding Fridays for Future and delivering a widely covered speech at the 2019 UN Climate Action Summit, where she admonished world leaders with the phrase “How dare you!” The movement organized school strikes and protests around the world in the years that followed.
More recently, Thunberg has turned her activism toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including participating in a flotilla intended to deliver aid to Gaza.
It is not clear from available footage what prompted Thunberg’s laughter beyond her apparent surprise that the movement she founded as a teenager was continuing without her direct involvement.
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