What were you doing when you were 16? Learning to drive a car? Studying for the SATs? Well, one 16-year-old girl was just nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Swedish teen Greta Thunberg was endorsed by Norwegian lawmakers for the prestigious 2019 honor for her efforts to stop climate change.
“We have nominated Greta because the climate threat may be one of the most important causes of war and conflict,” Norwegian parliamentary representative Freddy Andre Oevstegaard told newspaper VG. “The massive movement Greta has set in motion is a very important peace contribution,” he added.
In August 2018, Thunberg skipped school for three weeks before the Swedish general elections in order to protest outside of the parliament. Her goal was to get the Swedish government to cut emissions. She gained worldwide media attention and was named one of Time’s most influential teens of 2018.
“I thought that nothing is happening and no one is doing anything — it is my moral duty to do what I can. I cannot vote, so this is a way that I can make my voice heard,” she explained to Time.
Since then, Thunberg has called for worldwide school strikes through Fridays for Future and has spoken about the climate crisis in front of the United Nations and the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. She even gave her own TED Talk — here’s the video of her presentation at TEDx Stockholm, from TED’s YouTube channel: