We’re Facing an Existential Crisis: Teen Activist Greta Thunberg

“For way too long, politicians have got away with not doing anything to fight climate change,” she said.

On Monday, more than 100 people took over part of the famous Natural History Museum as the mammoth climate change protest reaches its second week. It happened after a total of 1,065 people were arrested in the ongoing rebellion which started in central London almost a week ago.

While some protesters at their camp displayed musical performances, some activists gathered at the legal site of the marble and eventually took over the museum in south Kensington. The group stooped down on the floor and staged a “die in” drama to raise concerns about the mass extinction of species.

The protesters – mostly dressed in white face paint coupled with red veils and red robes – collected underneath the ironic blue whale skeleton of the museum and stayed there to listen to some absorbing classical music performances.

Activist Greta Thunberg Speaks to the Protesters

16-year-old climate change activist, Greta Thunberg, was greeted with chants of "we love you!" as she rose to speak on the stage in front of thousands at the Extinction Rebellion rally in Marble Arch.

“I come from Sweden and back there its almost the same problem as here, as everywhere, that nothing is being done to stop an ecological crisis despite all the beautiful words and promises,” she told the crowd.

“We are now facing an existential crisis, the climate crisis and ecological crisis which have never been treated as crises before, they have been ignored for decades. For way too long the politicians and people in power have got away with not doing anything at all to fight the climate crisis and ecological crisis. But we will make sure they will not get away with it any longer.”

Greta Thunberg

What is the Rebellion?

Extinction Rebellion aims at a non-violent civil disobedience movement to get UK’s lawmakers to pay some serious attention to the global climate breakdown.

The team started the protest on 15 April, by stopping the traffic at Oxford Circus of Marble Arch, Waterloo Bridge and then, by gathering near the area around the very busy Parliament Square.

Roger Hallam, a founding member of the Extinction Rebellion movement, on Monday said that this event had been the biggest civil disobedience event in the recent history of Britain. He also said that the number of protesters getting arrested surpassed that of the anti-nuclear protests at Upper Heyford in 1982 (752) and at the poll tax riots in 1990 (339).