Greta Thunberg - Our House Is on Fire - Scenes of a Family and a Planet in Crisis

After the scene with the hamburgers, Greta forbids Svante from coming anywhere near the strike. She wants to be on her own and doesn’t want anyone speaking for her.

Greta flips to the chapter about the Swedish constitution in the social studies textbook and settles down next to the black-and-white school-strike sign.

Some soldiers from the Royal Guards stroll past. Young men and women in camouflage uniforms, each with a little Swedish flag sewn high up on their jacket sleeves. They see Greta but look pointedly in the other direction. As if to underscore that in their world there is still no doubt whatsoever about who defends whom.

In the afternoon the man with the hamburgers asks Greta on Instagram if it’s really true that she doesn’t want him to offer food to the children who are striking with her.

‘You’re welcome to offer us food,’ she responds, ‘but it must be food that doesn’t come from a company that you work for.’

In that case, he replies, it’ll probably be hard for him to find the time.

I promise that any parent whose child hasn’t talked to people for several years and who could eat only a few things in a few predetermined places will be extremely happy to see those complications vanish. I promise that, as a parent, you’d perceive the change as extremely positive. Almost like a fairy tale. Like magic.

Regardless of what any older conservative white men and women write on social media or in their newspaper columns.

Some think that ‘someone’ is ‘behind all this’. A PR agency.

But that’s not the case.

Greta’s summer did not pass by in a series of clandestine meetings behind thick curtains at murky advertising agencies, where she was drilled in falsifying her background, her values and opinions. All under the influence of globalists, cunning left-wing economists and George Soros. That sort of thing.

All to reinforce government influence and increase our joint tax burden; all in the name of creating the eco-fascist, global super-state.

Each conspiracy theory is worse than the next.

Greta has not sacrificed four or five hellish years to simulating various life-threatening difficulties in order to now launch the world’s most cunning PR coup.

On the other hand there are a countless number of people who stand behind her. Everyone who has struggled and toiled for decades to bring attention to the climate crisis is joining in. Like they’ve always done.

The channels are there from day one. And for some reason they seem to work better for her than the great majority of others who have got the same kind of attention before.

Everyone stands behind Greta.

Just like Greta stands behind them.

Everyone supports everyone.

‘The reason that this is getting so big is probably because this is the most important question humankind has ever faced and because it has been totally ignored for over thirty years,’ Greta says.

But none of the doubters are listening to anything she’s actually saying. They’re completely indifferent to the sustainability issue.

Greta’s energy isn’t growing by the day.

It’s exploding.

There doesn’t seem to be any outer limit, and even if we try to hold her back she just keeps going. By herself.

After a full day of interviews in front of Parliament, she insists on taking part in a panel discussion at Kulturhuset, the Stockholm House of Culture. She bikes home and eats, then cycles back to Sergels Torg and practically runs up the escalators to the seminar. The place is packed. Greta is fitted with a microphone and steps on to the stage. She is received like a rock star and stands poised in the spotlight next to the politician and meteorologist Pär Holmgren, Professor Emeritus Staffan Laestadius and the policy spokespeople for Sweden’s two biggest political parties.

Greta is given the floor and she tells it like it is, never mincing words.

‘We find ourselves in an acute crisis and nothing is being done to handle that crisis.’

Staffan Laestadius says the same thing.

These are rock-hard words from the stage.

Unconditional words.

The atmosphere becomes both hopeful and ominous.

This is a new story being told – although the content and words are the same as before.

‘It is absolutely this serious,’ Pär Holmgren adds. ‘I’ve been saying so for over ten years, and to be honest I no longer know if we’re going to be able to solve this crisis. But, as I always say, it’s never too late to do as much as we can.’

The male politician instinctively reacts with anger. He is furious and feels provoked by what has been said so far.

‘We must focus on infusing people with hope,’ he says, distancing himself firmly from what he has heard this evening.

The female politician reacts differently. She starts crying, sobs helplessly behind her cupped hands. Finds no words.

None of this is expected.

She takes out a handkerchief and for a brief moment she is at a loss. In the audience, Svante thinks that there has finally been a genuine, fully human reaction.

The pattern is being broken and that’s hopeful somehow.

He wants to see her stay in that moment.

He wants to see what would happen if she gave in and perhaps dared to stare down into the abyss without flinching.

He wants to see what would happen if she gave herself that time.

If we all dared to admit our respective failures.

Gave everything a chance to stop.

But she pulls herself together. She sets aside the handkerchief and starts talking about our common challenges; about opportunity, jobs and green growth.

Green, eternal growth.

On the down escalators, Greta turns to Pär Holmgren and says, ‘My God, it’s worse than I thought. They really have no idea. The politicians don’t actually know anything.’

‘No,’ Pär says and thinks for a few seconds. ‘I think they are so used to dealing with representatives from the business world and lobbyists. The ones who always have answers to every question. The ones who always say that everything can be solved.’

‘It’s as if the politicians always have to be able to answer questions and can never say that they don’t know. Even though they don’t have a clue.’

‘That’s probably right,’ Pär says in his quiet way, with a laugh.

‘But that’s really insane,’ she says.

And it is.

Svante and Greta walk their bikes past the Åhléns department store and over towards the Klarastrand viaduct.

‘It’s like everyone is obsessed with hope. Like spoiled children. But what do we do if there isn’t any hope?’ Greta asks. ‘Should we lie? Without action, hope sooner or later comes to an end – and then what’ll we do? When the hope that everyone keeps talking about is no longer there? When another few years have passed and we still haven’t started the gigantic readjustment that has to happen, and the hope we evidently can’t manage without suddenly runs out? Should we just give up then? Lie down and die?’

Some cars drive past. An empty city bus rumbles on towards Bolinderplan and Kungsholmsgatan.

‘And whose “hope” is it anyway?’ she continues. ‘What they call “hope” is as far from hopeful as it gets for me. Hope for me would be if the politicians called emergency meetings and there were big black headlines about the climate crisis all over the world.’