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

‘I think that the nuclear power question has enormous symbolism for a great many people,’ Svante says. He has climbed up on the bar stool by the kitchen island that extends into the living room. ‘If you don’t want to talk about the climate, you can always talk about nuclear energy, because you know the conversation will get stuck there. Nuclear power is a climate delayers’ best friend. I know, because I was like that myself. Only a few years ago, I thought it was a good solution to continue using nuclear power and there was something incredibly boring and backward-looking about all the environmentalists who wanted to shut it down. I think it has to do with optimism and the future. I wanted to believe that people could fix everything. That we had managed to find all the solutions. Because if we had succeeded, we wouldn’t need to change. And so we wouldn’t need to alter this prevailing world order that allowed someone like me to be able to travel basically anywhere I wanted to travel at almost any time. In that case I could buy that Range Rover I was secretly dreaming about. And I could eat whatever I wanted, because people had succeeded in taming nature and nothing needed to be changed. Except possibly having a bit more order.’

Svante scratches his head, stretches his back and spins halfway around on the stool before he continues.

‘I think we should avoid talking about nuclear power. Because unless we’re talking about holistic solutions it’s uninteresting. Maybe it was different five or ten years ago. Then there was still a chance that a serious expansion of nuclear power could be part of the solution. But this is a different crisis now than only two or three years ago.’

‘Why are certain politicians against wind and solar power?’ I ask. ‘Is it because it’s cheap? Too simple? Because everyone can build their own energy system and countries and communities can become truly independent?’

Roxy wakes up. She gets up and noses around Greta and Moses before she lies down again. This time with her head against Moses’ back leg.

We sit quietly a while. Under her chest you can see her little Labrador heart beating. Greta strokes her black fur and says, ‘But the hardest of all are the people out to sell something. All the “Hi, I have a company and was wondering if you would consider collaborating with us.” Or those who come up and want to invite me to various conferences, or who want to do a book, documentary or whatever. All the chancers. Those of us on school strike are saying that everyone should take a few steps back because it’s the only way to save the climate, but then we’re met by all those who want to move forward. Everyone looking for their opportunity, wanting to invest in themselves and become someone they aren’t already.’

Seven billion people, all of whom want to realize themselves, I think. But in fact it’s not true.

Only a small minority lives outside the planetary limits of what is sustainable.

The problem is that we belong to that minority.

The problem is that we who already have enough in every way are encouraged to take more.

Buy more.

Drive more.

Eat more.

Do more.

Sometimes we think about how it was before all this.

How was it possible that we didn’t see what we so clearly see today?

And what would we have looked like if it hadn’t been for our daughters?

Would we have continued as usual the past three or four years had it not been for them?

What would our everyday existence have been like if we hadn’t acknowledged our own failures the moment our arguments ran out?

I want to believe we would have acted anyway. That we would have changed our lives.

But I doubt it.

Sometimes we think about how we would have reacted if suddenly we saw a little fifteen-year-old girl sitting outside Parliament ‘on school strike for the climate’.

Would we have chosen not to listen to her?

Would we have closed our eyes?

Would we perhaps have chosen to accept one of the conspiracy theories because it must be something shady?

Would we have blamed everything on China?

Would we have been upset by the striking girl?

Even hated her?

Would we have chosen to look the other way so that we could go on like before?

Would we – honestly – have chosen to take a few steps back of our own free will?

The phenomenon keeps growing. Faster and faster by the hour. In the run-up to the end of the strike, Greta is being followed by TV crews from the BBC, German ARD and Danish TV2.

I have dress rehearsals in the evenings. It will soon be time for the premiere of the musical As It is in Heaven , and workdays in the theatre are long. Greta is asleep when I come home and I’m asleep in the morning when she leaves. I don’t hear the TV crews sneaking around in the apartment, filming Greta’s morning routine.

When the last Friday arrives there are strikes in over a hundred places all around Sweden. In Germany, Finland and Great Britain some scattered individuals have also joined in. In the Netherlands a hundred children are striking outside Parliament in The Hague. And in Norway there are several thousand.

It feels dizzyingly big.

Janine O’Keefe is one of the activists who has joined the strike and she is trying to organize everything. She is from Australia and has a small network of other activists she has known for a long time. Fältbiologerna and Greenpeace also help out, as do Klimatsverige, Naturskyddsföreningen, We Don’t Have Time, Stormvarning, Föräldravrålet and Artister För Miljön.

Anyone who in some way is fighting for the environment and the climate is helping out in their own way.

As much as they can.

Altogether a thousand children and adults sit with Greta on the last day of the school strike. And media from several different countries report live from Mynttorget Square.

She has succeeded.

Greta has carried out her plan.

She has spent three weeks striking outside the Swedish Parliament.

She has seen to it that the climate issue is a little more in focus.

Or quite a bit more, really.

Some say that she alone has done more for the climate than politicians and the mass media have in years.

But Greta doesn’t agree.

‘Nothing has changed,’ she says. ‘The emissions continue to increase and there is no change in sight.’

At three o’clock Svante comes and picks her up and they walk together through the arch on Riksgatan over to the bicycles outside Rosenbad.

‘Are you satisfied?’ Svante asks.

Greta is silent.

He repeats the question, but Greta does not reply.

They unlock the bikes and get ready to cycle home.

‘No,’ she says, with her gaze fixed on the bridge back towards the Old Town. ‘I’m going to continue.’

The next day is Saturday 8 September. It’s the day before the Swedish parliamentary elections and Greta is going to speak at the People’s Climate March in Stockholm. Around the world, tens of thousands of people are going to march for the climate. Many hoped for a huge global demonstration, but it is doubtful there is enough interest.

Many are still hoping, but despite the summer’s fires and the increasingly extreme weather all around the world, things are moving sluggishly for the international climate and environmental movement.

Greta will speak at the end of the march, up by the palace. It was booked long ago. She intends to read a piece she wrote for the newspaper ETC .