In an interview to mark her 18th birthday on 3 January, Greta Thunberg the Swedish environmental campaigner named her ideal birthday present as a “promise from everyone that they will do everything they can” for the planet. However, when pressed on a more material gift, she went for replacement headlights for her bike, explaining that in Sweden it gets very dark in the winter.
On clothes, she said: “The worst-case scenario I guess I’ll buy second-hand, but I don’t need new clothes. I know people who have clothes, so I would ask them if I could borrow them or if they have something they don’t need any more. I don’t need to fly to Thailand to be happy. I don’t need to buy clothes I don’t need, so I don’t see it as a sacrifice.”
She also admitted to guilt over the pressures brought on her family – including death threats – through her three years in the public eye. She did not care what people said about her online, but “when it impacts the people around you then it becomes something else”.
On a reported birthday twitter released yesterday evening she said: “Thank you so much for all the well-wishes on my 18th birthday! Tonight you will find me down at the local pub exposing all the dark secrets behind the climate- and school strike conspiracy and my evil handlers who can no longer control me! I am free at last!!”
