Every morning, she would bike to the parliament, arriving when her classes would have started. After posting on social media, she would turn off her phone, as would have been required in the classroom. During the day, she sat on the ground outside the building, studying her textbooks, although she made it clear, in interviews, that she found preparing for the future to be pointless. At the hour when school would normally end, she packed up her things and cycled home. In a matter of days, she became a globally recognized figure, known for her precise articulation of the scientific causes of climate change and the unequivocal condemnation she rained upon her elders for failing to address it. After the Swedish elections, she decided to continue her campaign by striking only on Fridays, sparking what has become a global student movement called Fridays for Future. It is a protest she has continued, every Friday, whether leading thousands of students in cities around the world or, as in the past week, while she recovered from a suspected case of the coronavirus , posting online from home. Here we are, panicking on a global scale, but for a different, though not unrelated, reason. The primary storyteller, however, is Malena Ernman, an opera singer who became an overnight celebrity in Sweden after winning a televised song contest and competing in Eurovision in In short, epigrammatic chapters, most centered on scenes of family life, this claustrophobic book narrates a story of desperation, in which climate-change activism transforms a family beset by psychological diagnoses into one that has a sense of purpose and agency.


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Greta Thunberg's trip home on a crowded German train
Greta Thunberg's father has said he thought it was "a bad idea" for his daughter to take to the "front line" of the battle against climate change. Millions of people have been inspired to join the year-old in raising awareness of environmental issues. But Svante Thunberg told the BBC he was "not supportive" of his daughter skipping school for the climate strike. Mr Thunberg said Greta was much happier since becoming an activist - but that he worries about the "hate" she faces. As part of the same broadcast, guest-edited by Greta for Radio 4's Today programme , Sir David Attenborough told her she had "woken up the world" to climate change. She called Sir David on Skype from Stockholm in Sweden, where she lives, and told him how he inspired her activism.
“Don’t know. Think so.”
This is the story of a happy family whose life suddenly fell apart, never to be the same again. Of two devoted parents plunged into a waking nightmare as their eleven-year-old daughter stopped speaking and eating, and her younger sister struggled to cope. This crisis was not theirs alone: they were burned-out people on a burned-out planet. Our House is on Fire is the story of how one family found ways to strengthen, heal, and gain courage from the love they had for each other - and for the living world.
We use cookies to improve our service for you. You can find more information in our data protection declaration. Beata Ernman, younger sister of famous climate activist Greta Thunberg, has announced that she will perform in a Stockholm musical alongside her mother this fall. The sisters hail from a talented family of performers.