Elon Musk Says Greta Thunberg Has 'Better Reasoning and More Heart Than Political Leaders' | 22 Words

"How dare you!" are the poignant words of pioneering climate change activist, Greta Thunberg, who addressed world leaders at the U.N. Climate Summit last night. Her powerful, stinging speech brought home the reality of the sheer ignorance of our world leaders when it comes to climate change, and their inability to do anything about it, or even see it as an issue in the first place.

During the event, Thunberg crossed paths with Donald Trump. As you can imagine, she isn't exactly his biggest fan and shot him the most amazing death stare we think we've ever seen. In fact, it was so good, that it's become a bit of an internet sensation.

Despite the teenage activist receiving a fair share of backlash, one entrepreneur has shown a great deal of respect towards her. Keep scrolling to learn more...

Greta Thunberg has become the face of the youth climate change movement.

The Swedish sixteen-year-old has been responsible for the global school strike movement, which began with weekly friday school strikes to protest for climate change action.

Just a year ago, she was relatively unknown.

Greta would regularly sit on her own outside Swedish parliament, first staging a "School Strike for Climate" in August last year. In the weeks leading up to the country’s general election, Thunberg sat on the steps outside of the parliament building in Stockholm, holding up the now-iconic sign that read “Skolstrejk För Klimatet" — translating to “school strike for climate."

The teen sat outside the building during school hours for 3 weeks.

Her demands were that the Swedish government reduce carbon emissions in accordance with the Paris Agreement. By sacrificing her education to protest for action, the teen began to conjure up attention and gain traction online.

Her unwavering commitment to the environment has woken the rest of the world.

While a little over a year ago, the name "Greta Thunberg" was relatively unknown, now, her's is the first name that springs to mind when you think of the climate change movement.

Thunberg is known for delivering blistering, matter-of-fact speeches about the urgency of what she calls the "climate crisis."

If we fast-forward to now, Thunberg continues to hold governments accountable during her powerful talks, which have seen her nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize and placed in TIME's top one-hundred influential people in the world list.

Her message is clear: we need to act now.

Having whipped up a gigantic global youth movement, climate change is finally getting the attention it deserves, but Thunberg still believes that governments are the ones who still aren't listening. According to the United Nations, humanity has under twelve years to prevent a climate change crisis. A report released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) at the end of 2018 called for immediate “unprecedented changes" to all aspects of society.

If we do not act, the future, if there is one at all, will be very bleak.

Rising global temperatures pose a high risk of social and environmental disasters, including floods, drought, wildfires, and food shortages for millions of people across our planet.

Thunberg has gone to great lengths to fight her cause.

In July, the teen ditched environmentally damaging air travel and sailed across the Atlantic to attend the U.N. climate summits in the U.S. and Chile.

Little by little, her trailblazing activism seems to be sinking in.

According to Live Kindly, earlier this year, Mohammed Barkindo — the secretary-general of OPEC (the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) — acknowledged public opinion surrounding the climate crisis as a threat to the oil industry.

And her youth school strike movement is growing on a mass scale.

On September 20, millions around the world, from London to New York, Sydney to Colombia, ditched the classroom to peacefully protest for climate action in what Thunberg dubs "Fridays for Future."

But, Thunberg's movement has been met with waves of criticism.

Her activism has seen her labelled "melodramatic" amongst other things, as well as others saying that she is being used as a political shield.

But her critics don't phase her...

Yesterday, Thunberg addressed world leaders at the U.N. Climate Summit and delivered a blistering, anger-tinged speech demanding climate action.

The event is dedicated to world leaders sharing climate solutions and new pledges for climate action.

During her powerful speech, Thunberg highlighted how the science behind climate change has been "crystal clear" for over 3 decades. "I shouldn’t be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet you all come to us young people for hope? How dare you!" she said. "You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words."

As she spoke, the teen got visibly emotional.

"People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction. And all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!" She continued: "How dare you continue to look away and come here saying that you are doing enough when the politics and solutions needed are still nowhere in sight." "You say you 'hear' us and that you understand the urgency. But no matter how sad and angry I am, I don’t want to believe that. Because if you fully understood the situation and still kept on failing to act, then you would be evil. And I refuse to believe that."

She concluded with a poignant message: change is coming, whether you like it or not.

"You are failing us. But the young people are starting to understand your betrayal. The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us, I say: We will never forgive you. "We will not let you get away with this. Right here, right now is where we draw the line. The world is waking up. And change is coming, whether you like it or not."

After her speech, the teen activist happened to cross paths with Donald Trump in the lobby.

Safe to say, she understandably isn't his biggest fan and shot him the most intense death stare we've ever seen.

The video has gone viral online.

When faced with one of the world's most powerful leaders, Thunberg remains fearless, and her death stare has become a somewhat internet sensation.

As you'd expect, Donald Trump had something to say about the whole thing.

In usual Trump-style, he took to Twitter to seemingly mock the teen, writing "She seems like a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future. So nice to see!" above a video of her speech.

His swipe radiated sarcasm.

And of course, people slammed the president for attacking the young activist.

Watch her full speech below:

Powerful, isn't it? We think so.

But it seems as if this guest on Fox News is following in his president's footsteps.

Instead, he opted to diagnose the sixteen-year-old, calling her a "mentally ill Swedish child." The Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles joined a host of other personalities in what was supposed to be a discussion of Thunberg's speech as well as climate change in general.

However, it seemed to spiral into a direct attack on the activist.

Knowles was joined by anchor, Harris Faulkner, and liberal commentator, Christopher Hahn, when he said: “If it were about science it would be led by scientists rather than by politicians and a mentally ill Swedish child who is being exploited by her parents and by the international left." For the record, Greta has autism, but she refers to it as her "superpower."

This statement immediately made the others pipe up against him.

"Yeah, I mean, you’re a grown man and you’re attacking a child. Shame on you." Knowles insisted that he was not attacking Thunberg, he was merely stating that the liberals were using her. That doesn't make things any better. "Relax, skinny boy, I got this," Hahn, the other personality witnessing this shouted. “Okay? You’re attacking a child, you’re a grown man!"

However, Knowles didn't give up his view despite being asked to "take it back."

He further repeated his previous statement, saying that the left was: "exploiting a girl with many mental illnesses." Just say you're jealous of what she has achieved in only sixteen years while this is your claim to fame, because we're all thinking it...

Don't be fooled, some people may look like adults, but they haven't managed to shake off their childish habits.

The news channel has since apologized to Greta for Knowles' comments, saying they were "disgraceful." They also said they never plan on booking him as a guest again. Thank God!

But there is one entrepreneur who has demonstrated a liking towards Thunberg...

A man who has truly shown his age is Elon Musk, the South African entrepreneur and engineer who is the founder of SpaceX, and co-founder of Telsa.

Musk is known to be passionate about climate change...

And he recently retweeted a tweet from Scientific American about Thunberg's role in the global climate change protests last week.

Of course, it didn't take long for the haters to comment...

"Yeah. Let's let a 16-year-old determine world policy. I love you Elon, but this is wrong," one user wrote.

Musk was quick to respond to this narrow-minded comment...

"A 16-year-old who has better reasoning & more heart than the vast majority of political leaders," he wrote, using his status and platform to voice a fact, rather than an opinion.

Greta Thunberg hasn't spent this amount of time to be shot down by immature and irrelevant people...

She has been striking at her school every Friday since 2018 and has shown a true amount of dedication and passion towards the issues our planet is facing. Hopefully, the work that Thunberg has been putting into our Earth will soon be put into effect if the governments of the world finally get their acts together.