Why The World Needs More Gretas

Shafeeka Hafeez
4 min readSep 27, 2019

Autism didn’t stop her.

Age didn’t stop her.

An eerie climate silence didn’t stop her.

Which is exactly why the world needs more Gretas — an unstoppable force of nature.

From the very beginning, she was determined to do what was necessary, even if it meant she had to do it all by herself.

Even if it meant she had to fight against the most lucrative industry known to mankind — and the one that held the most power.

Her unbridled passion for the environment at such a young age is truly remarkable. While her powerful, self-written speeches shame older generations for their inaction, her actions alone speak louder than her words.

Even before her popularity, she gave up eating meat and adopted a plant-based diet — something most climate activists genuinely struggle with.

She cut air travel completely and convinced her parents to do the same — even when their livelihoods depended on it.

She crossed the Atlantic Ocean for the UN Climate Summit on a 60 ft racing yacht equipped with solar panels and underwater turbines. It was an arduous journey that took her 15 days to reach New York when she could have easily hopped on a gas-guzzling flight and landed in 8 hours like everyone else.

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Shafeeka Hafeez
Shafeeka Hafeez

Written by Shafeeka Hafeez

I write about startups building a more sustainable world | #SolveDifferent