There’s now a mural of vegan climate change activist Greta Thunberg in Bristol.
UK-based aerosol artist Jody Thomas painted the 15-metre (50-foot) portrait of the 16-year-old Swedish activist on the face of the historic Tobacco Factory.
“She’s very much in the limelight, very current, very contemporary and she’s obviously clearly leading a very, very important issue which affects all of us on the planet,” the artist told The Huffington Post.
Thomas shared the mural, which took more than two weeks to complete, at various stages on his Instagram. According to the artist, he made the homage to Thunberg as eco-friendly as possible.
“65-70% of the wall was painted with water based paint with an electric spray gun powered by the Tobacco Factories solar cells,” Thomas wrote. “I used a minimum of conventional spray paint – around 25 full cans I’ve counted as this was a big consideration given the theme of the wall.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/ByHsriDhmiO/
‘Act As If the House Was on Fire’
Thunberg created a youth movement centered around the climate crisis last August, when she first started ninth grade.
Frustrated with the lack of mobilization against global warming and the impending disasters it may spark on the part of politicians, the vegan teen decided not to attend class in favor of protesting outside the Swedish Parliament. She handed out leaflets that read, “I am doing this because you adults are sh*tting on my future.”
Thunberg went on to speak at a number of high-profile events, including the United Nations Climage Change Conference (COP24) in Krakow last December and the World Economic Forum in Davos last January. She’s gained the support of celebrities and politicians, from Arnold Schwarzenegger to Senator Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Last March, she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
“Our house is on fire. I am here to say, our house is on fire,” Thunberg said during her speech at the World Economic Forum. “Solving the climate crisis is the greatest and most complex challenge that Homo sapiens have ever faced. The main solution, however, is so simple that even a small child can understand it. We have to stop our emissions of greenhouse gases. Either we do that or we don’t.”
The teen activist lives her values; both she and her family follow a plant-based diet due to animal agriculture’s impact on the planet. “A vegan diet is probably the single biggest way to reduce your impact on planet Earth, not just greenhouse gases, but global acidification, eutrophication, land use and water use,” Oxford University researcher Joseph Poore, who led the largest-ever food production analysis study, told the Guardian in June 2019.
A book of Thunberg’s key speeches, titled “No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference,” published last month. A memoir titled “Scenes From the Heart” — co-written by Thunberg, her parents, and her sister — will be published at the end of 2019.
Her actions have inspired Youth Climate Strikes across the globe.
