Today, January 3rd

Argentinian artist, Andres Petreselli’s 60-foot-tall mural of Greta at Mason Street near Union Square in San Francisco

CLIMATE ACTIVIST, GRETA THUNBERG, TURNS 17. If you’re desperate for any glint of light in these dark days, look to Stockholm (though the grueling speaking schedule that takes Greta from Turin to North Dakota to Berlin makes it doubtful you’ll find her at home). And while her global Fridays for Future campaign speaks to her conscience, I’d like to use her birthday (and two examples) to celebrate her character:

• Honored by the Nordic Council for breathing new life into the climate debate, Greta declined the award AND its $51,500 prize money—calling out Nordic countries for doing nothing to reduce their carbon footprints.

• The choice of Greta as Time’s Person of the Year found her quietly continuing her efforts; while President Trump called the magazine’s choice of Greta over him “ridiculous” and suggested that she suffers from “anger management problems”, mocking her neurodiversity (a form of Autism).

Last March, three Nobel Peace Prize committee members revealed they were voting for Greta—though she lost to Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali. (Gladly, we were saved from the same disgraceful vitriol from Trump should she have won.)

To join a climate strike near you, visit fridaysforfuture.org