It's a little counter-intuitive, but she probably feels like she's more helpful in her current role than she would be in politics. A politician has to be a jack-of-all-trades, learning about a lot of different fields, dealing with education, military, civil law, budget, etc etc etc. Where an activist can specialize exclusively in one thing, gaining a lot of clout and helping provide leadership.
Global climate activism has long needed a leader, its own Mahatma Gandhi. Now its getting one, and it leaves her very, very influential. She can't be thrown out of office either, she could only be assassinated, which would turn her into a martyr like Navalny. So, she's steadily growing powerful and is virtually unstoppable right now.
She probably wants to keep it that way. Getting elected would derail that a little bit, and having these kinds of non-governmental civil leaders is actually very important.
The problem with politics is that it tends to chew up and spit out people with a modicum of honesty, integrity and a moral compass. They either give up, or become corrupted to the point that they can no longer fulfill the purpose that they went into politics for.
This is generally true, but there are also many notable exceptions.
Here in Germany I could name:
Gregor Gysi
Of the left Party
Always does what he thinks is best for the people
Many political opponents tried really hard to stick dirt on him and failed
Nico Semsrott
Arguably not that long in politics
Took a stance against Martin Sonnenborn (who is the very popular leader of a satirical party) in an affair and is now without a party (Yes this makes it likely he will not be in the next parliament)
As far as I have seen votes always in favor of the people
Patrick Breyer
-Pirate Party
fights for digital freedom and privacy since decades
Always follows the pirate paradigm: transparency. He publishes all his meeting with lobbyists.
Helps to educate the public and discovered quite a few hidden legislative attempts to undermine privacy
Two officers lifted Thunberg and dragged her away before putting her down on the ground about 20 metres away from the door she had been obstructing.
Thunberg and dozens of other environmental campaigners started blocking the main entrances to Sweden’s parliament on Monday in a sit-down protest against the effects of the climate crisis and what they said was political inaction.
The activists left on Monday afternoon but returned to protest again on Tuesday morning.
Thunberg, 21, became the face of youth climate activism as her weekly protests, which started in 2018 in front of the Swedish parliament, quickly grew into a global movement with large rallies across continents.
Last year she was detained by police or removed from protests in countries including Sweden, Norway and Germany.
A British court last month acquitted her of charges of a public order offence as a judge ruled that police had no power to arrest her and others at a protest in London last year.
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She's constantly doing political activism in the name of ensuring environmental policies and getting into a lot of trouble with the law because of it.
She's not throwing tomato soup at Da Vinci, mind you, but she was present during the environmental protest occupation when Germany decided to start mining brown coal again. You'll know it; it's the same protest with the mud wizard meme.
For all the disgruntled people saying she's a family funded shill she seems rather dedicated to her cause. A shill would've stopped ages ago when they're no longer front page news.
Respecting the rights and land of indigenous people is not protesting wind power.
Just because you don't agree with her opinions on neo-nazis and Sami people doesn't mean all of her opinions are suddenly wrong.
This latest protest is especially relevant, because the current government in Sweden doesn't believe in climate change and is actively trying to violate Sweden's international climate obligations.
Her dabbling in things like the Near-East conflict absolutely hurt her cause. It's generally not a good idea to fragment something that you're fighting for.
Don't remember the context, and don't want to defend Greta, but windmills can be very bad for the environment if done wrong. Hell, everything can be bad for the environment if done wrong.
I'm involved in various leftist causes and see this shit so often. Like you feel like you need to be a "thought leader" instead of just staying in your lane. Or organizations just get taken over by people who have completely antithetical agendas.
For instance I was somewhat involved in our local DSA chapter for a few years after Bernie and I'm still on the email list. They just sent out a email about organizing a "queer and transgender prom" but that in order to attend you would have to have proof of up-to-date covid vaccination.
Now don't get me wrong, queer and transgender proms are great if you're into proms, but what does it have to do with democratic socialism?
Why on earth is the DSA the organization that is still flying the Moderna flag in 2024? Everybody else has given up on their mostly ineffective vaccines years ago. Also last I checked Big Pharma are the bad guys!
One of the things that excited me about Bernie and groups like DSA originally is that they seemed to serve as a new and revitalized economic left focused on salient issues and rejecting identity politics. I remember one of the rally cries was "racial politics are class politics." But now they're basically just yet another moveon.org or something.