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Greta Thunberg hits back at Trump jibe with new Twitter bio

‘A very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future’

Chiara Giordano
Wednesday 25 September 2019 08:44 BST
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Greta Thunberg tells world leaders: 'You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words'

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Greta Thunberg has hit back at Donald Trump branding her a “happy young girl” after her emotional United Nations speech.

The US president retweeted a video of the 16-year-old’s speech on climate change, writing: “She seems like a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future. So nice to see!”

And now the young environmental activist has responded to the apparently sarcastic post by changing her Twitter bio to: “A very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future.”

Her account previously described her as: “16 year old climate activist with Asperger.”

The teenager gave an impassioned speech at the climate change summit in New York on Monday, telling world leaders and officials from about 60 countries: “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. You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words.”

Ms Thunberg, who sailed to the US by yacht to avoid flying, added: “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 the fairytale of endless economic growth. How dare you?”

The schoolgirl made headlines after a video camera caught her glaring at the president as he arrived at the summit.

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Fox News was also forced to apologise to Ms Thunberg after Conservative pundit Michael Knowles described her as a “mentally ill Swedish child” during a programme on Monday.

Mr Knowles, who hosts a podcast for Ben Shapiro’s right-wing website the Daily Wire, claimed the new wave of climate activism was “hysteria” and that the teenager was “being exploited by her parents and by the international left”.

Ms Thunberg, who began protesting the political response to climate change when she was 15 by taking time off school to demonstrate outside the Swedish parliament, was diagnosed with Asperger’s – a form of autism – in 2015.

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