'A very happy young girl': Climate teen activist Greta Thunberg claps back at Donald Trump by changing Twitter bio

Teen environmental activist Greta Thunberg on Tuesday clapped back at Donald Trump by changing her Twitter bio to “a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future”.

On Monday, Trump tweeted a video Thunberg’s impassioned speech at the UN Climate Action Summit in New York, along with a sarcastic comment on how she appeared to be a “happy young girl.”

She seems like a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future. So nice to see! https://t.co/1tQG6QcVKO

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 24, 2019

The president came under fire for his late night tweet, which many felt mocked the activist for calling upon global leaders to take action on climate change. A video of Thunberg  glaring at the US president  at the summit went viral earlier.

CNN reported that Fox News also had to apologise to Thunberg —  who has been vocal about her fight with Asperger’s syndrome (a mild form of Autism) — after one of their panel guests called her “a mentally ill Swedish child”.

Michael Knowles, who hosts a podcast on the right-wing website Daily Wire, said on a Fox News show: ‘The climate hysteria movement is not about science. It if were about science it would be led by scientists, rather than politicians and a mentally ill Swedish child who is being exploited by her parents and by the international Left." Fox, in a statement issued Monday night, said they have no plans to invite Michael Knowles on any more panels.

Thunberg, at the UN climate summit, accused world leaders of betraying her generation by failing to act on rising emissions, repeating the words “how dare you?” “You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words, and yet I’m one of the lucky ones,” she said. “People are suffering. People are dying.” The US president has claimed that climate change is a Chinese hoax and has withdrawn the US from the Paris climate change agreement.

Thunberg has become the global face of a growing youth movement against climate inaction that mobilised millions in a worldwide strike on Friday. Her struggle began quietly in August 2018 when she skipped school for the first three weeks, and then on Fridays to spend the day outside Sweden’s parliament with a sign labelled “School strike for climate”.

In August, she crossed the Atlantic in a two-week journey on a sailboat to attend the climate summit in New York. She refuses to fly because of the carbon emissions caused by planes.

With inputs from agencies