Swedish teen environmental activist Greta Thunberg will appear on a postage stamp in her native Sweden as part of a series on the environment to be released Thursday.
STOCKHOLM – Swedish teen environmental activist Greta Thunberg will appear on a postage stamp released in her native Sweden on Thursday as part of a series on the environment.
The motifs on the stamps “should reflect our time, where the environmental issue has been relevant and present for years, not least through the strong voice of Greta Thunberg,” Swedish postal company Postnord said in a statement.
One featuring Thunberg in her signature yellow raincoat with her braid blowing in the wind and standing on top of a hill, is part of a series of five stamps themed ‘Valuable Nature’. They cost 12 crowns ($ 1.40) each, are available January 14, and are illustrated by Swedish artist Henning Trollback.
Thunberg, who has just turned 18, rose to prominence during weekly solo protests outside the Swedish Parliament in Stockholm, which she began on August 20, 2018.
Students all over the world soon began to follow her lead, regularly staging major protests, and she was invited to speak with political and business leaders.
The coronavirus outbreak has in recent months prevented the Fridays for Future movement that inspired Thunberg from holding mass rallies, lowering its public profile.
Her blunt words to Presidents and Prime Ministers, laced with scientific facts about the need to urgently reduce greenhouse gas emissions, have earned her praise and accolades, as well as criticism and even death threats.
Appearing on a stamp “means someone is doing something extraordinary,” says Kristina Olofsdotter, director of stamps at the postal company.
Thunberg demands that lawmakers adhere to the historic 2015 Paris climate agreement, which calls on both rich and poor countries to take action to curb the rise in global temperatures that are causing melting glaciers, rising sea levels and changing rainfall patterns. It requires governments to present national plans to reduce emissions to limit global temperature rise to well below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit).
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