When an action hero recognizes a climate hero. Listen to what Arnold Schwarzenegger said about 16-year-old environmental activist Greta Thunberg.
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00:00When dreamers hear that something has never been done before,
00:03they don't shrink away from that, they rise to the challenge.
00:07And we are so lucky today that we have some of those dreamers with us here in the audience.
00:13And if you don't mind, I would like to just mention one of them.
00:17And it is Greta Thunberg.
00:19Greta, if you please would stand up for a second.
00:40I've been called crazy many times in my life.
00:45I've been called crazy, for instance, when I was a young kid
00:48and I wanted to be a bodybuilding champion here in Austria.
00:51Of course, Austria is known for having great skiers and great soccer players,
00:54but not great bodybuilders.
00:56They called me crazy when I wanted to be a leading man in the movies
00:59because everything was wrong with me according to the experts.
01:02My accent, a huge muscular body, and a name that no one could pronounce.
01:09So they said you would never make it.
01:12And they called me also crazy when I wanted to become governor of the great state of California
01:16because I had never held a political position before.
01:21And today they probably will call me crazy once again
01:25because I believe that we can create a prosperous and clean energy future
01:34without fossil fuels choking us to death.
01:37Yes, we can.
01:39Yes, we can.
01:40Yes, we can.
01:50But this is what happens when you're a dreamer.
01:53When you're a dreamer, the naysayers and the doubters will always call you crazy.
01:57They always will try to hold you back.
01:59They use words like it's impossible, it's unrealistic, it has never been done before.
02:06You will never be able to do that nor this kind of stuff.
02:09I know the doubts that dreamers face.
02:12But I also know how quickly doubt can turn into acceptance, into imitation, into action.
02:20It is the dreamers, not the doubters, who shape the world as we know it.
02:25When great vision meets relentless work, yesterday's crazy becomes today's reality.
02:31It is that magical moment when dreamers become doers
02:35that has kept humanity on the path of progress
02:38since we emerged from the caves thousands of years ago.
02:42The doubters tell us that the clean energy future is an impossible dream,
02:47or they are wrong.
02:50Dreamers and doers all over the world are already disproving their doubts.
02:56Now, if you don't mind, today, instead of doing the usual environmental summit speech
03:01where we talk about carbon parts per millions and rising sea levels,
03:05I want to uplift some of those dreamers so that we can share in their vision.
03:11I want to raise up some of the doers so we can follow in their footsteps.
03:17I want to send the message also to the doubters
03:20so that they understand that they will never win.
03:25I will start with the dreamers because all progress starts with a dream.
03:30Dreamers hate the status quo.
03:33When dreamers hear that something has never been done before,
03:36they don't shrink away from that.
03:38They rise to the challenge.
03:40And we are so lucky today that we have some of those dreamers with us here in the audience.
03:46And if you don't mind, I would like to just mention one of them.
03:49And it is Greta Thunberg.
03:52Greta, if you please would stand up for a second.
04:10Greta is a dreamer in every sense of the word.
04:14As you have heard earlier, in August of last year,
04:16she started a school strike outside the Swedish parliament
04:20to demand action for a clean energy future.
04:24She was alone at the beginning,
04:27but like most dreamers who have changed history, she wasn't alone for long.
04:32Millions of young dreamers all over the world
04:35from a hundred different countries around the world
04:37have joined Greta in demanding action from the adults
04:41who are currently just sitting in the halls of power all over the world
04:46making promises after promises after promises that they don't keep.
04:52The fact is, if we fail to act, it is their future at stake, not ours.
04:59Their dreams should give us hope.
05:02Their vision should lead us to action.
05:05Greta and her fellow students
05:08are putting the politicians' words to the test.
05:11Will you become doers who support the dreamers
05:15and who make your campaign promises a reality?
05:18Or will you continue with the status quo
05:21and not telling us the truth and keep lying and lying and lying to us?