Is the ‘Greta Thunberg Effect’ Real?

To date, there has been very little research on the impact of one of the most prominent new leaders of climate activism, Greta Thunberg.

She’s an atypical leader who gained international recognition in a short period of time. Thunberg, born in Sweden in 2003, started campaigning in 2018 at age 15, heading up widely publicized school climate strikes. Her work led to a collaboration with local activists.

Forthright and outspoken, Thunberg told the 2019 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in 2919: “I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. And then I want you to act.”

She quickly became a leading voice in contemporary climate activism, despite her young age and non-elite status. But even with her popularity and success, some argue that she has become both a hero and a villain.

Still, her influence on young and not-so-young people is undeniable, as is her ability to influence people on both sides of the political spectrum, a recent study found.

This mass appeal is what makes Thunberg different from any other climate messenger, according to the authors of the study, which was published in January in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology. They looked at whether exposure to Thunberg predicts “collective efficacy and intentions to engage in collective action” — what they called the “Greta Thunberg Effect.”

Using cross-sectional data from a nationally representative survey of 1,303 adults in the United States, the study tried to quantify her social impact buy asking participants to rate how familiar they were with Thunberg, using a five‐point scale.

Those who said they were familiar with her were more likely to take action against climate change. This seemed to be true regardless of age or, for the most part, political views, with the authors writing that the propensity to act “may be stronger among those who identify as more liberal (than conservative).”

Cross-party action against a global issue like climate change is indeed becoming more and more important, and young people are driving political cooperation. But is Thunberg’s bipartisan effect solid enough to create change?

What both sides are saying

Organizations on both the left and right have expressed support for Thunberg’s work.

The American Conservation Coalition for example, is a nonprofit organization founded in June 2017 by a group of Millennials who saw an ideological gap in the environmental movement which, according to them, was preventing necessary bipartisan action.

Conservatives were “kind of hesitant to engage on issues like climate change and environmental protection, even though the legacy was there,” said Karly Matthews, a spokeswoman for the coalition.

“The environment is looked at as a leftist issue,” she said. “There’s this belief that if you care about the environment, you must be progressive.”

But Matthews stressed that shunting off problems with the environment to one political wing is not going to stop the climate crisis. “I think it’s really important to bring both sides to the table, and it’s going to be painful," she said. "It’s not going to be fun, because there’s significant disagreement, but it’s the only way to come to a solution that will make a difference.”

Thunberg is regarded as a leading figure within this cross-party effort, Matthews said, calling her a symbol of her generation who is “incredibly effective in making climate change issues mainstream issues.”

But the shift within the right is recent, said Sally Hardin, the director for Energy and Environment at the Center for American Progress, a liberal policy think tank. She cited a drop in the number of politicians elected to Congress who are climate deniers over the last six years, from 180 in 2015 to 139 in 2021.

Thunberg “has been a linchpin for Republicans who see her as a symbol of the far left, “ Hardin said, “but, given the effect that she has had, and how many people she is mobilizing, I think that is definitely softening.”

Regardless, there are still hardline climate deniers on the right. Groups like the Washington-based Heartland Institute, which has put forward an “anti-Thunberg” woman named Naomi Seibt as a counterpoint, refuse to accept reality. Seibt, a 19-year-old German activist, has called climate consciousness “a despicably anti-human ideology.”

So while both Matthews and Hardin have concluded that the “Greta Thunberg Effect” is indeed real on both political sides, the fight to stop climate change is still an uphill battle.

Media plays a key role in public perception

While Thunberg has been described by the authors of the study as an almost apolitical figure, Muchazondida Mkono, a lecturer at Australia’s University of Queensland, has found that within the media and social media, there is still a significant divide as to whether she is a hero or villain. As with most societal issues in the U.S. these days, it’s all about what kind of media you consume.

“What I was fascinated by is how she was represented very differently depending on which news channel you were looking at,” Mkono said. “It was very polarized: In the conservative media, she was this almost laughable teenager who should just go back to school; in the more liberal media, she was this fantastic young person, speaking for her generation.”

In the face of a crisis, Mkono explained, people look for a scapegoat, and when it comes to the climate crisis, Thunberg is a handy person to blame: “Instead of looking at her like a human being, the world projected both extremes on her.”

Yet even with this disparity in beliefs, these polarized media representations are likely to spread the “Greta Thunberg Effect,” Mkono argues, because Thunberg has “elevated the climate change discourse.”

“We are all moved by her on some level,” she said.

And as the young activist nudges the needle on public discourse, and, potentially, action on global warming, she is an inspiration to other young people. Perhaps soon, there will be many more Thunbergs out there entreating the world to take the climate crisis very, very seriously.