Flossie condemns the backlash against Greta

Áine O’Boyle

FLOSSIE Donnelly, the Southside environmental activist, has condemned the negative backlash against her Swedish counterpart, Greta Thunberg.

 The 12-year-old, who leads the Flossie and the Beach Cleaners campaign group, told Southside People that she has been following the work of Greta Thunberg for some time now and believes that she “is an amazing girl who will save the world”.

Following a string of negative comments on social media in relation to the 16-year-old environmentalist, a number of people have spoken out in support for Greta and the work she is doing.

According to Flossie: “Some of them really are just people who are too scared to say thing s in public but will say it on their computer. It’s just not very fair.”

Through following the the work of Greta Thunberg, Flossie, like millions of other school children across the globe, have been inspired to take part in school strikes for climate change.

“I got a lot of kids from my school to strike with me now,” she said.

Flossie explained that that she strikes for climate change because: “It is our planet and it is our generation that is going to have to live in what might be a hell.

“I want to know that my future is safe, I want to know that my newborn cousins’ future’s are safe.”

Through striking, Flossie believes that we can work towards a future in which the younger generations don’t have to worry.

“The only way I am going to be able to not worry is if our generation works together and tries to save it along with the adults.”

Flossie currently has a number of environmental projects up her sleeve.

“We are going to continue beach cleaning,” she revealed. “I am going to continue writing my blog about climate change and everything. I’ll continue striking and trying to get more people involved.”

The 12-year-old environmentalist also has a top-secret event in the works that will be announced later on in the year.

“We are going to organise this really fun event which I can’t tell you about yet because it’s a bit of a surprise, but we have a Christmas event coming up which is going to be really fun,” she revealed.

Since setting up Flossie and the Beach Cleaners the youth activist has received plenty of support from her neighbours and local community.

“Some have helped at the beach cleans,” she added. 

“We’ve had people come up to us and say that they follow us and how amazing it is. I’ve even been stopped in the supermarket by people saying to me that they’ve started to recycle at home and stuff like that.”