Vox Populi: Greta Thunberg has a message for world leaders at the United Nations this week: “We’ll be watching you.”

Speaking at the Climate Action Summit in New York on Monday, Greta Thunberg, 16, said, “This is all wrong. I shouldn’t be up here. I should be back in school, on the other side of the ocean.”

In an impassioned speech, Thunberg told those who hold office, “you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you? You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words, and yet I’m one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing.”

Saying that the world is now in the early stages of a mass extinction, Thunberg criticized those who still speak of the crisis in terms of money and economic growth.

“How dare you?” she asked again, growing increasingly emotional as the audience cheered at the 2019 Climate Action Summit.

Citing more than 30 years’ worth of scientific studies and warnings that greenhouse gases and other factors were establishing a dangerous new environmental trend, Thunberg criticized politicians for not developing solutions and strategies to confront that threat.