Greta Thunberg Embarrassed By German Railway Service In Twitter Exchange

Environment activist Greta Thunberg is not one to mince words. She’s all for train services— even if it means sitting on the floor of a packed train. But, a recent Twitter run-in with German railway service Deutsche Bahn on the same got her a stinging reply from the railway service—which hinted at how the young activist’s rants were a bit far stretched.

The 16-year-old on Saturday shared an image of herself sitting on the floor of a train, followed by a tweet stating, “Traveling on overcrowded trains through Germany. And I’m finally on my way home!” Whilst Thunberg had netizens commiserating with her; Deustche Bahn was quick to offer more meat to the incident—which the young “TIME magazine’s Person of The Year” seemed to have forgotten about.

“Dear #Greta, thank you for supporting us railroad workers in the fight against climate change! We were pleased that you were on the ICE 74 with us on Saturday. And with 100 percent green electricity,” said DB. “It would have been even nicer if you had also reported how friendly and competent you were looked after by our team at your seat in first class,” added the train service’s digital team.

Thunberg decided to do much damage control and stepped in to clear the air. Thunberg, who was returning from the COP25 climate summit in Madrid, responded to the Tweet stating, “ Our train from Basel was taken out of traffic. So we sat on the floor at 2 different trains. After Göttingen I got a seat. This is no problem of course and I never said it was.” She reiterated that she had no qualms about sitting on the train floors. “Overcrowded trains is a great sign because it means the demand for train travel is high!'

It turns out, Thunberg drew the ire of world leaders on the same day, as she had spoken before a furious climate protest in Turin, Italy, and maintained that she would ‘put leaders against the wall’ if they turned a blind eye towards their climate obligations. Thunberg was quick to dole out an apology for the thoughtless remark on Saturday.

Citing how the meaning behind her words got lost in translation; Thunberg wrote on Twitter: “Yesterday I said we must hold our leaders accountable and unfortunately said, "put them against the wall". That's Swenglish: 'att ställa någon mot väggen' (to put someone against the wall) means to hold someone accountable. That's what happens when you improvise speeches in a second language,” she said.

“But of course I apologize if anyone misunderstood this. I can not enough express the fact that I - as well as the entire school strike movement - are against any possible form of violence. It goes without saying but I say it anyway,” she wrote on Twitter.

Soon after, Thunberg saw president Trump take a jibe at her and hinted at how she needed to "chill" and had to work on her anger management problems. Soon after, in a fitting reply of sorts, Thunberg changed her Twitter bio to 'Currently chilling and watching a good old-fashioned movie with a friend'. Thunberg, however, amassed support from a volley of Hollywood celebrities including Michelle Obama, who urged the young activist to never let anyone dim her light.