Greta Thunberg encourages climate activists to break laws to get out of "existential crisis"

On Friday, Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg urged fellow activists to go outside "legal methods" to achieve their climate goals.

The 20-year-old, who is focused on the risks of global warming, was a guest on the The View to talk about the "existential emergency" presented by climate change. While there she recalled the moment when German police arrested her in January for refusing to leave the town of Luetzerath, which was about to be demolished to expand a mine.

"Was this the first time you’ve been apprehended like that? And given how passionate you are, is it safe to assume this won’t be the last?" program co-host Sunny Hostin asked her. At the time Thunberg admitted that it was possible that something similar could happen again because she believes that more should be done to prevent the climate crisis from accelerating.

"I feel like I want to in the future be able to look back and say I did everything I could in this time where we were experiencing an accelerating climate crisis and where we still could avoid the worst consequences of it," she said.

She also called on other activists to go further and "think outside the box,” even if this means going outside "legal methods.”

The young woman tried to justify her stance by pointing out that throughout history there have been movements that chose to push the limits in order to succeed and noted that this is precisely what should be used as an example.

"If we want to see real changes… if we look through history, if people who were advocating for, for example, social justice, if they had only used the legal methods, then we wouldn’t be where we are today for example when it comes to racial rights, and women’s voting,"she said.