'They are desperate': Greta Thunberg responds to oil company's sexually abusive sticker

A Canadian oil company stoked a major controversy after an image of a pornographic sticker emerged showing teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg being sexually assaulted, with the company’s logo superimposed on the sticker.

X-Site Energy Services—an Alberta-based oil and gas service provider—has denied producing the sticker or being associated with it.

Thunberg responded to the tweet about the sticker calling it an act of desperation. “They are starting to get more and more desperate...This shows that we’re winning,” she tweeted.

The sticker was met with outrage in Canada, as the company that made it was accused of producing child pornography. However, a statement by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) said that, while offensive, the sticker did not meet the criteria for a criminal matter.

Under Canadian law, any pornographic depiction of a person under the age of 18 can be considered child pornography. But, the RCMP told the Huffington Post that it is not certain or specifically stated that the person in the sticker is Greta Thunberg, and that while it had been analysed by “experts in child exploitation matters”, it did not meet the threshold of a criminal matter and so no investigation would be underway.

The sticker was mentioned in Canada’s House of Commons on Friday by Alexandre Boulerice, NDP MP of Rosemont, Quebec’s La Petite-Patrie constituency, who asked the house to denounce condemn it. In his motion, he asked that “the House condemn the sticker that appeared in the media today encouraging a violent sexual assault on a young environmental activist, and all other racist and intolerant [imagery] that the imager might lead us to.”

A Change.org petition calling for the oil company’s executives to step down has since been formed, with nearly 5,000 signatures.

Thunberg recently led an environmental rally in Bristol, England, where she addressed a crowd of over 30,000 on the ongoing climate emergency, condemning world leaders for “behaving like children”.

“I will not stand aside and watch. I will not be silent while the world is on fire. Will you?...World leaders are behaving like children, so it falls on us to be the adults in the room," Thunberg told the crowd.