Prolific teen climate-change activist Greta Thunberg is the latest cover star of Teen Vogue magazine. 

Thunberg, who recently featured on TIME’s list of women who will change the world, talks to Teen Vogue about protesting, her Asperger’s syndrome, the upcoming global climate strike, and why ‘people who are different are so necessary’.

‘Walk the walk’

“Without [my Asperger’s syndrome], I wouldn’t have noticed this crisis,” Thunberg tells journalist and activist Naomi Klein. 

“I think it has something to do with we walk the walk and we don’t have the distance from what we know and what we say to what we do and how we act… And without my diagnosis, I also wouldn’t have been such a nerd, and then I wouldn’t have had the time and energy to look through the boring facts and still be interested.”

‘This is the day’

Speaking about the next global climate strike on September 20, Thunberg says people need to think about it from a ‘bigger perspective’. 

“If you can’t be in the strike, then, of course, you don’t have to,” she adds. “But I think if there is one day you should join, this is the day.”

You can read the full interview here

*This article was updated on September to correct the date of the Global Climate Strike