This is a picture of Greta Thunberg, the young Swedish activist, beginning her campaign for stronger action to fight climate change in August 2018.
Back then she was alone.
But that didn't last long.
Because now she's the face of climate change.
And an inspiration to millions all over the world.
And today at the United Nations she delivered one of the most moving speeches I have ever heard.
“The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us I say we will never forgive you. We will not let you get away with this. Right here, right now is where we draw the line.”
And the reason I found it so moving is that it comes from a member of the generation that will be most affected by climate change, instead from one of the old wankers who created the problem, and are always trying to make it look like they're leading the fight against it.
Or worse are always using it as an excuse to smear Justin Trudeau.
But not for much longer.
The times they are a changing.
‘You can’t do it without us’ — Listen to this activist make the case for more youth in climate decision-making— NowThis (@nowthisnews) September 21, 2019
Stay tuned for more of our climate week coverage #ClimateAction pic.twitter.com/MwB3hRDEpo
And like the filthy climate change denying Cons who hate Greta so much.
Their day is almost done.
The new generations are taking over.
And they WILL save the world...
7 comments:
She should direct her attention at the squirrel-chasing corporate media. The likes of Paul Godfrey, Kevin Libin and whoever is on the board at Global, CTV and CBC would probably respond like this:
"Sorry Greta, not enough time to properly cover humanity's #1 existential crisis. We've got bigger problems to deal with, like Trump's Twitter farts and whether Justin Trudeau was once a poor black child singing and dancing in Mississippi! And how all of this affects our RATINGS! Don't you care about RATINGS? Won't someone please think of the RATINGS! Lisa Raitt said cancer is sexy! Climate change? Eh, not so much. Come back when you've got some scoop on SNC-Lavalin to pitch. Till then, go away kid, ya bother me."
And yes, she's right. We will never forgive them at all.
“People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosytems are collapsing. We are at the beginning of a mass extinction and all you can talk about is money and fairytales of eternal economic growth,” said Thunberg. “How dare you!”
“For more than 30 years the science has been crystal clear,” Thunberg continued. “How dare you continue to look away, and come here saying that you are doing enough, when the politics and solutions needed are still nowhere in sight.”
Hello?! Justin, Andy?! Anybody home?
Go Greta go!!
The look she gave Trump as the big turd walked past her is priceless and I share with her as do millions of others the scorn and contempt he so richly deserves.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmXOPrCr_F4
JD
Justin is trying but is constrained by, well, politics. Andy doesn't give a shit. May is daft and a poor leader and has no chance of anything. The people who are "not home" on this are the actual voters. What would be required to address this crisis head-on is nothing short of a total radical upheaval in the lifestyle that Western democracies have grown comfortable with -- and which, in turn, have made Western democracies the primary drivers of climate change. We might have to deindustrialize. We might have to live in harmony with nature instead of try to dominate it. We might have to admit that everything we're doing is wrong. We might have to admit that the "primitive cultures" subjugated to make way for Western industrial democracy were right. That our white Western way of life has become unsustainable after about 100 years while their "primitive" ways kept them alive for tens of thousands. I dread what's going to happen when the climate refugees -- most of whom will be from those countries -- start to arrive.
None of this is going to happen because Western democracies have something called voters who would rise up en masse to throw out anyone who actually pushed them in the direction of collective sacrifice. There's a lot of red scaring behind going green. And an increase in science denial -- one of the first "stages of grief" anticipating our collective death.
https://globalnews.ca/news/5938596/canadian-trust-science-survey/
Justin was kind of right about the Chinese dictatorship comment. They can just impose climate policies (or any policies, really) without worrying about opinion polls and being turfed in elections for raising the price of gas or phasing out the legacy energy sector. Not a coincidence that the climate collapse coincides with the usefulness of democracy reaching its limit. May's "war room" idea makes sense but is politically untenable. Aaron Wherry had a great article on this after her historically ignorant Dunkirk comment made headlines: we have seen the enemy and it is us.
The human race had one option, sir. We're a complex enough species to come up with a thing like democracy, and yet stupid enough to put our own survival up for a ballot referendum so we can save a few cents on gas and continue our love affair with the car. Justin's a representative who has to be responsive to the competing interests of 38 million people. As long as the majority or at least a plurality of those 38 million people don't want radical solutions that would inconvenience them in any way, he either has to go with what they want or risk losing his job to someone far worse. Someone who would govern only for a small subset in Oilberta and Saskytoba and leave the rest of the bastards to freeze in the dark (or die in the heat). "For the people," right? Or is that "fuck the people"?
I don't know if Margaret's side of the family bears any relation to the author of The Jungle but Upton Sinclair was known for a famous quote about economics causing individual intransigence when it comes to sacrificing for social justice:
"It is very difficult to get someone to understand something when their salary depends on them not understanding it."
Greta is 100% correct, but the solutions are nowhere in sight because not enough people want them. Heck, a lot of people don't even bother to vote at all. But take away their bacon double cheeseburgers, pickup trucks and "stuff" and they'd get off the couch and riot sure enough. As it stands the only way to get answers is politics, but to succeed in politics you have to give the people what they want even if what they want amounts to a slow murder-suicide. That's why Al Gore called it an inconvenient truth. "Yes, we (kick the) can."
HI Jackie....True the Masters of the Media Universe will probably try to ignore Greta Thunberg to please their Big Oil masters. But they won't be able to ignore her millions of supporters, because we are the future and we are going to bury them...
HI anon....Greta Thunberg does have a very direct style and her anger is justified, but this country is a petrostate full of greedy people who love their (big) cars, so turning into a greener place won't be that the easy, and no government can do anything without the support of the people who visited them into office. Which does not change the fact that the Trudeau government has done more to fight climate change than any government in Canadian history...
Hi JD....Yes, I saw the look in her eyes, and if looks could kill Trump would be a moulding in his grave. And yes, her scorn is shared by billions.
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