Why Greta Thunberg is NOT the Climate Change Hero We Need
Greta may be the Climate Change hero we got, but definitely not the one we need.
A young 16 yr old kid appearing at the Climate Action Summit after putting together a few teen protests for Climate Action is noteworthy, and should also be raising eyebrows. Not because kids don’t matter but because kids have another important place in our world — learning and taking baby steps towards a better world; not blaring at road junctions to stop climate change — because that doesn’t actually stop climate change.
Fast forward a few months, and Greta Thunberg is now a serious problem and a real threat to climate action, the very thing she professes to champion. This is why:
1. Empty Rhetoric
Greta’s speeches feature a lot of empty rhetoric, and very little facts based on scientific research. We know that she understands the literal meaning of “climate change,” “emissions” and “global warming,” but it takes a little more than “How Dare You…” type of injunctions to highlight the real problems. No, we don’t expect a high end presentation from her, but if she has self appointed herself as a climate change “crusader,” in spite of being 16, the responsibility of arming herself with proper facts and research is entirely hers.
You cannot play both sides: claim to be an environmentalist when making the noise, and claim to be a kid when lacking in scientific depth. It simply doesn’t work that way. For creating a noise we don’t need kids to miss school. We can get a few unemployed people in every country to do that. Her missing school will only compound the problem: make her even less educated than she currently is!
Sailing in boats with a tag of “Unite Behind The Science” and then not quoting proper scientific facts is, basically, hypocrisy. You may be able to fool some people with that, but the scientific community and decision makers are not always easily fooled by this. Boats use fossil fuels, by the way…unless you are kayaking.
Histrionics don’t change the world. Sincerity does. Someone needs to teach that kid this lesson. And anyone who is sincere will do their research, not make accusations like “How dare you…”
2. No Clear Action Plan
In spite of all the noise and speeches, and castigation of every government, one thing is conspicuous by absence: a clear plan of action.
Greta keeps accusing the government of every country for favouring the rich, and the poor paying for the luxuries of the rich. She criticizes “bad ideas” of lawmakers and says she is unpopular for “saying it like it is.” All that is very well, but at the end of this criticism, there is still nothing actionable. What exactly is NOT a bad idea? Why doesn’t she specify?
In her speech in France, for example, she accused the government of ignoring her. Yet, does she realize that the entire Yellow Vest Movement in France & other countries was, in part, in response to heavy taxation of fuel, including a carbon tax? In countries riddled with numerous internal problems of their own, her speeches are nothing more than celebrity histrionics. She does not specify what she wants governments to do. Should they levy a tax? Should they shut down all oil companies? Should they risk a coup?
There is no policy suggestion because the kid does not know how to design a policy. She does not know economics, the struggles of a developing or developed country, or what is it that even causes climate change at the grass root level. Hence, she has no intelligent action plan or even suggestions to give to any lawmaker or policy maker.
No environmentalist can be taken seriously given this obvious lack of foresight. Fear mongering is not an action plan for the future. It is an action plan for creating unrest in the present.
It is very easy to criticize. Very difficult to DO. Someone needs to teach her how to DO things, rather than lambasting countries off a list.
3. Empowering Climate Change Deniers
Greta’s theatrics have drawn the attention of the masses, and have now triggered a response we should have seen coming long ago: she has empowered the Climate Change Deniers who criticize her on points 1 & 2, and discard the very idea of climate change altogether!
The world is not divided into Climate Action People and Climate Change Deniers. Many people are just sitting on the fence, waiting to make up their minds. Greta’s uninspiring speeches have now pushed some of these fence sitters over the edge, to the point that they now believe climate change to be a hoax. Bravo.
Worse, this has created yet another point of polarization among the masses, as if we did not have enough reasons to quibble already!
Nothing can be achieved towards the end of climate change unless people truly believe it is something worth doing, unless they feel inspired to make the small changes in their lives, and Greta is now inspiring people to do the exact opposite: ignore anyone who talks of climate change. She has successfully sabotaged the work of many sincere, hard working scientists who are toiling day and night to actually mitigate climate change and damages to the environment.
4. Virtue Signalling to the Youth
Greta has now emerged as the next hero who is blatantly virtue signalling, making the youth believe that they can “take over the world” if they want to. She is making it out to be as if only she cares about the world, and the remaining 2 billion people on this planet are nitwits living as ghosts. Worse, she is now pushing the kids in all parts of the world to do the same: emerge as a gang of rowdy bullies with no idea of what to do stop the harm to the world, but ready to take it on.
This brand of virtue signalling is very common in celebrities, but Greta has taken it to a whole new level with her “How Dare You…”
Greta has probably forgotten that whatever she has today is also thanks to the same world and people. She keeps demeaning economic growth, not realizing that there are people in this world who live on less than 1$ a day, and for them, poverty is a very real problem. She has forgotten that economic growth is not just “for the rich,” but it is also for the poor, and especially the poor. Governments need to factor this in their policy!
She is creating a new brand of virtue signalling where it is okay for kids to be entitled and preach to adults on what they are doing wrong with the world, while they eat ham and eat out of plastic boxes.
5. Climate Change Should Not be the Next Communist Manifesto
Greta has achieved a few things successfully: emerging as a celebrity, antagonizing people against their governments, shaking hands with many leftist lobbies, staging protests everywhere, demonizing economic growth, without any action plan to solve the problems she keeps harping on.
If that does not sound like a Communist Manifesto 2.0, I don’t know what does!
All her speeches target economic growth, because she firmly believes that it is economic growth that is the problem, that the “establishment” is the problem. Well, hello Animal Farm.
Economic growth by itself is not the problem, but rather the way it is implemented, the way it damages earth’s natural resources and animals. The establishment itself is not always the problem, but rather the policies which do not account for threats to the environment. But to outline that would require proper study of Economics, Business and Policy, which Greta is apparently too young to do. What she is not too young to do is demonize all economic growth. Shockingly though, she never points her finger at China, which is the top plastic pollutant of the world!
Climate change action and protecting the environment cannot be allowed to become a new communist movement in the works.
Destabilizing governments, empowering the left which seeks to overthrow every government, cannot be the key agendas of climate change action.
Using climate change to once again drive a wedge between the poor and rich, paving the way for Communism 2.0, will be a global catastrophe. Greta should visit some developing countries to discover that the poor pollute the world as well, it is not just the rich!
Just a short walk in any slum will reveal how much filth and pollution comes from the poor. The answer is to educate them, not to use their poverty and climate action to hate the rich.
Greta Thunberg may be the climate change hero we got, but not the one we need. In fact, we, as people with functioning brains, do not need heroes at all. If we all care for the world we live in, and want to keep it beautiful, when given the right information and know-how, we can easily take steps towards lifestyle changes that can do damage control. Better policy made by intelligent people can even undo much of the harm done. But for sure that will not be achieved by some kid shrieking on the TV (or Youtube).
