WHY ARE PEOPLE BASHING GRETA
The Swedish teenager, Greta Thunberg, became known when at the age of 15 with her "School Strike for Climate" in front of the Swedish Parliament where she demanded her government do something about global heating. She continued to gain international attention after speaking at the U.N. Climate Talks in Poland last December, and her school strikes inspired students around the world, leading tens of thousands of teens from the UK, Germany, Japan, Australia and more to join her #FridaysforFuture demonstrations.
Last week Greta delivered a passionate speech in from of the UN about climate change and how humanity is facing an existential crisis. Her voice quivered as she blamed the current generation in power for the negative effects their actions will have on young people like herself, and stated that too little is being done about it.
The speech was viewed by millions of people and following it, thousands took to the streets all around the world to protest in the name of our dying planet, demanding governments listen to scientists and take action.
And then all hell broke loose.
Greta very quickly made a lot of enemies. Dinesh D’Souza compared her look to a Nazi propaganda poster; a Fox News guest called her "mentally ill" and president Trump himself mocked her on Twitter as a “happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future”.
Many more soon followed with theories about a pushy mother, scripts being written for her which she doesn't actually understand, comments about her mad eyes, crazy looks and uncontrolled anger, and many expressed "concern", not only about her mental health, but also about her being used, as a puppet by the environmental fanatics - because we all know that those lunatics who want to save the world are pure evil, right?
So why have so many veered away from the message she is trying to convey, and are now fixated on HER as person? Why have we let the media attacks on her speech, articulation and facial expressions distract us from the words she was actually saying?
The main reason is obvious.
Climate change is really scary. 90% of coral reefs will be extinct in the next 30 years. The Amazon is going up in flames. Parts of the Arctic are on fire. As of this year almost 50% of species are in decline. Sea levels are rising. And there are more storms, droughts and floods.
In short, is much easier to ignore the facts than confront them - we are fucking up our planet and no amount of paper straws are going to save us!
Yet as a society, we have a tendency to fixate on the minute details, to distract ourselves from the reality that we are living in. We do it all the time - deflect the conversation to something that's easier to cope with, focus on the noise, the drama, and then forget what the real issue was which in this case, is that in less than ten years, the consequences of our actions will be irreversible.
On top, people are afraid of what she represents: youth, change, passion and a non compromising determination which many can only dream of.
It's called being an idealist, something not many of us know a lot about and it is even more terrifying than global heating because just like the weather - it is relentless and does not believe the BS.
My point is, Greta is part of a generation who won’t be bullied into silence. They will not "just go away", and they will not be offended like the very snowflakes they are trying to save.
And that determination is exactly what scares the shit out of he middle aged men who call her a "freak" and why they bash her instead of listen to her.
I cannot tell you how much she has inspired me to open my old eyes and realise that, as she says - "a change is coming", and if it isn't -then it really should. And the change being, that this young generation, Greta's generation, are taking over.
Watch out dinosaurs, you are soon to be irrelevant, and you know it.