These spoiled young people...
For a couple of weeks now - more or less since Greta Thunberg went off on a sailing ship across the Atlantic to speak in front of the United Nations - there's been a kind of 'knee-jerk' reaction to all young people who are activists on climate change.
There have been the most amazing attacks on Greta Thunberg: it seems she's not 16 at all - she's an adult; she's an actor; she's being manipulated; according to a speaker on Fox News in the USA, she is 'mentally ill.' (You know, given that the USA was founded on equality and fairness, some of the attitudes that get aired there are pretty nasty. Remember the physically disabled reporter that Donald Trump mocked during his election campaign? Bullying is what that was).
Of course, Greta Thunberg is not mentally ill. She has Asperger's Syndrome. It's not a medical condition or an illness - it's a way of perceiving the world and a way of thinking that are not mainstream. It doesn't stop Greta having ideas and she speaks very fluently - note, in English, which is a foreign language for her.
The climate campaign is focussed on her, but there are quite a few other young people becoming well-known:
https://mashable.com/article/youth-climate-activists-greta-thunberg/?europe=true
But it's easier to pick on one target, isn't it?
And, beyond that, there are the climate strikes which have brought large numbers of young people onto our streets and are now attracting some vicious and quite unwarranted attacks. I've see photos claiming to show the aftermath of a climate change rally:
<<It’s hilarious, all
these school kids preaching to us oldies that we fucked up the planet! Back in
the 60’s and 70’s not a plastic bottle to be seen it was all glass that
were reused, pop bottles taken back to the shop. No plastic bags, loose food
was brown paper bags, all sweets were bought in 1/4lb put in a paper bag.
Mothers used shopping trolleys to carry heavy stuff or used a linen bag. You
walked to school from 5yo to 16yo not jumping into mummy’s 4+4.No Burger King plastic toys, no polystyrene food boxes for you to litter the streets with, we had used newspapers to wrap our hot food in. Our milk was delivered at 5 am 6 days a week by a milkman who drove an electric vehicle! Holidays were in a caravan in Britain not an aeroplane to far off destinations. So I think these youngsters need to take a look in a recycled mirror and think was it my wasteful generation who are fucking up the planet.>>
There have been the most amazing attacks on Greta Thunberg: it seems she's not 16 at all - she's an adult; she's an actor; she's being manipulated; according to a speaker on Fox News in the USA, she is 'mentally ill.' (You know, given that the USA was founded on equality and fairness, some of the attitudes that get aired there are pretty nasty. Remember the physically disabled reporter that Donald Trump mocked during his election campaign? Bullying is what that was).
Of course, Greta Thunberg is not mentally ill. She has Asperger's Syndrome. It's not a medical condition or an illness - it's a way of perceiving the world and a way of thinking that are not mainstream. It doesn't stop Greta having ideas and she speaks very fluently - note, in English, which is a foreign language for her.
The climate campaign is focussed on her, but there are quite a few other young people becoming well-known:
https://mashable.com/article/youth-climate-activists-greta-thunberg/?europe=true
But it's easier to pick on one target, isn't it?
And, beyond that, there are the climate strikes which have brought large numbers of young people onto our streets and are now attracting some vicious and quite unwarranted attacks. I've see photos claiming to show the aftermath of a climate change rally:
The Guardian newspaper went so far as to print this with the word 'hoax' underneath. Climate change rallies have been peaceful and focussed and have attracted a lot of young people.
Social media is now full of attacks on young people, some of them just laughable, suggesting the state of the world is somehow the fault of the young. One such attack last week claimed young people 'demand' air conditioning in their classrooms and can't learn without computers - among many other faults. Every time I see these attacks, I feel I have to point out that young people don't take these decisions: adults do.
The last attack I saw - yesterday - looked like this:
A lot of these points are true, but they have nothing to do with young people. We stopped having returnable bottles because manufacturers found them expensive to recycle and re-use. We gave up on shopping bags because supermarkets found they could use cheap plastic bags to advertise their brand - and in supermarkets, brand recognition is everything.
So who would want to attack Greta Thunberg and the other young activists on climate change?
https://arcdigital.media/why-are-climate-change-deniers-bullying-a-16-year-old-girl-44d287bc7e9d
It's hard for someone as old as me to get my head round this, but we live in a world dominated by big business. Big business manipulates governments (like the current Conservative government in the UK) so manipulating the media to present a poor picture of young people is a dawdle, especially in a political climate where right-wing 'journalists' know who pays their wages - and feel it's okay to exercise no impartiality at all.
So what do we do? Simple. We support our young people. Yes, there are ours. They are not some alien species.
They will inherit this planet and we can already see what a burach we're handing them.
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