Greta Thunberg

Does the truly deserve all the attention she is  getting?

The environment is decaying because of climate change, and action needs to be taken.

However, I don’t like the hysteria that’s being promoted in the name of climate change activism. Which brings us to the topic of the 16-year-old Greta Thunberg.

Greta is a prime example of political tokenism. Allow me to explain what I mean by that.

The dictionary usually defines tokenism as something like ‘putting minorities in big public roles to give off the illusion of diversity rather than diversity itself’. My definition is a little different in this specific case.

Greta Thunberg isn’t a political token in the way that she’s being used to give the illusion of diversity.

Rather, it’s more like Greta Thunberg is a puppet for tree-huggers. She’s not saying anything a competent adult couldn’t say, but everything she says is intended to evoke a more emotional reaction because it’s coming from a child. This 16-year-old girl has become the face of environmental activism in recent weeks, but why exactly is that?

She’s not breaking any scientific ground. She’s not giving any opinions that haven’t been heard before.

She’s an actress. Whether she knows it or not, she’s a mouthpiece for people far higher up than her. She can say everything she’s been raised to think, and thanks to her age and her Asperger’s, she’s practically shielded from criticism.

Any form of criticism against her is being shot down by left-leaning journalists.[1]. Journalists who write articles all like

Those EVIL and FASCIST far-right NAZI conservative TRUMP SUPPORTERS are ATTACKING a 16-YEAR-OLD girl who has ASPERGER’S!!!

Look, I don’t believe that Greta Thunberg deserves to have violent abuse and threats hurled at her for her views. But I also believe that she shouldn’t be immune to criticism on account of her age or mental state. Especially when her words are being used to fit an agenda.

She’s a face for people’s agendas. When you hear her speech, people with agendas want you to have an emotional reaction. They want you to feel sorry for this crying child and start feeling bad yourself.

And let’s talk about that UN World Summit Speech she gave.

Man, I can’t take it seriously. It may be her Asperger’s, or the fact that English is her second language, but her speech sounded like it was read by a bad actress trying to be convincing.

I feel like a dick for saying that, because she was obviously really passionate about what she was saying. But it sounded like she was reading off a teleprompter.

Now let’s talk about the message itself. Here’s an especially relevant quote from the speech.

“This is all wrong. I shouldn't be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you!”

From a strictly apolitical standpoint, I don’t like this sentence. Nobody asked you to be here, Greta. You chose to be here.

"You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I'm one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!”[2]

How do I call her speech an overreaction without sounding sexist? I can’t use the word hysterical, but maybe the word ‘dramatic’ would fit.

Because saying things like these is promoting hysteria among people. The climate problem is pretty bad, but it’s not gonna be a Mad Max-style apocalypse within 50 years like most people think it is.

I’m nitpicking again. The basic gist of Greta’s speech is

Global warming is bad. Carbon emissions are bad. They’re gonna fuck up our planet soon if we’re not careful. Fuck all of you rich white men for doing nothing. Save the turtles.

But that’s the problem. Greta’s so quick to blame the Western World for this climate problem. Every climate activist is so quick to blame the Western World for this stuff, so quick to shame regular people for using plastic straws.

Meanwhile, if you go to China, there’ll be so much pollution in the air that it feels like a constant stream of secondhand smoke in your lungs. There’s litter and smog and carbon emissions all over Asia and Africa, and yet the Western World is put to shame?

According to a recent study, around ninety percent of the plastic waste that ends up in the ocean came from only ten rivers. [3] Of those ten rivers, eight were in Asia, and two were in Africa. None came from North America, Europe or Australia.

We can virtue-signal and use paper straws and go vegan all we want here in the Western World, but none of it will matter if industrial powers in Asia continue to fuck over the planet in the name of profit. Why isn’t Greta Thunberg going to China and telling them to stop building so many factories and killing the planet?

Greta Thunberg is a product of the media’s hysteria over climate change. While it’s an incredibly pressing issue in society today, recently it’s been a trend to start treating climate change like an extinction-level event. It’s really not. That’s no excuse to stop trying to save our dying planet, but people like Greta would have you believe that if you don’t go vegan, use paper straws and give CPR to 4 sea turtles a day, you’re a terrible planet-destroyer who deserves to die.

That is not the case.

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In summation, Greta Thunberg is a mouthpiece for people much more knowledgeable than her. While she means well, her purpose is to evoke an emotional reaction from people to win over the public to someone’s political cause. She was put into the spotlight by those who had something to gain from it.

And while environmentalism is a good political cause, the tree-huggers are directing their activism in all the wrong places. Paper straws won’t save the environment if nobody goes to China and tells them to stop shooting big big factory smoke in the air.

Becoming a Hollywood vegan won’t fix the planet if you still have people dumping literal tons of trash into African rivers.

To truly conclude this, I have two points to make

1. We’re not all gonna die from climate change in the next few years. The problem is very bad, but not apocalyptically bad. Yet.
2. Change needs to be made for the sake of future generations. The movement for change is seriously misaimed. Other cultures need to become more green or nothing will ever change.