Greta Thunberg, 16, made headlines for skipping school to protest climate change, inspiring millions of school kids to do the same. She addressed the World Economic Forum in Davos by crossing the Atlantic by carbon-neutral sailing to address Congress and the UN. Her impassioned speeches have led for a Nobel Peace Prize nomination. Miss Thunberg embodies the mantra of a generation:
“Why should I go to school to study if there is no future?”
The trouble with this predominant narrative surrounding climate change is the fear it instils. More irrationally when in the monomania fixation of an Asperger’s mind.
There is no doubting her conviction or passion. But the Nobel Peace Prizes were left instruction by Alfred Nobel to award “the person who shall have done the most or best work for fraternity between nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of peace congresses”. It remains unclear why Greta meets this standard.
Then again, the award has become less about the achievement and more the message, notably since Obama won in his first year of Presidency despite fighting two wars and carrying out drone strikes in 7 countries across North Africa and the Middle East.
Perhaps the committee wants to signal support for youth climate activism. It is somewhat problematic for the current state of adult authority. The message of stoking fear as a call to action is nothing new. Doomsday timelines shift from decade to decade. In the 1960s we were told the Earth would be overwhelmed by population, with scientists even calling for fertility sterilisation by medications in the water supply.
A continual transition from one environmental campaign to the next
It is troubling to see adults stand by and celebrate ‘panicking’ to enact political change. Maybe her message voices the internalised sentiment about climate change: sad and scared, blunted by life getting in the way.
The real issue is the misguided, kneejerk reactions this plea will undoubtedly generate, void of efficient, prudent economic and science-based policy. Instead, marred by fearmongering. The nomination for a Nobel Peace Prize shows just how detached we are in passing the buck onto kids to push the climate change alarmism agenda.
It becomes more borderline cult, drawn in by its own doomsayer prophecies, that any challenge is dismissed.
The radical proposals are squarely an attack on average people. Contempt for how the masses live, with “meat heat” phenomenon to “flight shaming” or even contemplating “not having children” to help the planet.
The prosperity we experience which allows for individuals like Greta to tell us all how to live is being brought into question.
From her position, it is entirely logical that if the world is going to end, it makes no sense to carry on as normal. If those radical climate activists truly believed the world was about to end, they would give up their jobs and march until something was done.
If Greta were presented a more in-depth analysis of climate claims, she may not skip a beat to change her views to climate scepticism once she realises what she has been told doesn’t add up.
Were this to happen, the movement would continue and simply pretend she doesn’t exist, like Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore.
Lack of Nuance with Thunberg’s appeal
There is no nuance in Miss Thunberg’s appeal: total sacrifice of our way of life, abandon competition and focus on equity.
Extinction Rebellion is a noble movement. The call for large scale political solutions would seem to offer the greatest impact. Protesting is a tool to get those in control to act on what most civilians individually cannot.
Alternatively, inventing new technologies and scientific discoveries or arranging clean-ups can create a positive lead-by-example impact. Ultimately, we are the power to change. Government can talk it to death with meetings. At the end of the day, if enough people don’t care enough to drive ourselves to create a solution, there will never be an end to all of this. It is easy for us to expect others to act for us and create a solution, but that’s passing the buck.
Al Gore nor Obama, did anything tangible to earn or deserve the Nobel Prize. To the extent that the Prize has now become a political prize for cult personality of the year, Greta’s nomination is another symbolic, yet meaningless celebration of disinformation.
Her nomination is a political statement by the “powers that be” and that’s all there is to it, for per statute, it is rather speculative as to why.
She has a lot going for her despite the inconvenient fact that the past 18 years have shown no recorded global warming, a period the climate alarmist now conveniently call “the pause”.
It is curious a Swedish girl is talking climate when they have far more pressing issues. Sweden is Europe’s rape capital, with rates quadrupling in 20 years, as the European Union commissioned report confirmed and corroborated by Amnesty International’s report on rape in the Nordic Countries was highly critical of Sweden for her abysmally low conviction rate for rape cases. ‘Social stigma and a lack of trust in the justice system often mean that women and girls fail to report attacks,’ says Amnesty International’s Secretary General.
Regardless of Miss Thunberg’s chances for the Norwegian honour, her efforts may be better directed to a real, pressing problems insofar as there has been no recorded rise in temperature since Al Gore won the 2007 Nobel.
Alternative Opinions
Greta’s publicised appeal and voice of the world’s youth is the pinnacle of many initiatives by the youth to make adults alter our ways. They all deserve Nobel nominations. Giving it to one person doesn’t reward all the others that have sought to tackle the issues of their future.
Her precociousness and choosing the right cause have won the backing of mainstream media, capturing their fancy with the cute youthful appeal. Maybe she does deserve the Prize for calling us all out on our idleness.
