Most of us not living under a rock have heard or at least heard of Greta Thunberg. She is the 16-year-old dropping major truth bombs about climate change and about the lack of action from the world leadership. Of course many think that a kid of 16 has no business lecturing people older and ‘wiser’ than her; many think that she is being propped up by organisations with vested interests. In short, a lot of people are very angry with her.
Thunberg showed herself to have a sense of humour when she changed her Twitter bio to acknowledge POTUS’s passive-aggressive tweet (a very happy young girl) to her. She gamely shared this video on Twitter.
Mark Humphries who is also in it, shared the video which now has upward of 8 million views. Written by Evan Williams, the video also features Charles Firth, Ange Lavoipierre and others. The video addresses all the various rants that people have directed at Thunberg. The video ends on an ultra-sarcastic note: when it comes to climate change, we know she's the real problem.
Some pointed out that Thunberg is less effective and articulate when faced with questions; that when she speaks from a script she uses theatrics. While many chose to demean Thunberg, point out her flaws and jeer at her, they chose not to address the content of her speech at the UN.
Of course many chose to call into question climate change itself. They used the old it’s cold today so there is no global warming’ type of argument to try to discredit what the overwhelming majority of the scientific community agrees on: that human activity is contributing to climate change and that there is an urgent need for policy change to reverse this.
There were, of course, many, many conspiracy theories: that she has political backing, that she receives left/liberal funding to attack conservatives, that she is brainwashed etc. etc. This is very much the stock in trade of those who want to discredit both the message and the messenger.
This twitter user and many others shared this photo of Thunberg’s (often with images of suffering third world kids photo-shopped into the train window area) to demonstrate her ‘hypocrisy’ in using so much plastic. Thunberg who had tweeted the picture herself originally clarified the reason for tweeting the image: most packaging uses plastic. There is almost no way to avoid it. That is the point she is trying to make; that governments, industry, policymakers and consumers need to get together to find solutions and alternatives for plastic pollution.
This commentator juxtaposed the support for the boy who broke an egg on the head of Australia leader Fraser Anning; with the attacks on Thunberg’s articulate nonviolent protests.
This happens every time that a child stands up for an important issue and points out adults’ errors. We saw this in the aftermath of the Parkland shootings when people attacked kids who were asking for gun control legislation from their leaders.
We all have things that we feel strongly about; there are activists of all hues who dedicate their lives to various different causes. We cannot all protest about everything that is wrong in the world. We choose to protest about that which we find most objectionable; we lend our voice to a cause where we think we could make a difference.
Greta Thunberg is doing what she clearly believes in strongly. Why not support her in her cause to bring about positive change instead of criticising her and doubting her motives? What is the worst that could happen? Even if climate change isn’t as bad as they say, policy change will help create a cleaner, better world – that can only be good for all of us.
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