The fact that so many, mostly older, mostly middle aged and mostly white, men and women get so angry about her making these speeches and pointing out pesky facts, paints a picture. It is not a nice picture - an ugly self-portrait of these shallow, selfish idiots.
Most of those we see dismissing, or worse, being outright rude to Thunberg, are generally well off individuals; people like the orange buffoon Trump, and his new sidekick (no not Boris) - Scott Morrison, the 'Liberal' (there must be a different meaning for this down there) Prime Minister of Australia - who is another one with a love affair for coal and other fossil fuels, despite the fact that his nation would seem ripe for exploiting solar power instead.
These critics don't have to be concerned about their own future; changes from climate will not affect them much in their lifetimes; and they are mostly old enough that it might not dramatically affect their children's lifetimes.
But their grandchildren? Well their grandchildren, and my children too - are being set up to inherit a planet that is quite literally fucked (excuse me)! Screwed over by too many Trump's and Morrison's and Koch brothers, and all that ilk - who have never seen beyond the greed of their fat wallets, to look into the future and see what awaits their descendants. They are simply too selfish to care.
Great nailed it yesterday. They know she is right. They feel threatened by her and all the activists, but somehow it is the younger ones that they really go for - apparently being young and articulate means you have been brainwashed - so they condemn and they patronise.
So here it is. What she said is so angry, forthright and damn moving, it should make a difference. I hope it makes a difference. But with stone cold selfish idiots in positions of power - I worry that it won't make a difference.
My message is that we'll be watching you?
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!
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!
For more than 30 years the science has been crystal clear. How dare you continue to look away, and come here saying that you're doing enough when the politics and solutions needed are still nowhere in sight.
You say you hear us and that you understand the urgency. But no matter how sad and angry I am, I do not want to believe that. Because if you really understood the situation and still kept on failing to act, then you would be evil. And that I refuse to believe.
The popular idea of cutting our emissions in half in 10 years only gives us a 50% chance of staying below 1.5 degrees (Celsius) and the risk of setting off irreversible chain reactions beyond human control.
Fifty percent may be acceptable to you. But those numbers do not include tipping points, most feedback loops, additional warming hidden by toxic air pollution or the aspects of equity and climate justice. They also rely on my generation sucking hundreds of billions of tons of your CO2 out of the air with technologies that barely exist.
So a 50% risk is simply not acceptable to us – we who have to live with the consequences.
To have a 67% chance of staying below a 1.5 degrees global temperature rise – the best odds given by the (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) – the world had 420 gigatons of CO2 left to emit back on Jan. 1, 2018. Today that figure is already down to less than 350 gigatons. How dare you pretend that this can be solved with just "business as usual" and some technical solutions? With today's emissions levels, that remaining CO2 budget will be entirely gone within less than eight and a half years.
There will not be any solutions or plans presented in line with these figures here today, because these numbers are too uncomfortable and you are still not mature enough to tell it like it is.
You are failing us. But the young people are starting to understand your betrayal. The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us, I say: We will never forgive you.
We will not let you get away with this. Right here, right now is where we draw the line. The world is waking up. And change is coming, whether you like it or not.
Thank you. (Greta Thunberg, 23 September 2019)If you read that unmoved, then you have a heart of stone - and you are no friend of mine.
Transcipt from - https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/2019/09/23/greta-thunberg-tells-un-summit-youth-not-forgive-climate-inaction/2421335001/
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