There is a very active discussion online about eco-activist Greta Thunberg’s speech before the UN General Assembly. People are talking about how adults are using a poor, sick girl for their own disgusting purposes, which boil down to milking even more money from taxpayers in developed countries to fight climate change.
This is bad rhetoric.
Children, like all people, possess self-ownership. A sixteen-year-old is developed enough to have partial legal capacity: they can testify in court, and therefore they are certainly entitled to speak before the UN General Assembly. Finally, the bouquet of diagnoses that doctors have given Greta guarantees that she is completely sincere in her speech. Thus, we are forced to conclude that she is sending us her message of her own free will and with full awareness. So, in this situation, there is only one thing left for me to regret.
I regret that instead of Greta, another girl did not appear on the podium of the UN General Assembly with very similar words:
Here is my message: we will be watching you. All of this is wrong. I should not be here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. But you turn to us, to the youth, for hope. How dare you! You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words.
However, I am one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. You are driving entire nations into mass poverty. We are all on the brink of a global economic crisis, yet all you can talk about is the carbon footprint and fairy tales about terrible climate change. How dare you!
For over a hundred years, science has provided extremely clear forecasts. How dare you continue to turn away, saying that you are doing enough, when strategies and necessary solutions are still nowhere to be seen? You say that you see us and understand the urgency of the matter, but despite how much this saddens and angers me — I do not believe it. If you truly understood the situation and still did nothing — you would simply be evil people, and that is something I refuse to believe…
You collect insane social contributions from people and promise to provide them with a pension in old age, but calculations show that all pension funds will be bankrupt in thirty years. Protectionism was rejected by economic science back in the 18th century, yet you still wage trade wars and distract us with tales about protecting domestic producers. You felt constrained by the gold standard and preferred unrestrained emission, which devalues any savings. By handing out populist promises, you have created a pyramid of national debt. You adults are stealing the future from us, your descendants. How dare you!
Today, no plans or solutions based on this data will be presented. This data is uncomfortable, and you are still not mature enough to tell the truth about it. You are failing us, but the youth notice your betrayal. All future generations are looking at you, and if you decide to let us down, we will never forgive you for it.
Well, damn the high podium of the UN General Assembly. We have other platforms, so let’s not remain silent. Otherwise, they will decide that all youth are Greta Thunbergs and will dance around her as if we don’t exist. Or do you believe they wouldn’t dare?
