Global. Climate. Strike.
Today will be the biggest environmental protest in history... and probably the biggest protest in history. A good reason to skip school. (Maybe even quit your job, go home, turn off all the lights, go to bed, and never wake up). Be sure to do something significant. I was thinking of strapping a beanie baby polar bear to my head but I guess I gave that away during the winter, brrrr.
As you know, these climate strikes have all been due to the civil disobedience of a humble, slightly autistic student, Greta Thunberg. She decided school was less important than sitting outside government offices, in protest of lack of action on climate change. This year, Greta travelled to the USA on a terrific low-footprint boat, addressed the U.N., Congress, and is travelling on to other countries. (I am not sure how she is travelling, or how she is going back home - on the same boat?)
My family once wondered why I preferred to be around younger people. It is very simple. Older people have their minds and their ways made up. They have made their plans and their judgements. They tend to be interested in things they have always been interested in, and they want things to go on the way they have always gone on. They tend not to understand novel ideas, jokes, problems or propositions. And: there is this little thing called vested interest. Just like Big Oil, Big Ag, Big Money, and the entire grid connected to these dinosaurs, older, established people are invested in the status quo... In a status quo that feels comfortable to them, but which is in fact very dangerous to the planet.
And so, it takes less invested, and younger, people to point out this cognitive, and actual, dissonance, and step ahead to make real change. To see reality, and to change reality. These kinds of movements never begin with banks, corporations, stocks, CDs or 401K's. And usually not with the churches that parents go to, the TV they watch, or the cars they drive. Rather, it begins when they see their children going out there, walking the line, taking a chance... and they begin to worry. Still, the power of love has some relevance. I am just concerned, like many of the strikers, that we are all a bit too late. Things are spinning out of control. And humanity still moves at a glacial pace. Well. All the more noble to try...
‘Listen to the scientists’: Greta Thunberg urges Congress to take action
Teen climate activists attend a hearing to address the climate crisis and its traumatic effect on the younger generation
Climate campaigner Greta Thunberg has bluntly told members of Congress to heed scientists’ warnings over global heating on a day when the existential anguish of young activists was given a voice at the heart of Washington DC power.
Thunberg, the Swedish teenager who has ignited a global youth climate movement, told a congressional hearing that she had no prepared remarks other than to submit the landmark IPCC report, published last year, that warned of the rapidly approaching catastrophe of global heating.
Continue reading...
As you know, these climate strikes have all been due to the civil disobedience of a humble, slightly autistic student, Greta Thunberg. She decided school was less important than sitting outside government offices, in protest of lack of action on climate change. This year, Greta travelled to the USA on a terrific low-footprint boat, addressed the U.N., Congress, and is travelling on to other countries. (I am not sure how she is travelling, or how she is going back home - on the same boat?)
My family once wondered why I preferred to be around younger people. It is very simple. Older people have their minds and their ways made up. They have made their plans and their judgements. They tend to be interested in things they have always been interested in, and they want things to go on the way they have always gone on. They tend not to understand novel ideas, jokes, problems or propositions. And: there is this little thing called vested interest. Just like Big Oil, Big Ag, Big Money, and the entire grid connected to these dinosaurs, older, established people are invested in the status quo... In a status quo that feels comfortable to them, but which is in fact very dangerous to the planet.
And so, it takes less invested, and younger, people to point out this cognitive, and actual, dissonance, and step ahead to make real change. To see reality, and to change reality. These kinds of movements never begin with banks, corporations, stocks, CDs or 401K's. And usually not with the churches that parents go to, the TV they watch, or the cars they drive. Rather, it begins when they see their children going out there, walking the line, taking a chance... and they begin to worry. Still, the power of love has some relevance. I am just concerned, like many of the strikers, that we are all a bit too late. Things are spinning out of control. And humanity still moves at a glacial pace. Well. All the more noble to try...
‘Listen to the scientists’: Greta Thunberg urges Congress to take action
Teen climate activists attend a hearing to address the climate crisis and its traumatic effect on the younger generation
Climate campaigner Greta Thunberg has bluntly told members of Congress to heed scientists’ warnings over global heating on a day when the existential anguish of young activists was given a voice at the heart of Washington DC power.
Thunberg, the Swedish teenager who has ignited a global youth climate movement, told a congressional hearing that she had no prepared remarks other than to submit the landmark IPCC report, published last year, that warned of the rapidly approaching catastrophe of global heating.
Continue reading...