The most straightforward needed words on climate change are coming from Greta Thunberg. Here are some parts from her speeches at COP24 in 2018 and The World Economic Forum in 2019:
You only speak of green eternal economic growth because you are too scared of being unpopular. You only talk about moving forward with the same bad ideas that got us into this mess, even when the only sensible thing to do is pull the emergency brake.
You are not mature enough to tell it like it is. Even that burden you leave to us children.
But I don’t care about being popular. I care about climate justice and the living planet.
Our civilization is being sacrificed for the opportunity of a very small number of people to continue making enormous amounts of money. Our biosphere is being sacrificed, so that rich people in countries like mine, can live in luxury. It is the sufferings of the many which pay for the luxuries of the few.
Until you start focusing on what needs to be done, rather than what is politically possible, there is no hope.
We cannot solve a crisis without treating it as a crisis.
We need to keep the fossil fuels in the ground, and we need to focus on equity. And if solutions within the system are so impossible to find, then maybe we should change the system itself.
We are at a time in history where everyone with any insight of the climate crisis that threatens our civilisation – and the entire biosphere – must speak out in clear language, no matter how uncomfortable and unprofitable that may be.
We must change almost everything in our current societies. The bigger your carbon footprint, the bigger your moral duty. The bigger your platform, the bigger your responsibility.
Adults keep saying: “We owe it to the young people to give them hope.” But I don’t want your hope. I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. And then I want you to act.
I want you to act as you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if our house is on fire. Because it is.
In short. We all have to do more in every way we can, both big and small. We need to tackle the threat of climate change with a war style mentality and alongside tackling inequity. There is much to be won from doing so.
She really says exactly what I feel: “Once we take action, hope is everywhere”
I struggle with being an earth scientist just now. I understand the problem but I’m not part of the solution. Political and societal change is what we need, and I’ve no training in that, and don’t know how to make it happen.
