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Oh that climate strike

02 Oct 2019 | OP ED Watch

NBC gushes that “It was the floodwaters brushing her jawline that convinced Theresa Sebastian it was time to get serious about climate change.” See, this 15-year-old climate expert from Ireland went to a family wedding in India and it rained hard during monsoon season. “I knew about global warming, but I didn’t think it would affect me so soon,” she says. So she went on strike. And has this kid got the evidence adults missed? Apparently not. NBC adds that “While scientists have not definitively linked the Kerala flood to climate change, a recent study cautioned that the disaster was a sign of things to come as global warming reaches the 2.7-degree Fahrenheit threshold.” It’s the usual bait and switch, admitting your scare story isn’t scientifically sound then waving it about as scientific anyway. Which is, well, childish reasoning.

The climate strike phenomenon is becoming very odd indeed. It’s not even obvious what customary job or activity they’re refusing to do, which is the normal definition of a strike. Then there’s the spectacle of adults claiming to be learning from teens. Some are established scientists who already seemed convinced of the urgency of the crisis and had more substantive suggestions for what to do than most of these delightfully angry kids. Others hold elected office and, in at least one bizarre case, a dizzy leader of a government took part in a protest against himself. Meanwhile the Limhamns Kyrka, part of the Church of Sweden, proclaimed Greta Thunberg a successor of Jesus Christ. What? We waited two thousand years for the Second Coming and all we got was this sour scold? No wonder barely 1% of Swedes attend their national church.

Now that the protests are over and the cloud of pot smoke has dispersed, what exactly is it we’re meant to do? Even Michael Mann tweeted that “we have to lead too! We can’t put it all on the children.” We have to lead too? What does he think he’s been doing, or trying to, for two decades? Are there no adults in the room?

Actually someone replied to Dr. Kate Marvel on Twitter that the reaction of the grownups to this mass outbreak of ill-informed teen hysteria, or simply taking a day off with their friends, may force us to stop using the phrase “the only adults in the room”. Which used to refer to those who keep their heads when all about are losing theirs. But this Twit wasn’t being sarcastic. They really meant the kids were now the wise ones and the adults the fools. The latter part of which at least seems to be true.

2 comments on “Oh that climate strike”

  1. What millions of strikers and green citizens of the 1st World should develop is a common internet-circulating actionable plan able to recruit their contact companies towards climate action thru the profit motive. The tropics with its year-round sun (top CO2 absorber) should be targeted for setting up high-profit green projects. Joint ventures between tech-savvy 1st World companies and 3rd World employee co-ops are ideal. Project examples for the Philippines: Ethanol distilleries fed by sweet sorghum farms. Thousand-hectare multi-product export-oriented agroforests. Methane digesters and ethanol-fueled power generators for on-site agroforest electricity supply. Geothermal plants. Upland micro and mini hyrdopower nets. E85 and electric vehicles, bikes & trikes with charged battery replacement stations. Forest resorts. Agroforest clusters' toll roads and water supply. All-electric metal works and light industries, etc. Current billion-dollar Green funds should eagerly finance such ventures at 75% project cost due to sure repayment + interest income incident to the projects' high profitability. Expanded tropics-wide, the activities will sequester billions of tons of atmospheric CO2 each year for all time, while creating jobs for millions of 3rd World poor, addressing local wealth gaps thru co-ops, and forming enormous new markets for all involved companies.

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