Climate alarmists have shown signs in recent years of an increasing interest in violent social confrontation. So we should perhaps not be surprised to see Greta Thunberg wrapped in a trendy keffiyeh join a mob besieging an Israeli-Russian singer in Malmö to try to prevent her from performing in the Eurovision competition, not merely advocating but engaging in violent intimidation on behalf of antisemitism. Can somebody she trusts not tell her that fame is a dangerous drug and antisemitism is poison? And what becomes of her climate-alarmist followers if they do not disassociate themselves from this odious and puzzling radicalism? Is the movement as a whole not uncomfortable with this sudden detour? But there’s the rub: perhaps they don’t consider it a detour at all, but a destination. Because a lot of them have arrived there together without prior coordination.
Not everyone who worries about man-made climate change is left-wing at all, let alone a left-wing radical, to say nothing of an antisemitic nut. But there is also a puzzling tendency of those superficially unrelated belief systems to keep company. As far afield as Australia, even an alarmist like Labour Prime Minister Antony Albanese has found himself dismayed at the antisemitism coming not from the National Front or Diagolon but from… the Greens. Why from them? Closer to home, Canada’s tiresome Green leader Elizabeth May donned a Palestinian flag scarf and said back in 2022 “I take my marching orders from the permanent representative of Palestine to Canada” at an event featuring a prominent Holocaust denier and a guy who had called for “a German superhero named Auschwitz.”
Likewise, why does Reuters “Sustainable Switch” have a recurring tendency to discuss the situation in Gaza, and discuss it in tendentious ways? Whatever one thinks of it, the conflict there seems to have nothing to do with the supposed “Energy Transition”. Yet they can’t stop talking about it, and their coverage invariably makes at best a brief ritual reference to Hamas, without exploring its ideas, history or professed intentions, brushes aside Jewish security concerns and the difficulty of operating against terrorists who deliberately use human shields, and portrays the matter as gratuitous Israeli brutality that shocks the conscience of the world.
Is there something about climate alarmism that keeps natural company with far-left causes? To pick on “Sustainable Switch” again, under the heading “May Day pro-Palestinian protests” they emailed:
“Happy belated International Workers’ Day! Today’s newsletter focuses on the social in environment, social and governance (ESG) principles as workers from Greece to the United States exercise their rights to protest peacefully, which falls in the scope of national and corporate social responsibility. This week, hundreds of Greek workers marched through central Athens to demand pay rises that would bring their salaries close to the European average and to protest over the war in Gaza.”
And they complained that:
“police were deployed in force to the University of California in Los Angeles campus after Israel supporters attacked a camp set up by pro-Palestinian protesters. Witness footage from the scene, verified by Reuters, showed people wielding sticks or poles to attack wooden boards being used as makeshift barricades to protect the pro-Palestinian protesters…. Elsewhere, a group of workers at Alphabet Inc’s Google have filed a complaint with a U.S. labor board claiming the tech company unlawfully fired about 50 employees for protesting against its cloud contract with the Israeli government.”
What has any of it to do with climate? Well, if you think it’s all about the revolution, that once we overthrow capitalism, patriarchy and liberal democracy all good things will flourish and until we do nothing good can happen, you’re free to say so. And we’re free to believe you mean it and lump you in with all the other tyrants and dictators who have thought likewise throughout history.
For instance when someone says “As a Latina Vegan, I’m Decolonizing a Cruel & Racist Food System” you can bet not only that they’re a dreary scold and probably visibly unhappy, but also that they believe a man-made climate crisis is among our most serious public policy problems, and hate Israel and its Jewish inhabitants. And do strange things to language and believe weird pseudo-histories.
Thus that person adds:
“We published our first big resource, Vegan Mexican Food, in Spanish and English in 2007, making Mexican recipes available to everyone looking to practice veganism without losing their cultural foods in the process. But more than just veganized recipes, this resource discusses the changes in our diets that took place due to colonization, to explain the introduction of farmed animals into the Americas, and to take us back toward a food system that is free from the exploitation of humans and non-human animals.”
Not that actual inhabitants of what is now Mexico were vegetarian let alone vegan before European contact, to put it mildly. Just the hypothetical ones in our narrative.
Saw no violent intimidation. While I don't agree with the protestors approach, I do support their right to peaceful protest. And this was peaceful.
At least try to report honestly.
It appears you hate Islam or Muslims, but maybe not. I'd like to see peace over there for ALL people and an end to the genocide.
Instead of calling it anti-Semitism, why not call it what it is: anti-Zionism. If it was genuinely anti-Semitism, then why are there so many Jews in this movement who are welcomed with open arms.
What a shame that John has used the usual defence of “Antisemitism “ to condemn criticism of the Appalling atrocities being carried out as Israel seeks to drive out the Palestinians from the last vestige of their homelands.
The lies about the atrocities allegedly carried out by Hammas have now been shown to be the usual propaganda that accompanies an overarching Press and Media control.
Like KM and many non Jews as well as many Jews,I abhor the Genocidal State of Israel that appears to control America and many other Western Nations. That does not make me AntiSemitic,it just means I have my eyes open.
KM and Geof, your biases exposed. Perhaps some learning of the history and treatment of the jew since mohammed.
I hoped not to have to sully a climate discussion by responding to the two readers here who think this is an appropriate place to discuss a war that was provoked by the violent murder of more than 1,200 people on October 7. I am not going to get into any form of debate on this issue but to ask just a few valid questions?
What is it that is so "special" about a war in the Middle East, and after 18 years of thousands of rockets (and long range missiles) being sent over the border from a small population that cannot possibly hope to defeat a far larger and better equipmed army, sending millions of Israelis running to shelters with, in most cases, a mere 10-15 seconds to shelter? After all, there are several Middle Eastern wars, with far worse tragic consequences and yet on that, the entire world is ominously silent. In Yemen 800,000 have been slaughtered by the Iran-backed Houthis. In Syria Saddam Hussein's had hundreds of thousands murdered to retain power. In Egypt, thousands of Coptic Christians are regularly attacted and murdered. The Kurds have been systematically murdered in hundreds of thousands by Turkey, Iraq and Syria. Where are your voices on these horrible statistics? What about the women beaten and stoned in Afghanistan by the Taliban? Not a peep. Nowhere. May I just ask for one of the two here why 20, 000 because of a war initiated by Hamas (even the UN has now cut the Hamas numbers by up to 53% after checking against identified bodies) is a genocide when the slaughter of a million in the Iran -Iraq war was never referred to as such? And now, may we continue to discuss Mr Thunberg's climate idiocy? Thank you.
"Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it" - Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's propaganda chief.
So if Israel invades Gaza in justifiable response to Hamas' horrific slaughter of Israelis on Oct 7, describe Israel's actions as genocide. Never mind if it's an absurd lie, keep saying it and eventually people will believe it. In the same way, if you as a lefty don't like someone, call them Fascists or Nazis or racists or misogynists or any other term of opprobrium that occurs to you. Doesn't matter if in all probability you only have a vague idea of the meaning of these terms, just keep calling them and eventually people will believe you. Works every time.
"Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it" - Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's propaganda chief.
So if Israel invades Gaza in justifiable response to Hamas' horrific slaughter of Israelis on Oct 7, describe Israel's actions as genocide. Never mind if it's an absurd lie, keep saying it and eventually people will believe it. In the same way, if you as a lefty don't like someone, call them Fascists or Nazis or racists or misogynists or any other term of opprobrium that occurs to you. Doesn't matter if in all probability you only have a vague idea of the meaning of these terms, just keep calling them and eventually people will believe you. Works every time.
Speaking of moronic protesters,this incident just occured a couple of days in UK.An elderly couple aged 82 and 83 tried to break through the glass
protecting the original copy of the Magna Carta.The glass held firm and the rare document was undamaged,thankfully.The couple was from the
so-called environMENTAL group Stop Oil,opposed to fossil fuels.Usually with much younger adherents,involved in similar incidents,or trying to
disrupt traffic by lying down in the middle of a busy street.But I'm not sure what trying to damage an 800 year old document has to do with climate
change or fossil fuels?And Roger,your comments are spot on,as always.
Well said Glenda, we need to break through and expose all this blatant propaganda , utter ignorance and quiet frankly not a little brain washing.
Possibly post modern nihilism's greatest "advance" was the adoption by the left of "multiculturalism", the doctrine that all cultures are equal as it assured ascendency of the most confident and aggressive of cultures while institutionally vandalizing western civilization from within. It has been responsible for the left essentially becoming useful idiots of Islamic Jihad. It's why the increasingly censorious left now considers actual knowledge of Islam to be a "hate crime" hence the Orwellian trope of "Islamophobia". Anti-Semitism is now in vogue on campuses and other captured institutions. As for the topic, I'll wager that Greta doesn't spend much time in certain parts of Malmo.
The first two comments get a "morally deranged" grade from me; the rest get a thumbs up.
John as shown by the posts above, please refrain from taking a stance in this debate in the future. The whole situation is a big mess (as it was designed to be) and you'll just end up driving away people from your site.
Pointing out Greta's non-climatic political affiliations as ludicrous and then stating that your own non-climatic political affiliation is justified just makes you look like a hypocrite. Stick with the former (as it is indeed ludicrous), drop the latter (as it is just as ludicrous).
There simply is no right and wrong in (any) war. Complaining that one side commits more murders than the others does not magically make the other side guilt-free. In war ultimately the winner gets to decide that they were right all along.
And to stop any and all comments along the lines of 'but they started it', remember that these conflicts, both in the Ukraine and in the Middle East go back literal centuries. The Israel conflict was already going strong long before the nation was founded. As with any fight, the point is not who started it, but who decides to end it by STOPPING THE FIGHTING.