Category: 3. Poems

Humiliated

world leaders get dressing down

for complacency.

It takes determination

and courage to do these things.

by Scooj

Greta Thunberg is an extraordinary young woman. She has managed to bring a difficult message to the world stage and has been given tremendous exposure. I believe her when she says that she will not give up, and I believe that what we are witnessing is the beginning of a movement for change the likes of which we have not seen before.

Her speech is here: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/video/2019/sep/23/greta-thunberg-to-world-leaders-how-dare-you-you-have-stolen-my-dreams-and-my-childhood-video

Of course there are those who say that they agree, BUT (remember everything before the but is bullshit) that it can’t be done, that her demands are unrealistic. Those people are in my view wrong and this excuse has been used as a reason for inertia for decades. Had we been taking action 30 years ago, the urgency of action now would not have felt so acute.

The best Donald Trump could come up with on Twitter was this sarcastic comment

‘She seems like a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future. So nice to see!’

How immature, but then we know all we need to know about Donald Trump. On the other hand Greta Thunberg has behaved with utter dignity and has so much more credibility than any politician I can think of.

I subscribe entirely to Greta Thunberg’s mission and have been waiting for leadership on this issue for decades – little did I think it would come from a Swedish school girl, but then maybe that’s exactly where it needed to come from, from somebody outside the establishment.

The hard work begins now as changes to our learned way of life begin to gain traction. It doesn’t necessarily mean sacrifice, rather it means change, and much of that change will be for the better. Anyhow in its simplest form, the changes are necessary so that our children and their children can live in a world like the one we grew up in (or even better). Do we need any greater incentive than that?