Environmental activist Greta Thunberg addresses the Climate Action Summit at the United Nations General Assembly. Photo / AP
Environmental activist Greta Thunberg addresses the Climate Action Summit at the United Nations General Assembly. Photo / AP
COMMENT:
There comes a time in an opinion writer's career when he has to stand shoulder to shoulder with his old white male colleagues and shout: "I'm as mad as hell about Greta Thunberg and I'm not going to take this anymore."
Where to begin cataloguing the number of waysin which this cheeky Nordic has crossed the line?
For a start there's the fact that she seems to have a greater grasp of the English language than I do. You can understand every word she says. Not only that but she uses this skill to marshal facts and organise them into reasoned arguments which would take an unconscionable amount of time to build up reasonable counter-arguments against, forcing myself and others like me to lower ourselves to responding with personal attacks. Which no one likes doing, though goodness knows they're easier than using our brains.
That said, I don't like the way she gets all emotional at times. It's uncomfortable for a male watching a teenage girl getting a bit weepy, and she should try to remember that when she's addressing the United Nations on behalf of her generation and generations to come. No need to get excited.
It's equally annoying that in a single year, since she went on her one-person school strike to highlight climate change, this vexatious child has shown that an individual can start something that can mobilise thousands, disproving the argument that one person acting alone is powerless in face of a seemingly intractable problem.
She has stared down and stood up to world leaders who are many times her age, thus showing that she has more courage than I will ever be able to lay claim to, which is, frankly, a bit embarrassing.
She refuses to accept defeat. Against the combined forces of climate crisis deniers and people who just can't stand anyone under 50 with an opinion she has continued to make her eloquent case heard around the world. She just doesn't seem to know how to give up. It's a pity they don't teach that in the Swedish school system. Oh, that's right, she's on strike.
She annoyed that nice Mr Trump and reduced him to using sarcasm – the lowest form of wit - on twitter, when he was already having a tough week.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, far left, and young environmental activists look on as Greta Thunberg, of Sweden, far right, addresses the Climate Action Summit. Photo / AP
And while everyone goes on about how plucky and independent she is, did you know that she's not even doing it all on her own? She has the support of her family. How galling is that? How dare she have a loving, caring family who are happy to back her in her mission?
It's possible that some people might compare Thunberg to myself and my colleagues and conclude that she has shown us up as vapid and vacuous, sad dullards past their use-by date, ignoring the fact that we are right not because of what we say or do but just because of who we are.
She has Asperger's syndrome. Yet she refuses to accept that it's a disability and goes about doing what she wants to regardless, instead of curling up in a ball in a corner like a normal disabled person would.
And she's just - you know – different, when I would like everyone in the world to be the same. Like me.
But she seems to have a particular bias against old white guys like me, making us the main target of her bleatings. And there you see her exposed as the hypocrite she is. You never hear her saying anything about all those 16-year-old Swedish girls who aren't doing anything about climate change, of which I'm sure there must be some.
Honestly, much more of this and we old white male commentators might just give up.
