Power

Dear World Leaders,

There was a steaming pile of negative feedback about Greta Thunberg’s speech at the UN Climate Action Summit just after the fact. She’s been criticized for criticizing adults with secondary educations in: how to interact with other people (politics), how to take care of the environment (environmental scientists), and how financial systems work (economy), among others. No one likes to hear that they are failing, that’s part of being human. To err, though, is also human. True failure is not learning from those mistakes and improving upon them. That is why this 16-year-old woman chose to speak at such an important global event. She’s giving those of us who can already do so much more to alter the state of the world the chance to do so – a second chance. Perhaps the last one we will ever receive. As she says, “if you choose to fail us, I say: We will never forgive you.”

However, the negative feedback has not been that she was inherently wrong. No, the feedback is that she does not deserve to be angry or understand the world because she does not have a first degree, let alone a secondary one.

This fact reminds me of a speech Buffy Summers gave in Season 6 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer: “I’ve had a lot of people talking at me the last few days. Everyone just lining up to tell me how unimportant I am. And I’ve finally figured out why: power. I have it. They don’t. This bothers them.”

Neither you, nor I, nor anyone has the right to tell her she is wrong for her feelings of anger at the injustice of this world. In fact, as a secondary degree holder, I can tell you that she understands this world only too well. People are lazy and self-indulgent. We often know that what we are doing – from buying blood diamonds to driving fossil-fueled vehicles – is wrong. Yet changing our ways is inconvenient, so we don’t.

One of my favorite songs as a teenager and still as an adult is “Teenagers, Kick Our Butts” by Dar Williams. The lyrics of this song describe how adults tell teenagers that they don’t know what they are doing because the adults don’t know what they are doing but want to appear intellectual and wise to the younger generation. Teenagers know better. That’s why there were so many songs about rebellion in the 80’s. Teenagers just need to continue doing what they know is best for the future of the world – and we need to learn to grow and love them for it.

Part of that growth would then entail doing our part on all levels - individual, corporate, and federal – to prevent or slow the progress of further climate change. As I have not studied the statistics and science as thoroughly as Thunberg or the policy-makers to whom she lectured, I cannot say what those particular steps would be on corporate or federal levels. I do know that individuals have choices to make in their mode of transportation, the goods they choose to purchase, and what corporations they choose to endorse with their dollar. It is now for the politicians to back up these actions by encouraging and supporting policies that will inevitably improve our world rather than eventually killing it merely for their personal short-term gain.

As my mother always told me, it is much better to do it well - to do it the way it should be done - the first time, than to fix it in the future. As it is, this is the future. This trend of climate change has been an issue since long before I was in elementary school and learning about it. We’re already late. It is tomorrow. The time for action is now.