“How dare you!”, these words of the young Swedish girl, Greta Thunberg, addressed to the United Nations at the Opening of the Climate Action Summit 2019, has moved a world. And now it prompts me to start taking this blog seriously. She shows us that words can make a difference. I too want to make a difference.
“How dare you!” It will surprise me if these words will not, in due time, become as immortal and oft-quoted as the words of Martin Luther King Jr. “I have a dream…”. As he stood up speaking for the rights of people of colour, so Greta Thunberg has become the voice of the young generation. She speaks on behalf of the world’s voiceless ecosystems that can do nothing but perish in silence.
“How dare you!” is a sharp rebuke to all men and women of power that have not done everything in their power to stop the pending catastrophe. Due to our lack of consideration for the world’s delicate ecological balance and climate, it is now falling apart. And I dare say we all have some power, albeit be it small, and so we all share the blame.
“How dare you”, she challenges all men and women of age, to place your sole hope in the young generation. How dare you put the burden on the children of today to come up with the technological solutions to avert the doom. How dare you expect the next generation to forsake all comforts after the world has run out of fuel so that you can have it all now.
The morning following Greta Thunberg’s speech to the United Nations, I was alarmed by seeing my partner in tears, mobile phone in hands and beckoning for me to come and listen. Soon, I was crying too. Greta Thunberg’s earnest voice and clear message, her grieved lost childhood and her despair touched us deeply. And yet, she cannot but continue to demand and plead for action concerning the climate. There is no need for you to shed tears, as we did. But all of us do need to take action for the sake of our planet.
Stunning notebooks 