Be Like Greta

As the Trump Administration continues its relentless attack on the environment through its evisceration of even the most sensible regulations and cynically accedes to industry complaints by severely restricting the effectiveness of the Endangered Species Act, our future existence on this planet may hinge on one woman, or more accurately, one girl, since she is a sixteen-year old introvert from Stockholm named Greta Thunberg. Greta relentlessly crusades for radical changes in human behavior that she believes are necessary to address climate change. Unfortunately, too many of our world leaders, including one ignorant narcissist who loudly proclaims that coal will again be king and acts as if we will rely on fossil fuels forever, are willing to ignore the threat.

Greta first came to our attention through her weekly school strikes in her hometown, inspiring youth around the world to demand that our leaders actually do something to address the danger. Nothing less than the fate of humanity is at stake. Greta has battled severe depression and is an object of both praise and derision. She has been mentioned as a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize. She must be doing something right as she was described by a former member of the Trump transition team as “the ignorant teenage climate puppet.”

Greta lives what she preaches and, in order to minimize the impact of her own carbon footprint, has embarked on a carbon-free two-week journey to the U.S. on a solar-powered racing sailboat in order to attend the next round of the United Nations climate summit. She is taking a year off from school so she can concentrate her efforts on convincing the world that action is imperative.

Of course, those of us who are not in thrall to the fossil fuel folly would agree that the time to act can’t come too soon. But most of us are not willing to give up our SUVs, our annual flights to Europe or our weekly steaks, despite the huge impact raising cattle has on climate change. But maybe we can at least do a little. Or at least think about how our lives contribute to the imminent danger. We may not take our next vacation on a sailboat, but we can at least recognize the message of this modern day Joan of Arc. It shouldn’t take burning her at the stake for us to wake up. Or an accident at sea, as bad boy Brexit backer Arron Banks suggested.