Friday, December 28, 2018

PETER GLEICK


It's too late to Save Earth:  Face Climate Change Fatalism and Face Facts: we are doomed doomed in 30 more generations. That's not climate fatalism. That's climate realism.



MAJA SUSLIN VIA GETTY IMAGES
Forest fires burning near Ljusdal, Sweden on July 18, 2018.


You reap what you sow. The chickens have come home to roost. The ship has sailed. The s**t has hit the fan. The English language has no shortage of idioms describing lost opportunities and the consequences of failing to act. And we’ve failed to act on human-caused climate change. It is here, with a vengeance.
We see it in massive wildfires sweeping across the western United States, Scandinavia, Canada and Siberia; the brutal heat waves and rising seas; dying coral reefs and acidifying oceans; the destruction of the Arctic and melting of Antarctica; crop failures and supercharged hurricanes.
We told you so, over and over, but you wouldn’t listen. (There, I got that off my chest.)
Kudos to The New York Times and Nathaniel Rich for publishing “Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change” ―  a comprehensive look back at the history of the climate science and political debates that went on from 1979 to 1989. It tells part of the story of the massive scientific work that went into trying to understand the risks greenhouse gas emissions pose to the planet and then the ― ultimately stymied ― efforts of some climate scientists, advocates and politicians to move that science onto the agenda of American and then international policymakers.
The piece begins on a misleading note, stating in the prologue that: “The obstacles we blame for our current inaction had yet to emerge. Almost nothing stood in our way — nothing except ourselves.” Yet the rest of the article makes it quite clear that the nascent efforts to slow damaging greenhouse gases emissions were stopped not by public opposition or ineffective communication by scientists, but by the clear ideological opposition of conservative Republicans and the Bush White House.
Rich also downplays the direct role that the fossil fuel industry played at the time in both hindering scientific research, hiding what was known (even to them), funding what was to become a massive effort on the part of the climate denial community and buying influence among politicians. That campaign, well catalogued by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway in their book “Merchants of Doubt,” was fueled by hundreds of millions of dollars of “dark money” that was directed to pseudo-scientific organizations, fake “think tanks” and conservative ideologues.
The world didn’t stop in 1989. Nearly 30 years have gone by and while the basic facts of climate change were well known back then, scientific certainty about climate change has continued to be improved, refined and advanced. The “signal” that humans are changing the climate, which appeared in the late 1980s rising above the “noise” of natural fluctuations in climate, has become a klaxon, blaring its warning.
Doomsday scenarios are not inevitable. Progress is being made almost everywhere, except at the national level of the United States.
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International negotiations have also continued every year to try to find a path forward. At every turn, ideological powers in the U.S., together with a small group of aligned nations (often dominated by fossil fuel producers and interests), continue to block any meaningful agreement.
It’s too late to stop severe climate change – indeed we see it around us. But it is absolutely not too late to slow the rate of climate change, to accelerate the transition away from coal, and then oil, and then natural gas to the diverse and increasingly inexpensive and effective suite of renewable energy options available to us. We can, and must, still act.
As the Times piece notes, we’ve lost the opportunity to prevent one degree Celsius of warming and without prompt and dramatic efforts almost certainly cannot prevent two degrees of warming. That’s bad enough: It’s probably sufficient to destroy the Arctic ice cap, most shallow tropical reefs, much of the snowpack in the world’s mountain ranges and lead to more extreme floods and droughts. But continued inaction will lead to much worse. Three or four degrees warming – which by the way was enough to mark the difference between planetary ice ages and warm interglacial periods – would wipe out all major coastal cities that can’t spend the literally hundreds of billions of dollars or more needed to build massive seawalls, destroy dozens of low-lying island nations, and make vast areas near the equator brutally – and perhaps unbearably – hot. Five degrees is simply unthinkable.
The good news is that these doomsday scenarios are not inevitable. Progress is being made almost everywhere, except at the national level of the U.S. Other nations, many U.S. states, local governments, responsible companies and individuals are moving forward. Emissions have flattened over the last several years and are starting to come down in many places. The delays of the past 40 years have committed the planet to unprecedented changes and will impose severe costs on all of us, especially on the poorest populations without the resources to adapt. But even more extreme costs can still be prevented if our politicians and the public can put aside blind ideology, anti-science rhetoric and short-term thinking for the sake of our children and the planet.

Peter H. Gleick is a hydroclimatologist and member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. His work on climate and water in the mid-1980s highlighted the threat of climate change for water resources and mountain snowpack. His research institute, the Pacific Institute, did the first comprehensive assessments of the threat of sea-level rise for the California coast. And his early writings in the 1980s highlighted the threat of climate change for national security, peace and conflict.

Monday, December 24, 2018

''Great American Desert'' -- a collection of short stories by Terese Svoboda PUB DATE MARCH 2019

Hi Dan,

Having just received a starred review in Kirkus for my 18th book, sixth novel, ''Great American Desert,'' I was hoping you might be interested in its cli-fi underpinnings. Great American Desert will be published in March 2019 by Mad Creek Books. About water and thirst, psychic and real, the book encompasses life above the Ogallala aquifer from the pre-historic Clovis to “projections” camped beside a pink pyramid in a sci-fi prairie.

 My book is a little doom-y but the characters are alive!

PS:  I will be doing a reading from the book in Chicago in April with a cli-fi expert, Sarah Dimick. 
https://www.english.northwestern.edu/people/faculty/dimick-sarah.html


Tom McGuane: "Terese Svoboda has brought a poet's lyrical intensity and factual density to prose fiction, and writes like no one else." 

Karen Russell: "Great American Desert is a devious and extraordinary new collection of stories from one of our best writers, Terese Svoboda." 

Michael Martone: "Terese Svoboda in her truly miraculous collection of alchemic fictions, Great American Desert, conjures up and turns inside out that landscape of vast wastes, turning it into a teeming ecosystem of understatement...I'm blown away." 

All best,

Terese Svoboda






Thursday, December 20, 2018

Climate science and environmental reporters finding new outlets by pitching cli-fi news articles

For many freelance science and environmental reporters, most story pitches to newspaper and magazine editors focus on hard science. They usually include charts and statistics, interviews and quotes from professors and scientists in their offices or labs. While some target more educated readers, most are aimed at the general reader.

But there is another kind of freelance science communication story that targets the general audience and has the power to engage them in new ways. That's an article that combines science and novel writing for a new literary genre that's been dubbed ''cli-fi'' for ''climate fiction.'' And it's increasingly being pitched to editors in the United States, Canada, Israel, Britain, France and Australia.

Think ''science fiction,'' but change the story to novels and movies about climate change issues, such as Barbara Kingsolver's "Flight Behavior" and Kim Stanley Robinson's "New York 2140" and Nathaniel Rich's cli-fi satire "Odds Against Tomorrow."

I've been pitching freelance climate-related news articles to newspaper and magazine editors for over ten years now. The New York Times, The Guardian, The Atlantic magazine, and dozens of other English-language outlets worldwide are now open to freelance reporters with a science background and a literary bent.

Novels and movies about climate issues can be PR tools for climate communication writers. But they also work as a science communications tool for readers who might otherwise shy away from ''boring'' climate change news stories full of government stastistics and scientific charts.

And it's a way to connect freelance science reporters to a host of publications now willing to consider climate-themed news articles with a literary theme. In addition to the New York Times and the Guardian newspapers, they include the the BBC, Slate, Salon, Huffington Post, CNN, Sierra magazine, The New Republic, The Nation, High Country News, college alumni magazines and dozens of in-flight magazines which are always looking for unique kinds of articles.

Other magazines and websites that have accepted such news articles include Pacific Standard, Earth Island Journal and the Chicago Review of Books, where critic Amy Brady now writes a monthly column devoted to literary trends.

Not every newspaper or internet reader is attuned to hard science or breaking climate change news. Many readers, however, will be sucked into an article that highlights a literary story that explores those issues in an accurate and scientific way.

My goal as a PR consultant is to inspire and motivate more science and environment writers to do stories that explore the intersection of climate change issues with literature and cinema, arts and culture. What I want to do is help science journalists writers pitch their stories around this new literary term.

For example, I assisted J.K. Ullrich pitch a story (“Climate Fiction: Can Books Save the Planet?”) that was published on the Atlantic to global applause. I helped Rodge Glass in London get a climate-themed news story published in The Guardian.

Also, James Sullivan placed an article in Literary Hub, an online literary magazine. Lily Rothman did a big story in Time magazine about summer climate movies. The New York Times did a widely-read “Room for Debate” forum with five literary and science experts about the rise and usefulness of climate-themed novels and movies.

Hannah Fairfield at the Climate Desk at The New York Times is always looking for innovative stories about climate novels and movies and how they intersect with climate science and current politics. Pamela Paul at The New York Times Book Review is also warming up to pitches from freelancers about the rise of this new literary genre.

One story that has yet to be written, or even pitched as far as I know (hint hint), is about how the book industry is taking to the new genre. Interviews and quotes from publishers, literary agents, literary critics, public relations and marketing people at major and even small publishers would make a compelling article for someone to pitch and write and publish.

Finally, you might use your Twitter feed to pitch ideas globally to potential editors.  Many publications around the world would love to see some freelance pitches for climate-themed literary news articles in their regions of the world. Think India, Australia, France, Germany, Sweden, South Africa, New Zealand, Mexico, Israel.

Tuesday, December 18, 2018

SCREAMERS: a cli-fi short story by Frederick Foote

SCREAMERS -- a climate-themed cli-fi short story by Frederick Foote
“I don’t dream. I quit dreaming. Turned it off. I try not to feel for anyone.” A dystopian short story where humanity wanes in the bed it made for itself…

LINK TO ORIGINAL TEXT
http://acrossthemargin.com/screamers/

I‘m scavenging, a mile or so from my base camp. It feels good to be above ground on a rare mellow day like this. The sun feels like a warm massage on my neck and face. The breeze, a gentle caress. I breathe deeply. How beautiful it would be to live above ground all the time, every day. But that’s impossible with the storms and the fires and the Screamers. I have found a pharmacy that’s mostly intact and I’m leaving with antibiotics, analgesics, bandages, and canned food in my backpack. I’m half a block away from the drug store when the shrieking starts behind me. I have been spotted.
I’m fucked, I think. I can’t outrun them. This is new territory for me. I don’t have a bolt hole.
A second screeching voice joins the first.
I run.
A third Screamer joins in, this time much closer to me.
I pick up the pace.
Ahead is a bank with locked doors and a a broken window. Maybe there is a hiding place in there, I consider. A Screamer’s stalking cry comes from deep within the bank.
Then, there’s a howling from my left.
Just past the bank I see an apartment building, broken entry doors, and a shattered glass covered floor.
I dash in, find the stairwell, taking two steps at a time.
On the second floor, I hear the first-floor door slam open. The roaring scream echoes up the stairwell.
I exit at the second floor and spy an ax, its bloody edge resting a few feet from the stairwell door. Without hesitation I pounce on it.
The screaming grows louder.
I slip the blade of the ax between the stairwell door and the floor. I lie on the floor, my back against the opposite wall. I kick and kick and wedge the ax in place.
The Screamer hits the door like a wrecking ball. The door shudders.
A weaker attack. The dumb-ass must have broken its shoulder or arm.
Another new scream followed by two more.
There’s a frantic pounding on the door amid ear-piercing sounds of rage and frustration. Tumbling, banging, snarling, ripping, cries of pain. Their frustration has boiled over. They’re attacking each other, ripping each other apart.
It ends minutes later with whimpering moans, and a few weak strikes against the door. I keep my foot on the ax.
How did it come to this?
I remember my wife, Mona, roaring in satisfaction while ripping Patsy, our six-year-old daughter, to pieces. I recall the impact of the bullet from my brother Jim’s revolver snapping Mona’s head back. The sound of the gun brings Screamers running to my house. We run. I get away. Jim doesn’t.
The tears come as I lay against the door. A tsunami. I curl into a ball. I can’t stop crying.
Eventually, I crawl into an apartment. I wipe away the snot and tears and use my two-way radio to call home base.
“Home Base, this is Randell.”
The response’s immediate.
“Randell, where the fuck are you? Are you okay?”
“Fine, I’m okay. I’m in an apartment building, second floor, near 5th and “V” streets. I’m okay.”
“What happened?”
“Screamers were up early this morning. They chased me up here.”
“Okay, can you make it home? I can’t risk anyone to help you.”
“I’ll be okay. I’ll make my way back at dusk. Thelma, I’m tired. I’ll call back before I leave.”
“No. Listen, HQ says these creatures are learning, planning, setting traps for us. You have to be extremely careful.”
“It’s only been six months. How can they adapt so quickly?”
“HQ doesn’t have an explanation. I just know it’s more dangerous out there than ever.”
“Copy. Thelma, be safe.”
“Click, Click”
Fuck! Six months ago, we were consumed with worry over the massive fires, floods, windstorms, and earthquakes. Nathan Fuller, the philosopher, warned us, “We’re part of nature. We may be severely impacted by Climate Change.”
I knew Nathan. He was a friend and a colleague. However, I didn’t understand what he was saying. The Maniac virus struck six months ago after his prophetic warning. The virus impacted only twelve percent of the population worldwide. Unfortunately, it had a more significant impact on cities and areas with high population density. It was an airborne virus with a twenty-four hour incubation period. The virus turned its victims into raging homicidal maniacs — Screamers, as they began to be known. I understand Nathan now.
Governments collapsed within months along with commercial systems, global communications and transportation networks. All was gone in a flash.
Then the climate and weather changes grew more severe.
And now here we are.
I don’t dream. I quit dreaming. Turned it off.
I try not to feel for anyone.
I squash any sign of hope.
I try to stay busy. Scavenging. Hunting them. KP duty. I just have to keep moving.
Dusk and dawn disorient the Screamers, makes them drowsy, docile, nearly inert. But those are really short hunting seasons. The rest of the time, they hunt us.
“Wham! Bam! Bang!”
What the fuck? They’re back at the door. Shit. I scramble back to the door. The ax’s still in place.
“Open up. Please, open up. We saw you run in here. Please. Please!”
Three or four different voices. Is a child with them? Stupid fucks. Their banging’s going to bring Screamers.
“Shut the fuck up! Be quiet.”
They hear me. That makes them even louder. More desperate. More noise.
I hear the screams in the distance.
I feel the panic outside the door.
The ax is wedged in tight. I can’t move it. I don’t want to move it.
I go back to the apartment. Close the door. Cover my ears.
I wait for dusk.

Imagine this: Greta Thunberg speaks out for the right of Taiwan to join next year's COP 25 climate conference in Chile

UPDATE: Is 15-year-old Swedish schoolchild Greta Thunberg being "used" and "instrumentalized" by well-meaning adults but in an unhealthy, unethical manner? https://korgw101.blogspot.com/2018/12/is-15-year-old-swedish-schoolchild.html AGREE? DISAGREE? Please COMMENT RSVP. All views welcome, pro and con!

=====================


Let's hear it for tiny Taiwan.

And let's hope the popular 15-year-old Swedish climate actvist Greta Thunberg will start speaking up for Taiwan, too. She has the chops, she has the voice, she has the guts. She has stood up to the world's leaders already. Let's hope she will find it within herself next year to stand up for Taiwan, too.

Here's the story:

As the current time, due to the glaringly arrogant stance and geo-political pressure from the Chinese Communist Party dictatorship of communist China in Beijing, there is one tiny democratic country -- yes, Taiwan, with a population of 23 million people  -- that has every year been excluded in participating at the annual international climate change conferences each year, no matter what country the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change takes place in.

This year it was Poland. Next year, in November 2019, COP 25 will take place in Chile, with a pre-COP meeting in Costa Rica. The Chile conference will be held from November 11-22.


With headlines like "Teenage activist inspires school strikes to protest climate change after telling leaders they are ‘not mature enough’" describing the the way the brave Greta has spoken out about the need to change the way politicians the world over have been immatutely dealing with climate change issues, wouldn't it be a shock to see Greta stand in front of microphone next year and speak directly to Chinese leader Xi Jiping and ask him to stop being so ''immature'' and to allow Taiwan to join the international climate talks next year in Chile. [If not as a direct participant, then at least as an offiical observer, with proper press passes given out to working journalists from Taiwan covering the event in South America.]


Since Taiwan is not a member of the U.N., it has has been blocked by communist China from engaging in the many organizations and institutions of the U.N., including participation in meetings related to the annual COP climate conferences.

In 2018, Taiwan was not allowed to take part in the COP24 in Poland, although a Taiwanese delegation of more than 60 representatives from different government agencies flew to Poland to meet with participants on the ''sidelines'' of the conference.

As a result, the Taiwanese delegation was able to hold 38 bi-lateral meetings with representatives from its diplomatic allies and Taiwan-friendly nations, and also met with Tuvalu’s prime minister, environmental ministers and parliamentarians from several countries. The group also highlighted Taiwan’s carbon reduction efforts in the energy, manufacturing, transportation, real estate, agricultural and environmental sectors, according to sources in Taipei.

During the conference, Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs placed billboard advertisements on buses and trams bearing the words “Combating climate change, Taiwan can help” to showcase Taiwan’s soft power, the sources said.

The COP24 in Poland, which attracted 18,000 ''official'' delegates from around the world, concluded with the adoption of a deadline for hashing out the Paris Agreement “rule book,” the operating manual needed for when the global deal comes into force in 2020. But Taiwan was not allowed to participate.

Surely, Greta Thunberg could use her international speaking platform to say soon to China's leader: "Xi Jiping, stop being immature. Tear down your walls of prejudice and bias. Let Taiwan in for the next round of COP talks in Chile in 2019."

Greta could say, for all the world to hear: "I am truly flabbergasted and annoyed by the UN's action of stopping Taiwan not even to have observer status, due to pressure from communist China. Leaders of countries around the world should say to China enough is enough. What they are doing is unacceptable. Once upon a time communism was the common enemy because many of us were democratic countries. Now because of economic concerns, leaders of the world and the UN are prepared to sleep with the devil if necessary. They seem to forget that the institution that was set up to protect and put things in place to prevent a third world war is not doing the work it was destine to do. China is a country which fails to abide by human rights values, even when it comes to the persecution of Muslim and Christian religious groups.''
 .
Greta Thunberg is the little girl that could.

She has become an international climate activist superstar, and more power to her.

Let's hope she speaks up for Taiwan's right to participate in next year's climate conference in Chile, COP 25.

Don't cop out, Greta. Speak up for Taiwan. If anyone can do it, you can.

Monday, December 17, 2018

A tale of two young climate activists: Comparing Greta Thunberg in Poland in 2018 -- and Severn Suzuki in Rio in 1992




It's great when young people take an interest in important issues, be it school bullying or racial discrimination or social justice or climate change. Take Greta Thunberg, the now world-famous 15-year-old Swedish schoolchild whose mom and dad are vocal climate activists and very famous celebrities in Sweden on their own. In December 2018, Greta made made global headlines for her impassioned speech to U.N. climate conference caught most of the adults there by surprise.

Greta, yes, addressed, inspired and challenged the U.N.'s recently-concluded climate summit in Poland  and she has increased pressure on climate issues through her world famous ''school strike against climate change'' outside the Swedish parliament building in Stockholm.

Three cheers for Greta Thunberg.



Now let's go back 25 years or so, to the global climate summit in Rio when a 12--year-old girl from Canada, Severn Suzuki, the daughter of Canadian climate activist David Suzuki, who also made an impassioned six-minute speech to the adults assembled there. Her short speech went viral, later went up on YouTube, and is still being watched in 2018 by thousands of people, young and old, on YouTube as we speak. 

She became a celebrity, went to Yale, married a Canadian Haida man, gave birth to two bi-cultural children and now in her 30s still remains active in Canada and in global climate discussions.

At the age of 12, she silenced the world for six minutes at the first U.N. Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. Her married name is Severn Cullis-Suzuki, and she is active online on Twitter and other social media platforms.  As daughter of environmental guru David Suzuki, she caught the world's attention in 1992 and she later became an activist and environmentalist in her own right.

In 1992, Severn, just 12, addressed a room of delegates at the Rio conference, and left them all speechless.

"Our group of four Canadian kids felt it was important to go," Cullis-Suzuki says now, reflecting on what happened then, many years later. "We figured it was going to be mostly old men, sitting around, making decisions that are going to affect our future and the future generation. So we wanted to go as the conscience -- as a reminder to those decision makers, who their decisions would truly affect."

Like Greta Thunberg's speech in Poland, Severn's six-minute speech revealed her fears over the state of the environment, and her concerns for generations to come.

“You don't know how to fix the holes in our ozone layer,” she said in 1992 in Rio. “You don't know how to bring salmon back up a dead stream. You don't know how to bring back an animal now extinct. And you can't bring back forests that once grew where there is now desert. If you don't know how to fix it, please stop breaking it!”

It was an intensely passionate, personal and provocative plea to the Rio delegates then, and it remains powerful even today in 2018.

Just as in the case of Greta in Poland, policy makers from around the world gave Severn a standing ovation. Then U.S. Vice President Al Gore told her she made the best speech at the summit.

At just 12 years of age, Severn was propelled onto the world stage, and became known as an environmental activist to watch.

Just as Greta, just 15, has been propelled to the world stage now and will remain the that stage for many years to come.

Today, Cullis-Suzuki might have some good advice for Greta, too.

 "After that Rio speech in 1992, I began to lead two lives, one being a kid and the other starting to speak internationally about the environment and advocating for social and environmental justice. So that [speech] had a really big impact on my life."

The video of Severn's Rio speech has been viewed more than 20 million times online, but ask her now if she was successful, the answer isn't easy.

"It's hard to gauge whether you've had an affect in changing people's awareness," she told a reporter. "I think now these many years later is a good time to ask 'have we been successful in changing the world to become more sustainable?' I think we have not."

Cullis-Suzuki says that more than two decades since she gave that speech in Rio, many of the world's environmental problems are worse. 

"Looking to at things now, we're looking for solutions, for a paradigm shift. That's what I want," she shares. "It didn't happen back then, we need it now."

As Greta Thunberg grows up into her late teens and early 20s and then moves into her 30s and 40s, she too will have time to look back and reflect on what she achieved and didn't achieve with her famous climate speech in Poland in 2018. In the future, Greta might become a novelist, a documentary film director, a TV reporter for Swedish news programs tracking climate issues. She will have plenty of things to say and we need to listen to her.

So two amazing climate activists who started out very young, one a Canadian dreamer, and the other a Swedish dreamer. If yuou have time, compare the online videos of their two separate speeches "to the adults in the room," first from 1992 and the second from 2018.


And then ask yourself this; will another young person, perhaps a girl or a boy, a person of color this time, someone from Africa or Asia or the Middle East or Alaska or Greenland or Taiwan take the world stage in the year 2045 and deliver another impassioned climate speech to the adults in the room? And will anyone be listening then?





In Swedish the term is ''instrumentaliserad'' (instrumentalized)

UPDATE:
''Dear Sir,
Thank you for sharing this blog link. Too much exposure to media coverage might not be so good for a 15 year old child. If her parents wrote her speech and asked her to go on stage, then this can be called instrumentalizing the child no matter how well intentioned they may be. If, however, Greta wrote this speech and wanted to read it herself, and the parents agreed, then this is not instrumentalizing.  At this point, I think the parents should not allow the media to run after Greta and  keep her away from journalists.
What do you think?
Happy Holdiays
S.



'' shows lets hope she won’t be (too much).''

another comment came in:

"No, I don't agree with this post. Greta is totally authentic.

''You seem to forget the harshness of our dilemma. Greta is just one of the billions to be sacrificed. 

''Very few humans are reacting to a global disaster now unfolding. 

''we need a million Gretas


''The media circus is a circus. Fun for about an hour, then tedious and a waste of effort. Media is angry with her since she is ruining the frenzied orgy of adult idiocy.''

''We have been so insulated until now... So our biggest challenge will be learning to witness suffering.''

[Notice that the letters of ''GRETA'' can also be re-arranged and spelled ''GREAT''!]

Now listen to this plea from a compassionate and empathetic adult who has been watching the media circus around Greta with concern and sensitivity to Greta's future growth as a human being.

It's great when young people take an interest in important issues, be it school bullying or racial discrimination or social justice or ... climate change. But at the same time, in the case of Greta Thunberg the now world-famous 15 year old Swedish schoolchild whose mom and dad are vocal climate activists and very famous celebrities in Sweden on their own, we need to remember and protect young people from exploitation by well-meaning adults who might be using her for their own well-intentioned purposes to sound the alarm about climate climate change, but are the adults of Sweden and the USA and the UK and Australia "intrumentalizing" [instrumentaliserad] Greta for their own ends? Is what the media is doing to her and for her and with her ethical or unethical? Are students are ''oracles'' or ''redeemers'' to be crowned and followed? Some newspapers in Sweden have already compared her with Jesus Christ. Is this a good thing do to her, for her, for us?

Jesus Christ is now a 15 year old autistic climate activist who speeches are written by her parents and other adults for her? 

Kids are vulnerable and susceptible, precisely because they're kids. And they have a right to dignity and integrity, as does Greta. That's true regardless of how justified their views are and however much they want to be in the limelight, and irrespective of how good the cause they stand for is. 

Is Greta  being used in an unhealthy, unethical manner? Is she being instrumentalized by adults who mean well but who might be setting up something that later on they will wish they had not set up? Can Greta live up to all the hype she has been thrust into?

What will become of her in future years? We need to consider her needs too?

What does it mean to instrumentalize someone? The dictionary puts it this way: ''To make someone into an instrument for achieving a goal.''  


Greta Thunberg, yes, has addressed, inspired and challenged the UN's recently-concluded climate summit in Poland  and she has increased pressure on climate issues through her world famous climate strike outside the Swedish parliament building in Stockholm.

But how much media exposure is too much? Where will all this lead? How will all this end?


Is this also about the untimely and unethical exploitation of a child?  Should we exploit a child to save the climate? But what if it ends up causing her stress in her future life, because the climate struggle is not going to produce results she wants ever or soon. We know that. She does not know how the adult world operates. Someone is writing her speeches for her. She is the actor putting those words into the world's media and videos on Youtube, but how will this end for Greta? She is a sensitive and vulnerable young person, mature beyond her age, for sure, but still a human being who needs to be protected, too.

The struggle for the climate must be based on human rights. 

Is she to be called an "oracle" or a "savior" all of her teenage years, and then what? What happens to her in her 20s and 30s?

The Swedish Church on Twitter appointed Greta Thunberg to be Jesus' successor. Isn't that going a bit too far?

The issue here is not about being for or against the climate fight, but whether you are for or against the media exploitation of children. The public can be tough. So is it acceptable to use children in the climate debate, no matter how good the purpose is? I say this not to silence Greta, but to protect her. Understanding the difference is an important part of us being adults.

===============

Here is a comment that came in from a middle-aged woman in Canada, an academic pHD,  who didn't mince her words, writing: 

''Expressed with a false concern for protecting young girls, this editorial is blatantly sexist and ageist, patronizing in its tone of syrupy concern. Insinuating that Greta is not writing her own speeches is very familiar to those of us who heard the Taliban's malicious slander against Malala Yousafzai: they claimed that her father was writing her words because "a girl could never write" such powerful words in favor of girls' education. ''

''Now we have a Swedish girl speaking passionately and powerfully about her beliefs in justice, and the links between these two articulate girls (and their detractors) in terms of generational justice, gender justice, and climate justice cannot be overlooked.''

''If there's a church in Sweden that wants to compare Greta with Jesus, it does not concern me -- more important is the value of recognizing climate sexism, and making ensure that Greta and her timely message are not crucified by the media.''

==============================
UPDATE December 25, Chrismass Day 2018:

by staff write with agency:

It's great when young people take an interest in important issues, be it school bullying or racial discrimination or social justice or climate change. Take Greta Thunberg, the now world-famous 15-year-old Swedish schoolchild whose mom and dad are vocal climate activists and very famous celebrities in Sweden on their own. In December 2018, Greta made made global headlines for her impassioned speech to U.N. climate conference caught most of the adults there by surprise.

Greta, yes, addressed, inspired and challenged the U.N.'s recently-concluded climate summit in Poland  and she has increased pressure on climate issues through her world famous ''school strike against climate change'' outside the Swedish parliament building in Stockholm.

Three cheers for Greta Thunberg.

Now let's go back 25 years or so, to the global climate summit in Rio when a 12--year-old girl from Canada, Severn Suzuki, the daughter of Canadian climate activist David Suzuki, who also made an impassioned six-minute speech to the adults assembled there. Her short speech went viral, later went up on YouTube, and is still being watched in 2018 by thousands of people, young and old, on YouTube as we speak. She became a celebrity, went to Yale, married a Canadian Haida man, gave birth to two bi-cultural children and now in her 30s still remains active in global climate discussions.

At the age of 12, she silenced the world for six minutes at the first U.N. Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. Her married name is Severn Cullis-Suzuki, and she is active online on Twitter and other social media platforms.  As daughter of environmental guru David Suzuki, she caught the world's attention in 1992 and she later became an activist and environmentalist in her own right.

In 1992, Severn, just 12, addressed a room of delegates at the Rio conference, and left them all speechless.

"Our group of four Canadian kids felt it was important to go," Cullis-Suzuki says now, reflecting on what happened then, many years later. "We figured it was going to be mostly old men, sitting around, making decisions that are going to affect our future and the future generation. So we wanted to go as the conscience -- as a reminder to those decision makers, who their decisions would truly affect."

Like Greta Thunberg's speech in Poland, Severn's six-minute speech revealed her fears over the state of the environment, and her concerns for generations to come.

“You don't know how to fix the holes in our ozone layer,” she said in 1992 in Rio. “You don't know how to bring salmon back up a dead stream. You don't know how to bring back an animal now extinct. And you can't bring back forests that once grew where there is now desert. If you don't know how to fix it, please stop breaking it!”

It was an intensely passionate, personal and provocative plea to the Rio delegates then, and it remains powerful even today in 2018.

Just as in the case of Greta in Poland, policy makers from around the world gave Severn a standing ovation. Then U.S. Vice President Al Gore told her she made the best speech at the summit.

At just 12 years of age, Severn was propelled onto the world stage, and became known as an environmental activist to watch.

Just as Greta, just 15, has been propelled to the world stage now and will remain the that stage for many years to come.

Today, Cullis-Suzuki might have some good advice for Greta, too.

 "After that Rio speech in 1992, I began to lead two lives, one being a kid and the other starting to speak internationally about the environment and advocating for social and environmental justice. So that [speech] had a really big impact on my life."

The video of Severn's Rio speech has been viewed more than 20 million times online, but ask her now if she was successful, the answer isn't easy.

"It's hard to gauge whether you've had an affect in changing people's awareness," she told a reporter. "I think now these many years later is a good time to ask 'have we been successful in changing the world to become more sustainable?' I think we have not."

Cullis-Suzuki says that more than two decades since she gave that speech in Rio, many of the world's environmental problems are worse. 

"Looking to at things now, we're looking for solutions, for a paradigm shift. That's what I want," she shares. "It didn't happen back then, we need it now."

As Greta Thunberg grows up into her late teens and early 20s and then moves into her 30s and 40s, she too will have time to look back and reflect on what she achieved and didn't achieve with her famous climate speech in Poland in 2018. In the future, Greta might become a novelist, a documentary film director, a TV reporter for Swedish news programs tracking climate issues. She will have plenty of things to say and we need to listen to her.

So two amazing climate activists who started out very young, one a Canadian dreamer, and the other a Swedish dreamer. If you have time, compare the online videos of their two separate speeches "to the adults in the room," first from 1992 and the second from 2018.


And then ask yourself this; will another young person, perhaps a girl or a boy, a person of color this time, someone from Africa or Asia or the Middle East or Alaska or Greenland or Taiwan take the world stage in the year 2045 and deliver another impassioned climate speech to the adults in the room? And will anyone be listening then?