Make Earth Greta Again!

Greta Thunberg. Her very name seems to bring chills to both boomers and conservatives alike, doesn't it?

That, and as far as I can tell, stupid people.

People too limited in their intellect to realize what an awful mess we're really in - and slipping deeper into day by day... a mess created by previous generations - but mostly one in particular, who grew up in a post WW2 world of hope and plenty, and indulged - and bulged in excess of everything.

That's the trouble with a consumerist mindset - sooner or later there's nothing left to consume.

The world is in crisis, in case you haven't noticed - and I'm not just talking about the devastating natural disasters, but the wars, economic catastrophes, and social follies - like an increasing tendency for countries to flirt with idiotic conservatives, fascism - and even blatant dictatorships who all spit on human rights.

Baby boomer (and gen X) parents and grandparents have for years been telling people in generation X, Y and millennials how easily they found work, bought homes on a mortgage, and managed to get a university degree on tips they made waitressing or flipping burgers as young 20-somethings - and criticizing them for not "getting off their lazy asses" and doing the same.

That simply doesn't apply today.

For example, in the USA right now - a country that likes to pretend it is the wealthiest and best country on the planet to live in - the cost of living is such that people earning minimum wage have to hold down more than one job to be able to afford the cheapest rental on housing - to say nothing of being able to actually ever buy a home. Instances of people with good paying jobs actually being homeless and sleeping in their car frequently pop up in social media. At the same time, conservatives have brainwashed people into being terrified of "socialism" to the extent that they often can't tell the difference between communism and the very same democratic socialism which provides them with diminishing (again thanks to conservative interference) medi-care and social security.

Why should Joe pay towards some unemployed kid's studies to become a qualified engineer? As if Joe wouldn't benefit from having a safer bridge designed and built by qualified professionals!  Why should Mary pay towards housing homeless families?

It's almost like this trite, conservative "every man for himself" mindset is trying its damned level best to breed compassion and any sense of community or humanity out of us, isn't it? ...Except when they expect people to vote for them as one, right?

For decades the world has been flooded by marketing pushing the message that there's plenty more where that came from: fashions and styles of cars, bigger is better, more cubes in your engine, more toxic gasses in your refrigerators, artificial food flavors, designer GMO fruit and vegetables, designer pets, buildings getting put up and torn down virtually overnight, and everything's easy to find and pay for... credit is king - a throwaway society... replete with throwaway people.

There's plenty more where that came from... right?

Amazingly enough, in 1973 - the year I was born - reality jumped out from behind the door and shouted "BOO!", and for the first time some people took notice. The oil crisis was a wake-up call... but some jackasses appear to have hit the snooze button in the meantime.

That's where we are now, boomers - just in case you're not sure. It's not that there's no fossil fuels left - although they are generally running out, and probably would run out within the next century... it's that we're going to run out of other things sooner - like clean air and water for starters. The mean temperature of the planet - chased up and up by merciless deforestation and increased CO2 content resulting from pollution - has resulted in the rise of perhaps the biggest single environmental threat we've faced since the last ice age.

Oh, I get it - you've got A/C in your car, in your corner office, your holiday home and hunting cabin, your penthouse, or your 6 bedroom mansion - why should that bother you?

Well quite simply put - because the rest of the world doesn't have that luxury, or protection from the heat - or the violent and extreme weather that temperature increase causes. Rivers dry up. Winds and tornadoes destroy property and crops. Wildfires become raging unstoppable infernos - as we've just witnessed in Australia - whose government (run by your generation) still stupidly denies the dangers and reality of climate change.

"Oh, but the fires were started by arsonists!" I hear you repeat, parrot-fashion. Yes, some of them might have been - but firefighters have quickly contained and extinguished wildfires before - and these might've been as well, were it not for the terribly hot and dry conditions that encouraged and enabled these fires to devastate the continent!

After the fires finally burned out - after a billion animals died - people rejoiced because plant-life began to regrow - but then, very quickly, it began to rain... which turned into floods and the dry scorched earth turned into a slurry of mud, washing away top-soil - and turning fertile farm land into desert.

Crops can't grow in the terrible drought and heat. Insects and animals die off due to over-exploitation, fires, chemical poisoning starvation and natural disasters, never to be replaced. Refugees fleeing the consequences of climate change - hunger and extreme poverty, and dangerously high temperatures, clamor to be allowed into wealthier, better-off states - and you cheer as your governments turn them away or throw them into concentration camps. The oceans are polluted and almost fished empty - fishing yields gross less and less with each passing year. What good will your A/C do you when store shelves empty and food prices escalate to the point where not even you could afford them?

Will you devour the poor next, physically - as well as metaphorically, as you have been? Will you consume their bodies as you have their hopes, their dreams - their very souls?

The same fate awaits the rest of the world - coupled with desertification, rising sea levels - with island nations in a panic looking for funding to build sea-walls to prevent their low-lying island paradises from being swallowed up and lost to the ocean.

In the midst of all this madness, an increasing number of politicians - that's right, from the boomer generation - have been taking a stance which is not only anti-science, but also profoundly anti-reality! Most recently, a Nazi stooge by the name of Trump - who has done his level best to sabotage every single environmental protection agency and law since coming to power, and to pander to corporations and billionaires known to profit from the destruction of the environment - referred to scientists giving urgent warnings about the threats posed by climate change as 'alarmists'.

Further, even activists campaigning to pressure governments and corporations to do something to combat climate change are now being labeled by the US government as "domestic terrorists" - while people who walk into night clubs and shoot 20 people on the dance floor with an AR15, or give Nazi salutes while shouting "white power!" are described as "very fine people".

That's insane, right? I mean, what if the world actually listened to scientists - even if they were wrong - and created a clean, safe, beautiful, sustainable world for succeeding generations - why would that in any way be a bad thing?

Aside from the fact that much of this stupidity comes from the corner run by a guy who believes wind turbines cause cancer, spends most of his presidency playing golf at the taxpayer's expense, and can't even spell "hamburger", is this the sort of thing any responsible person, a leader - a parent - would do to his children?

Why should he care anyway - his offspring lives in mansions, has A/C - and shits in golden toilets.

Yet somehow - when a voice of reason speaks up - and is HEARD in spite of the overwhelming obstacles stacked against voices of reason being heard these days - female voices and young voices in particular, asking world leaders to pay heed to scientists... conservatives ad boomers in particular spit out their GMO cornflakes and chemical-infused factory-farmed milk and shout that this "child" should "shut up" because she's "too young to know anything" and complain about how "disrespectfully" she addresses her elders.

Seriously? What do these people imagine these 'world leaders' and alleged 'adults' have ever done to deserve "respect" for?

Being sponsored into power by billionaire cronies handing out money for favors allowing them to get richer at the expense of future generations? Selling off forests and national parks and opening them up to deforestation or mining? (USA, Brazil, the Amazon) Lowering carbon emission standards to allow factories to pollute more? (USA) Scrapping or relaxing laws restricting the release of toxic spillage into the air, rivers, waterways or the ocean? (USA) Encouraged their fishing fleets to trespass into other country's fishing grounds because their own have been exhausted (China)? ... and the list goes on and on.

As if that isn't sick and twisted enough, people who actually think they're being very intelligent for hating on Greta Thunberg in particular, see nothing at all wrong with creating and posting memes showing simulated Greta hair braids sticking out of a car's trunk lid as a hint at how they'd like her to shut up and go away! That's right - they see nothing at all wrong with inciting and making a mockery of threats of violence that have actually been directed at a teenage girl - and for telling the truth no less!

What the hell is wrong with these people? Is there an actual label that fits their condition - one that doesn't contain highly appropriate expletives?

The great irony is, it's not that Greta thinks she can save us - or that she even could - it's that she's trying to get us to save ourselves! 

Some of us, it seems, not only don't want to be saved - they don't accept the facts!

The fact is, her entire message makes perfect sense and has a factual scientific basis - but they reject and mock it because the messenger is a 16  year old female with a higher IQ - but then, in comparison to them, so does a half-eaten turnip. Well, obviously - that 's what irretrievably stupid people do, isn't it?

I see these things in my daily news feed and it makes me fucking sick! If it doesn't have the same effect on you, you should be asking yourself some serious introspective questions!

The first time I became aware of the dangers of pollution and climate change was as a 10 year old child. It was 1983 - thirty-seven years ago - and even then, there were warning signs, and even then it wasn't a new topic! Even then, people - typically your generation, boomers, never listened or took it seriously.

In the above image, pages 6-7 from an Usbourne children's book "Future Cities", first published in 1979, I was introduced to the choice that lay before us.  I say "lay" because it seems you already made that choice for all of us.

When I brought the topic up in discussion, adults would tell me dismissively "it'll never happen, the government will do something to stop it before the time" - or something to that effect. Boomers always seemed to have high confidence in governments to do the right thing, don't they?

Then in 1986, the hole in the ozone layer began to feature strongly, as did oil spills from the Exon Valdez and other tankers and oil pipelines - and radiation fallout like Chernobyl. Emissions regulations began to creep into air-conditioning gasses and aerosol can propellants - and the motoring industry magazines I was a fan of around then too.

Considering the way things are still going today, the world is firmly on its way to the top option in the Usbourne book picture, isn't it? A dying world. "Dead man walking" has nothing on it.

"Oh, but the Earth will be here in billions of years time!" I've seen these delusional denialist idiots claim. Yes, it will - but that won't change the fact that we won't be able to live without clean air, water or food - or in extreme temperatures, does it? The Earth may be here, but in about 100-150 years time, humans - and almost every other species on the planet - may be a distant memory.

The most intelligent land creature may be a cockroach - and even then the average IQ will be higher than the average "conservative" brain today.

Here we are in 2020, and instead of watching flying cars pass by overhead, I have arguments with people who actually insist the moon landings were staged - and that the Earth is flat! Coincidentally these miscreants often tend to cherry-pick science as well as bits of religion that suit them - they believe in UFO's and aliens and marvel at rockets and tech like smart phones and nano-bots, but also conveniently choose to believe "god" will flutter down from on high with little fairy wings and somehow pull the fat out of the fire and save the world from the ravages of climate change! Some of the more barking mad in that crowd even crave the realization of their biblical fantasy that the Earth will be destroyed by fire! It's like something right out of the fucking Twilight Zone!

As if to illustrate my point about the toxicity of this sort of mindset, on the 18th of January a woman  DELIBERATELY drove her car into the path of an oncoming car "to test her faith" - and told cops she "doesn't care if people were injured because 'God would have taken care of them'!" 

Aside from being rendered speechless at the sheer brute force and scale of this women's absolute cerebral dysfunction, lack of empathy and intelligence, this is just one reason at the top of a very, very long list of reasons why I believe organized religion needs to be banned, obliterated, wiped out and utterly erased for the good of the human race!

Imaginary friends are for children who are lonely - not for grown-ass adults trusted with directing the future of nations and the world - and those adults who believe their invisible friends direct their actions, policies (or votes) should be institutionalized - because this is nothing more than blame-shifting and passing the buck for their own complicity and responsibility.

This to me demonstrates the exact same cavalier, diseased, narcissistic mindset with which all the guilty parties - billionaire class capitalists, boomer consumerists, religious demagogues and cult leaders, industrialists, politicians, corporations, oil barons and producers - have casually dismissed warnings about pollution, environmental damage and climate change for decades... as 'alarmism'.

All our futures and our lives - and the lives of future generations - have been held hostage by a shortsighted powerful greedy minority for far too long! The irony is, that the vast majority of Greta's critics are poor or average-income earners themselves - blindly repeating rhetoric they've been spoon-fed by a wealthy elite who are terrified of losing even a penny to any gains made by renewable energy or environmentally conscious change. 

When it comes right down to it, an average middle-class or poor Joe or Jane isn't going to notice a drop in their quality of life if environmentalism gains ground - quite the opposite in fact - but the industrialists will notice a drop in their shares and income, so it's in their financial interests to ensure that there are as many poor, stupid conservatives terrified of the Greta Thunbergs of our time as they can muster. 

Greta Thunberg represents the anger, disillusionment and dread of not just the millennial generation, but also generations X and Y - and a large portion of boomers who can see common sense.

Science says that we're all going to die if something isn't done to stop or reverse the damage STILL being done to our environment. In what fucking way does ignoring that and carrying on fucking up the environment make any sense?

A couple of days ago I noticed comments on a CNN news post on social media, in which Greta was quoted as urging world leaders to pay heed to scientists on matters regarding the environment and climate change. (1)

A lot of the comments came from knuckle-dragging morons waffling on about how "brainwashed" she is, that she's a "propaganda tool for the left", and a "stupid toddler" who deserves to be smacked about for being rude to adults, not to mention a string of ignorant remarks about Asperger's and autism and her being 'retarded' or 'mentally ill'.

One guy's comment drew my attention.

"" They said.

I looked him up - on his profile, he billed himself as a 'mover and shaker', 'business owner' and 'influencer' - basically saying for all intents and purposes that 'next year this time, I'll be a millionaire'. Right - you're part of the problem, mate.

If someone warns you that your house is on fire, the intelligent response is to do something about it - not swear at them, threaten them and tell them to fuck off - and sit inside pretending that the smoke and falling roof tiles and embers add to the kerb appeal - or tell your kids to "work harder" or to believe that "god" will save them.

You had your turn, boomer generation. That's the truth of it - you fucked up. If you can't do something to fix this - then at least support the people trying to fix your fuck-ups! Failing that, the least you can do is stand aside, let them work - and shut up.

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"Blachart" by Christina Engela, narrated by Nigel Peever, now available on Audible.

All Mykl d’Angelo had to do to redeem the other shipwrecks in his life – his lost career in the Imperial Space Fleet and a chance at a relationship with the girl of his dreams - is lead a recon team on a suicide mission behind enemy lines, brave the perils of Meradinis, risking danger and death.

No Problem.

Get it now on Audible.

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If you would like to know more about Christina Engela and her writing, please feel free to browse her website.

If you’d like to send Christina Engela a question about her life as a writer or transactivist, please send an email to christinaengela@gmail.com or use the Contact form.

All material copyright © Christina Engela, 2019.

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