WHEN a teenage girl has an angry, tearful strop, most parents just send them to their rooms until they’ve calmed down. However, when 16-year-old Greta Thunberg got on to the stage at the UN this week and had a full-on adolescent meltdown, she was deafened by the applause

Not from me she wasn’t. Because I was in the bog, being sick.
“You have stolen my dreams and my childhood,” she sobbed.
“We are in the beginning of a mass extinction and all you can talk about is money and fairytales of eternal economic growth. How dare you?”

Right, well in the immortal words of Samuel L Jackson: “Allow me to retort.”
How dare we? No. How dare you sail to America on a carbon fibre yacht that you didn’t build which cost £15million, that you didn’t earn, and which has a back-up diesel engine that you didn’t mention.

SORRY MS THUNBERG
I’m sorry Ms Thunberg, but if you’re going to lay into my generation, you must accept it when I lay into you and yours.
What about the pills you take when you have a headache?
What about the clean water that comes out of your tap? What about the food you can buy at any time of the day and night? No 16-year-old was responsible for any of that.

What about the aid missions currently being run in some of the poorest countries of the world, or the drugs that help keep Aids at bay? Think about all the movies you’ve enjoyed. Movies made by grown-ups. And all those comedians who’ve made you laugh.

And then pause for a moment to consider how soundly you sleep at night, knowing that adults are building and servicing and flying Sweden’s fighter planes. To keep you safe.
We gave you mobile phones and laptops and the internet. We created the social media you use every day and we run the banks that pay for it all. So how dare you stand there and lecture us, you spoilt brat.

SPOILT BRAT

And yes, you are spoilt because when you told your mum and dad to stop using planes and give up meat, they didn’t behave like sane parents and ignore you. They actually said, “Yes, dear.” And did.

What they should have done is point out that life is tragic.

Some people are born bright and some are born stupid.
Some are beautiful and some are not.
Some have rich parents who give them everything but love.
Some have poor parents who have nothing to give except love.

Now shut up and let them get on with it. This is how the world works. It’s how the world has always worked.
And banging your fists on the table won’t change a thing. You’ll learn that when you’ve got a few more years under your belt.

I agree with you that the world is heating up. You may even be right that man has something to do with it.
And there is no doubt that as deserts eat into currently habitable places in Africa and the Middle East, Europe will face an unimaginable refugee crisis.

Something needs to be done about that. So how’s this for an idea. Get back to school as quickly as possible and work hard in your science lectures. Because science is what will solve the problem eventually. Not scowling and having screaming ab-dabs every five minutes.

Many thousands of people who you had the temerity to blame this week are trying to do exactly what you want. So be a good girl, shut up and let them get on with it. And no. You cannot stay out past ten. And you cannot go out in a skirt that short.
Jeremy Clarkson, Columnist The Sun

Source: The Sun