Annapurna Express, October 4th, 2019
“Change is coming, whether you like it or
not.”
Wise words from a sixteen year old that is
lost amongst the clamor of panicking adults who can’t see beyond their own
narrow confines of belief and bank accounts. Greta Thunberg has blown the conch
shell, metaphorically speaking. In Hindu mythology, the conch shell was blown
at the beginning of a battle of good over evil. In the Mahabharata, the world’s
longest epic, a long and destructive battle almost destroyed both sides, but
the lesson remains—no matter what the cost, the battle had to be fought to the
bitter end for ethical and moral reasons. Once you entered the fray, there
was no turning back.
The war of the Mahabharata was only 18 days
long. But what intense eighteen days! The epic is rich with extraordinary
characters, plots and events. The Mahābhārata is the longest epic poem known to
humanity. According to Wikipedia: “At about 1.8 million words in total, the
Mahābhārata is roughly ten times the length of the Iliad and the Odyssey
combined.”
And in much the same way, we can see the
unfolding furies and passions of people separating into two battle lines as 16
year old Thunberg blows the couch shell over what may be the biggest battle of
humanity—the fight over the survival of the planet itself. Tied to this battle
is humanity’s survival, and also the survival of all living forms on earth.
For those who believe that their “way of
life” is at risk, and who continue to believe the leftists are using children
to make up alarmist stories to attack their lifestyles, the path forward is
clear—more fossil fuel extraction, more automobiles on the roads, endless
deforestation for palm oil, soy and beef, clearcutting of all of South America
to feed the geometrically multiplying human population. In this scenario,
poverty can only be ended when every single human eats a hamburger a day,
discards 4.6 pounds of disposable plastic each day, and drinks only bottled
water or soda out of plastic bottles. Agriculture will be increasingly “human
free,” and will be done on a war footing with computers, drones and planes
spraying thousands of hectares of land with lethal pesticides that kill every
pest (and every weed, wildflower, bird, bee, earthworm, and beetle in the
vicinity.) This is the vision of progress and affluence pushed by America,
which coincidentally also happens to have the biggest fossil fuel companies,
car companies and fertilizer and pesticide companies listed on their stock
exchanges, enriching their stockholders with this apocalyptic vision of
progress.
When Greta Thunberg took a sailboat from
Sweden to New York, she was entering the lion’s den—the city where all the
commodities erasing the planet’s lifeforms are traded. Millions of dollars
change hands in Wall Street and around New York everyday, as big finance
companies trade in palm oil, soy, beef, and timber. The lifestyles of those
trading the future security of the coming generation for their own
securities—private jets, brownstones in Manhattan, giant mansions in
Connecticut, dinners at Nobu, holiday homes at Martha’s Vineyard, private
tuition at Ivy Leagues—all depend upon coolly calculative decisions which
prioritize profit over planet everyday.
For these ruling elites, Greta Thunberg and
children like her who speak the truth are a threat. She must be brought down by
the force of public opinion, so the right-wing cavalry marched into action.
Dinesh D’Souza, right-wing extraordinaire, posted a picture of Nazi propaganda
featuring a blue eyed girl with braids and juxtaposed that with a photograph of
Greta “Children—notably Nordic white girls with braids and red cheeks—were
often used in Nazi propaganda. An old Goebbels technique! Looks like today’s
progressive Left is still learning its game from an earlier Left in the 1930s,”
he wrote. Fox host Laura Ingraham compared Greta to a Stephen King story.
Sandipan Deb, former editor of India’s
‘Financial Express’ and founder-editor of ‘Open’ and ‘Swarajya’ magazines, said
“radical-left handlers” are using Thunberg to create a pre-industrial society
akin to Pol Pot’s. On the eve of massive unseasonal floods which left many
people dead in Bihar, Deb wrote:
“Even if global temperatures rise by 1.5
degrees above pre-industrial levels, nothing cataclysmic will happen.”
Deb goes on to claim “crazed leftists” want
to keep the poor in a helpless state, while magnanimous people like him see the
way forward—better research in green energy which will be cheaper and more
attractive than fossil fuel. By a sudden switcheroo, climate activists
clamoring for an end of fossil fuel and for green energy are sudden crazed and
only out to drive people into poverty, while wise people like Mr. Deb of
Swarajya magazine have been calling for green energy all along. Besides the
sleigh of hand of this argument, Mr. Deb expects nobody will notice the
internal contradiction of dismissing the 1.5 degree threshold while seizing the
green energy platform.
Who will win this massive battle for the
survival of all of life? There is no doubt in my mind. It is not the
middle-aged people furiously railing against Thunberg while trying to deviously
confuse us with their bizarre arguments, hoping nobody will notice that their
prime concern is for their stocks and shares. The only winners in this epic
battle are the next generation, who will shape the world according to their own
vision of prosperity.
https://theannapurnaexpress.com/news/how-dare-you-1946
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