#310 / Too Afraid To Live? (And An Invitation)

 

The picture above is of Greta Thunberg. She is shown as right wing commentator Rod Dreher apparently wants you to think of her. The image comes from one of Dreher's columns in The American Conservative. Dreher titled his column "Generation Greta: Too Afraid To Live."

 

The two pictures immediately below come from Greta Thunberg's own Facebook Page, posted, it appears, on September 24, 2021, the day after Dreher's column appeared:

 

 

Thunberg's photos, which show her speaking in Berlin, were accompanied by this comment:

 

We’re back! Today we were over 100,000 on the strike in Berlin and 620,000 in Germany alone along with many others all over the world, asking world leaders to #UprootTheSystem. There were strikes in over 80 countries! #FridaysForFuture #ClimateStrike.

 

It doesn't look to me like Thunberg is afraid of anything, and those 100,000 other young people pictured with her don't exactly look like fraidy-cats, either. 

There is, of course, a lot we might choose to be "afraid of" as we look at what human-caused global warming is doing to the Natural World. Given that our lives absolutely depend upon the Natural World, we are certainly right to be concerned. "Fear," however, isn't the right reaction, and it's good to see that the postulated fears discussed by Rod Dreher may not be as all-extensive as he suggests.

 

Fear immobilizes, as we each know from our own experience, and hope motivates. It is "hope," not "fear," that we see in the images that Greta Thunberg has provided. 

 

However dire our circumstances, we always have the ability to do something new and different, something that will change the world. Greta Thunberg is doing exactly that!

 

I would like to say, "God bless Greta Thunberg" - and all of those who refuse to be categorized as "too afraid to live." We are all invited to join with others to transform hope into action - and to leave our fears behind. 

There is, in fact, an effort to kick off this process at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where a meeting is convening at 1:00 p.m. today, Saturday, November 6, 2021.* The meeting will be held at the McHenry Library. The hope is to establish an action-oriented "UCSC Climate Coalition."

If that coalition gets off the ground, as I hope it will, maybe I'll send a special invitation to Mr. Dreher, to attend one of the subsequent meetings! I hope he wouldn't be afraid to show his face.

 

__________________________________________________

*FROM THE INVITATION LETTER:

To find out what you can do, what we can all do together, please come to the first meeting of our new campus Climate Coalition at McHenry library this coming Saturday, Nov 6, at 1pm (outside/byo chair if the weather is warm; inside in the cafe area if it is not). Bring your ideas, your concerns, your experience, your passion. Bring a friend! And please share this invitation widely (invite anyone who wants to join this coalition to email me directly). If you are not on campus, you can still help; look for a survey soon.

Image Credits:

(1) - https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/generation-greta-too-afraid-to-live-ryan-meeks-religion-orthodoxy-climate-change/

(2) and (3) - https://www.facebook.com/gretathunbergsweden