Member-only story
The Power of Greta Thunberg’s Stare Down
The 16-year-old climate activist is not alone in waging a generational fight. It’s going to get ugly — just as it should.
Greta Thunberg “sells fear.” This, according to climate change skeptic Marc Morano, the so-called “[Matt] Drudge of Denial,” is the real issue that should concern most adults. In an appearance on Fox & Friends on Monday, Morano accused Thunberg of “causing and instilling fear in millions of kids.”
He’s right — at least, in part. Thunberg, the 16-year-old climate activist, whose solo protest outside Swedish parliament last year has helped spark a global movement, does sound a bit scared herself. Her presence on the national stage highlights a gaping divide between generations old and new: On one side, kids are endlessly propped up as totems of a brighter future; on the other is everyone else, who has done little to secure it for them.
It might be Thunberg’s obvious fear that makes her so captivating. After all, fear about climate change is not a difficult idea to sell, if that is all she’s doing (it’s not). By most accounts, it’s likely that things on Earth are going to tip into chaos pretty soon, and before reaching that point, they will continue to get deeply weird: more once-in-a-lifetime storms blowing through every year…
