January 30, 2020
By Mickey Friedman
So many reasons he thought he’d get it this time. The booming stock market. The remarkable peace treaty with Chairman Kim. Who. to please his friend Donald, dumped his nuclear weapons in the ocean. The steel slat border wall from sea to shining sea. Paid in full with Mexican pesos. Then the first lady’s inspiring and successful campaign ending bullying in our time.
If ever it was Donald’s time to get the coveted cover of TIME Magazine, this was it.
But no. That Greta Thunberg kid from Sweden grabbed the cover right from the outstretched grasp of his little hands. For what? Skipping school with a lame sign in front of Parliament.
In Swedish, for God’s sake. “Skolstrejk för Klimatet.” Instead of proper American: “School Strike for Climate.”
I don’t know why considering she’s small and Swedish, but Greta has gotten under the skin of a lot of people. Angry, because she was sitting there quietly with her sign. Thinking she must be dumb, they made the mistake of asking her what the hell she was doing out there when she should have been at school listening to her teachers.
Unfortunately for them and for Donald, Greta had a lot of answers. Turns out she had done her homework and it turns out she knew a lot more about the climate crisis than most reporters and politicians.
And then she talked about herself and her diagnosis. Which was Asbergers. And even though she is shy and doesn’t really want to be a star, she has the rare ability to tell people what she sees and what she feels and what she thinks. Greta said about Asbergers: “It makes me work a bit different. I think differently. My diagnosis has definitely helped me keep this focus. When you are interested about something you just continue to read about it and you get super focused.”
For example, unlike Donald, Greta actually read the main reports of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). And because she did, she discovered how much trouble she and her generation and pretty much all life on earth was in. Then, according to CNN, she told reporters in New York: “It’s not because (climate change) is especially interesting,” rolling her eyes. “It’s a matter of life and death.”
Greta managed to annoy Donald at the United Nations. Maybe because more people paid attention to her than him. Maybe because she was addressing the climate crisis and he had already un-did years of negotiating on the Paris Accord climate agreement. Making progress far less likely.
Donald’s message to the rest of the world was America First: “Looking around and all over this large, magnificent planet, the truth is plain to see: If you want freedom, take pride in your country. If you want democracy, hold on to your sovereignty. And if you want peace, love your nation. Wise leaders always put the good of their own people and their own country first.
“The future does not belong to globalists. The future belongs to patriots. The future belongs to sovereign and independent nations who protect their citizens, respect their neighbors, and honor the differences that make each country special and unique.” A lot about illegal immigration. Nothing about the climate crisis.
Greta’s message was save the planet. Dispense with greed, self-interest, and act for the common good: “You say you hear us and that you understand the urgency. But no matter how sad and angry I am, I do not want to believe that. Because if you really understood the situation and still kept on failing to act, then you would be evil. And that I refuse to believe.
“The popular idea of cutting our emissions in half in 10 years only gives us a 50% chance of staying below 1.5 degrees [Celsius], and the risk of setting off irreversible chain reactions beyond human control.
“Fifty percent may be acceptable to you. But those numbers do not include tipping points, most feedback loops, additional warming hidden by toxic air pollution or the aspects of equity and climate justice. They also rely on my generation sucking hundreds of billions of tons of your CO2 out of the air with technologies that barely exist.
“So a 50% risk is simply not acceptable to us — we who have to live with the consequences.”
Losing the TIME Magazine cover to Greta just didn’t sit well with Donald. He couldn’t help himself: trying to be funny he announced his annoyance to the world: “So ridiculous. Greta must work on her Anger Management problem, then go to a good old fashioned movie with a friend! Chill Greta, Chill!” he tweeted.
Greta, quick on her Tweeter finger, immediately changed her bio: “A teenager working on her anger management problem. Currently chilling and watching a good old fashioned movie with a friend.”
And then millions marched with her.
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Greta vs. Donald was first published in the January 16, 2019 issue of the Berkshire Record.