It's time for a rant. Sometimes, it's good to get feelings down on paper (or screen, lol).Life has been ridiculously busy and stressful in recent times, so my blog has fallen to the bottom of the priorities list again. As stated in a previous post, I prefer to keep things light ... but then, if we're having a lot of ups and downs in life, I don't have much 'light' stuff to write about.
I also prefer to avoid political subjects. Generally. But today I'm breaking that rule.
Climate change protests. Okay, it's a big subject to leap into. But I've struggled with low mood over the past few days and, while there are many personal reasons for that, I've realised a big part of it is also that I've been upset by seeing so many people (mostly on social media) attacking children for simply standing up for what they believe in.
Calling them "brainwashed", making out they are controlled by their dictator teachers and parents. Never mind that this generation actually have more knowledge at their fingertips than any other generation before them. They are able to access arguments from both sides, they hear what the sceptics have to say too, including their own loved ones ... and they are intelligent enough to make up their own minds.
But it's so trendy to attack people openly now, especially over how children are raised. If we hover, we're "helicopter parenting" our kids. If we allow them more independence, we're creating little monsters who think they can get away with anything. If we tell them our views, we're not allowing them to have minds of their own. If we encourage them to research for themselves and form their own opinions, we're turning them into trouble makers.
Does that mean if our kids sit back and do nothing to change their world, we've raised them right? No, I don't think so (and then we're raising "a bunch of lazy, self-entitled brats").
I worry more about what kind of parent would teach their children that they shouldn't stand up for what they believe in? Humans wouldn't have made the advances we have if everyone just decided nothing had to change. No votes for women. No education for girls. No black people in "whites only" areas. We'd still be persecuting gay people simply for being who they are - which, of course, does still happen in some countries.
Activism can be disruptive (mostly to those who are comfortable with the status quo), and it forces people to confront issues they might not be comfortable with. Of course it suits everyone to think the climate is changing on its own and, even though I'm not a scientist, obviously there is a cycle that has gone on for centuries. It's easy to think there's nothing we can do about it. We all have enough going on already, right? But, while I've got no doubt that a fair amount of climate change is just nature taking its course, there's also no doubt that what humans do could have a big impact. That's the point these kids are making, in a nutshell.
I don't care about the day off school. The teachers knew it was coming and would have arranged lessons around it. The whole idea of a "strike" is to get attention - it's hard to do that on a weekend. Yes, many of the kids would have travelled to the demonstrations in air conditioned cars. Most cars have air con these days, and not at the kids' request. Maybe they drank water from plastic water bottles. That's often the easiest way to transport water to keep yourself hydrated - again, not invented by the kids (and reinforcing my previous point, the parents would be accused of neglect if the kids started dropping like flies from dehydration).
What's the worst that can happen if the kids are right and we pay attention? Instead of being alienated by them for dismissing their concerns, we may actually improve the only Earth we have to live on.
