Why Greta Thunberg is the new punk rock: Opinion

You're familiar with Greta Thunberg, right? She's the 16-year-old Swedish activist who is leading the charge for environmental change before it's too late. And she's making headway.

Recently a friend shared a video on social media featuring the highlights of Greta Thunberg's address to world leaders at the 2019 UN climate action summit. 

After watching it, the comment I posted in his thread was "This is the new punk rock! She is exciting because she's right and because she's committed, and that excitement just might translate to real action." 

I meant what I said. I believe she's spearheading a better future for our world. 

I believe she has the charisma, the passion, the intelligence and the wherewithal to do it.

'She's shaking things up'

I also believe that she's the new punk rock — here's why.

My friend and I are both in our mid-50s. We're part of the generation that Thunberg holds accountable for the state of our planet. 

When we were Thunberg's age, punk rock launched, and it shook things up. It changed our perception of music and of what was possible. It was a new way to look at things, and it all felt very grassroots and accessible.

That's what Thunberg is doing — she's shaking things up in a way that wakes us up, gets us involved, makes us see things from a new perspective, and gives us power to help make a difference — and it's exciting to get swept up in it. 

But as members of the 1970s status quo generation, what do we have to say for ourselves?

'We didn't do much'

First of all, back then we knew that we were damaging the environment, although maybe the general public didn't know just how deeply. 

There was much talk about a hole in the ozone layer caused by aerosol sprays. We knew that factories were polluting our air and water. Environmental catastrophes like the meltdown at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania and not-infrequent oil spills at sea happened and helped raise awareness about the potential for bigger, more catastrophic disasters. Still, believe it or not, it just didn't seem like the pressing threat that it was.

With that in mind, what exactly did we do to protect the environment? 

Well, as kids Thunberg's age, the answer for most of us is we didn't do much. We responded to TV ads and posters telling us not to litter, but really that was about it. What did we kids have to do with smog and effluent-emitting factories?

We believed that polluting was something industry did, not people. Most of us were too comfortable and naive to consider what role we played in the problem.

Why make changes when you can make money?

For most of us kids back in the Scooby Doo era, action about the environment was in the hands of the grownups and "the people who knew about these things."

Turns out, unfortunately, the people in the know were mostly the worst environmental offenders — politicians and big business we believed were going to take care of any environmental trouble — and were too closely connected behind the scenes to take action. Why make changes when you can make money? It's an incredibly short-sighted and unsustainable philosophy.

That's not to say that there weren't politicians who fought for environmental protections and businesses that made eco-friendly changes based on the science and technology of the day. There certainly were.

There were also private citizens and groups that protested and made calls for change and for action. There were people who saw where we were heading, but too frequently they were written off as flakes — a common strategy employed by those who oppose change, especially when they believe that their power and financial status is at stake.

So over time things just kept getting worse. And this is where Thunberg comes in.

Like the Sex Pistols screaming their anti-establishment anthem Anarchy in the UK back in 1976, Thunberg is making an angry, loud noise and getting incredible attention for her cause, and she's asking us to do the same.

We owed you an explanation, Greta. Now we owe you action.

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