Greta Rocks the USA

In celebrity culture, you can be sitting on some steps with a sign one minute and interviewed by Trevor Noah the next. 16 year old climate activist Greta Thunberg has been propelled to fame due to timing, a quirky style and the system's need for a symbolic spokesperson. One hopes it is not a debilitating role for the well-spoken, but rather innocent teenager. Landing in New York a few days ago, she has already done an event with Naomi Klein for Intercept, been on Democracy Now, PBS News Hour and the Daily Show ( a pathetic, condescending interview, the epitome of liberal smugness)

Jealous radicals such as myself see someone suddenly offered that big a megaphone and think; what an opportunity to blow some minds! But "disrupt the system" is about the most radical language she has used. Bill Mc Kibben couldn't help but twist this into "disrupt business as usual" because the last thing he wants to explain is system change and what it might look like. His concern seems to be for "reduced human work capacity", so you can see who he tailors his message for. It is doubtful Greta has read any Marx either,and her critique also stops short of Capital and accumulation. So once again the climate movement is left lurching between narratives. Messaging by the youth is just as disparate and fragmented as messaging by adults. So it goes.

The result can be seen in polls such as this one by WA PO and Kaiser Foundation: 40% of Americans believe climate change is a crisis but only 37% believe they will have to make major sacrifices to reduce its effects. In other words, like most crises, it won't affect us because we are Americans, we are insulated, our way of life is not negotiable. Greta herself has perceptively observed this "cognitive dissonance" ( her words) but has not yet linked it to the dissonance between exchange value and use value, or the rift between profit and nature. After all, she is a sixteen year old with Aspergers suddenly thrust into the global spotlight.

Why Liberals Love to Hate Exxon

Now that people are beginning to understand that climate change is real, they are looking for a convenient culprit to blame. 350.0rg is especially zealous in blaming Exxon-Mobile for the crisis; after all, goes the narrative, "they knew the science" and hid it from us.

Of course, anyone paying attention has known the science for three decades now, and scientists have known the science since 1896. James Hansen testified before Congress in 1988. But this narrative that the evil corporation hid the truth from us so they could reap huge profits serves a number of purposes.First, it deflects any blame or attention from being placed on the economic system in which we are all embedded, and to varying degrees, complicit. The blame falls on a cabal of individuals.

None of this is to say Exxon shouldn't be punished and expropriated and re-tooled into something beneficial. Richard Smith thinks they should be bought out in order to avoid a class war we can't win. Maybe.

Do Over?

During a conversation about ecological destruction with my fishing client the other day, he concluded by opining that maybe it would be best if humans were wiped out and a new hominid could someday take our place. I have heard this type of half-serious, fatalistic bullshit many times in the past. My client was a reasonably liberal, thoughtful person, but for him, like so many, it is easier to imagine the end of humanity than it is to imagine the end of the current ruling order. Like so many, he believes there is something inherently destructive about our species. Except for him and his daughter and his grand kids of course.

Again, this millenialist view is really just an easy way to avoid thinking about structural causes of the crisis or actually having to do something besides change light bulbs and recycle. Returning as a more enlightened species a few million years from now is not really a plan. And people who casually throw it out as an option are not considering the suffering and degradation our grandchildren get to experience because we found it easier to give up. Fuck that noise. Kill yourself if you want to but in any case, get out of the way if you can't lend a hand.