The only reason Climate Scare Machine played the Child card was because they’ve given up the adult contest of persuasion.
As a marketing tactic it has a lot going for it. Playing the “girl under seige” card brings out protectors. Holding the “girlie hype” card whips the gullible and emotional into a frenzy. The people who don’t do numbers but rather assess the world via indignation-hope-and-fear can be galvanized into action. They may not be able to add up the megawatts to keep the lights on, but they can leverage emotional barbs to control whole dinner parties. In a gregarious species, that matters.
Strategically, best of all, the kiddie card means most adults will pull their punches, and anyone who tries to reply can be framed as an instant bully. As Laurie Atlas (on 4RO radio) said today, “she’s like a human shield” — the UN put her up there to stop people firing shots back. Just like terrorists hide behind civilians, Eco-terrorists hide behind children.
The UN can fire shots from behind her, and then hold up the Greta-shield to deflect returning missives. “How dare you!”
So the girl too-young-to-own-her-own-home can tell whole nations how to run their economies. She doesn’t have to make sense, teenage girls are known to panic and scream better than anyone, except perhaps three year olds, who presumably are the next step in the devolution of the climate debate. So Greta can say things that no national leader can. She has no responsibility, it won’t matter if she’s wrong, there are no trade-offs and she can write the whole thing off as a folly of youth.
Oh woe is our national conversation.
Reasoning is so passe. Even David Attenborough, who once was a master communicator, has given up on persuasion.
Speaking to Hack ahead of last week’s global climate strike, the 93-year-old threw his support behind young people taking to the streets in protest.
“Young people see things very clearly. And they are speaking very clearly to politicians,” he said.
Sir David said he backed the strategy of non-violent direct action.
“If they just sit on the sidelines, and [debate] in a nice, reasonable way, you know, they’ll say, ‘oh kids’. But if they actually do something in the way that they have been doing in this era, then politicians have to sit up and take notice.”
So, let’s decide national policy according to the number of children glued to crosswalks? May the most obnoxious, persistent trolls win…
Since her parents evidently didn’t teach her humility, Greta is going to find out about it one way or another.
In this case, adults have derailed a scientific discussion with a child actor. But other adults are derailing the derailing with satire.
……
Adult politics is a very rough game for a child to play.