“You are not mature enough to tell it like it is,” she [Greta Thunberg]said at the COP24 summit, which ended late Saturday night after two weeks of tense negotiations. “Even that burden you leave to us children. But I don’t care about being popular. I care about climate justice and the living planet.” (CNN)

In the past few days, the worldwide media has reported on the courageous, intelligent and very articulate speech of 15-year-old Greta Thunberg at the World Climate Conference. They have suggested that this young courageous Swede managed to find the right words and left a lasting impression on all the participants (take a look at the video if you haven’t yet. She is right.)

All of us must finally do something. We need to deal with the crisis. We must stop believing politicians are going to do something for the climate. They won’t.

Politicians – hostages of the economy

In interviews such as the one with ZDF, when Environmental Minister Schulze almost begs for understanding on the difficult negotiations, unlike Greta she is not decisively stating that “The country of Germany will finally do something.” Schulze says nothing specific to avoid showing her powerlessness. She praises the phasing out of coal but doesn’t mention that we started ten years too late in Germany. The audio book “Die Diktatur von Konzernen” (Corporate Dictatorship) from Thilo Bode remains in my ears. Using all possible means and rhetoric to allay our worries, politicians protect the economic system but not our children and not the well-being of all of us.

Perhaps we really need more students like Greta and even more student protests on Fridays. Maybe they will be successful at changing our politicians’ minds. Take a look at #SchoolStrike4Climate on Twitter. You will find a lot of information on the protests that are currently happening in Europe.

Foto: CC0 Creative Commons – pixabay, niekverlaan