TO THE EDITOR:
I was dismayed by last week’s editorial entitled “Socialism and the New Green Dictatorship.” That piece accused young Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg of using “scare tactics” to enlist other young people to join her in creating some kind of “green dictatorship.” Like the Parkland students’ marching for effective gun control, she and the “climate kids” inspired by her see the need to take the lead when faced with the inaction of those in power. They will not heed those who tell them to “shut up” and “grow up.” Thunberg suffered no fools in her blunt statements to world leaders at the United Nations last week. She and other young people understand (as did Martin Luther King) the “fierce urgency of now.”
Greta Thunberg’s call for urgent action on climate change parallels Pope Francis’ message to world governments just prior to the U.N. summit, in which he called on them to “take drastic measures” to combat global warming because the world is facing “a global emergency.” Furthermore, his encyclical of 2015 stated that now is the time for people to stop making “thoughtless and harmful” decisions regarding food, consumption and transportation.” (I’m sure Pope Francis appreciated Thunberg’s crossing the Atlantic by boat rather than plane to attend the U.N. summit!)
Thunberg has many right-wing critics, among others. But, strangely, the editorial highlights the views of French urologist, surgeon and author, Dr. Laurent Alexandre, a critic of Thunberg, who sees the goal of climate activists as the creation of a Marxist-style utopia! (Whatever that is!) I have heard him during French TV interviews, where he espoused something called “transhumanism,” which claims that humanity can evolve toward greater perfection by selective human breeding (eerie echoes of eugenics!!) In order to avoid the high costs of caring for disabled or “defective” people by using preventive therapies such as abortion, governments would thus have more money to spend on the births and lives of healthy children. I wonder if Dr. Alexandre would consider Greta Thunberg one of those “defective,” and thus expendable, ones with no right to life? Thunberg, who suffers from Aspergers and selective mutism, sees her illnesses as empowering, and allowing her to speak only when she deems necessary. And when she speaks to power, everyone listens!
The editorial also quotes Karl Marx who believed “there is nothing more abominable than religion.” The piece ends with the frightening claim that the climate change movement is nothing more than an atheistic, Marxist-style “green dictatorship” under which “the true Catholic faith will be sacrificed.” WOW! What a “revolting development” that would be!
Rather, the climate change movement should be viewed as a welcome and positive development. We should embrace those young people who see that “leaders must be led” to develop needed policies to save our futures. In heeding Greta Thunberg’s rallying cry, we may well see that governments can indeed change and that (in the words of Isaiah) “a little child will lead them.”
Harriette Rinaldi, Warwick
