I was going to write about Greta Thunberg, the Swedish moppet who has some serious sour grapes about climate change, and is famous for organizing the now-worldwide ‘Climate Strike’, where students walk out of class to protest inaction on ‘climate change’. So, students do nothing because governments do nothing.
Readers may expect that I would harp on yet again that for a hypothesis to be ‘scientific’ it must be open to falsification. Yet, since the climate is always changing, how is one ever to prove or refute that the climate is, er, not changing? Or is it not changing enough, or too much, or, perhaps, too violently? Is it getting too hot or, as I sit here in frigid late-April in Ontario, too cold? Are there more or fewer hurricanes, tornadoes, windstorms, or doldrums, than in 1900, 1000, or perhaps 4000 years B.C. or whenever Abraham made his pilgrimage? Who’s to say?
Now we see that the Holy Father, who personally believes in ‘climate change’, an opinion not particularly binding on the consciences of Catholics as outside of revealed doctrine, has personally and publicly encouraged young Miss Thungberg – given a V.I.P. seat in a recent audience – to continue her efforts, which began with her organizing a one-day school walk-out in protest. Not that I mind her playing truant, given the sad state of the statist school system, not least in Sweden, where homeschooling is illegal, and students indoctrinated in such things as ‘climate change is the greatest threat humanity has ever faced’.
Better papal advice might have been for Greta to hit some of the good and great books, to learn something of science, statistical methodology and how these might be misused in the service of ideologies; the philosophical roots of the environmental movement and the place of Man in the order of creation. In a word, to be taught before teaching others.
Instead, little Greta has ended up on the talk-show circuit, giving speeches to the United Nations, and even being nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. A child prophet, one might think, but not quite what Joel had in mind in reference to the future prophetic gifts of Israel’s sons and daughters.
By the bye, one might legitimately wonder what climate science has to do with peace. Does war cause climate change, or climate change, war? I suppose people might prefer to fight when it is nice outside, rather than windy and rainy, or frigid cold, as Napoleon’s troops discovered in their attempt to take Stalingrad. But then, on the other hand, warm and sunny weather might produce more irenic dispositions of camaraderie, to frolic and make peace and throw frisbees instead of spears, to say nothing of an increase in crop yields, including grapes and barley for wine, Scotch and fine ales; and one is loathe to fight on a full belly and a warm glow. So why not bring on a bit of global warming?
Of course, at a deeper and more serious level, whatever good there is in proper Catholic ecology, care for the Earth and its resources, the environmentalist movement as a whole is compromised by an anti-human moral rot, which principle we must resist with might and main, with a clear mind and conscience, and a solid pro-family and pro-child message, not something you hear much in Swedish school system, nor the U.N., and definitely not a message that will get one a Nobel Peace Prize.
Then again, such would be a cause worth walking out of class for.