The Daily News recently had an op-ed “debunking” Greta Thunberg’s speech to the UN. I won’t bother a point by point rebuttal, other than to say that he conveniently ignores a number of well established facts in favor of an “everything will be ok, we’re humans, we can fix anything” approach.
But one point he dismisses is that of a stolen childhood. He claims Greta’s generation “has grown up in the most prosperous time in human history.” As a tail-end Baby Boomer, I too grew up in a prosperous time. Unions were strong, single wage earner households were not unusual, the future looked reasonably bright economically (“Mr. McGuire: There's a great future in plastics.”)
There was only one small turd in the punch bowl: we could all be dead in the next 30 minutes, and the planet reduced to a heap of frozen ash.
Nuclear war was not only a very real possibility, but something we regularly prepared for.
I clearly remember drills in school — hide under the desk and keep away from windows, or go out in the hall and tuck your head down, or (sometimes) go into the school basement so we could all die together in the dark. I remember Johnson’s “Daisy” ad against Goldwater, I remember talking with friends, even at 8 years old, about the possibility that we would never live to be 21.
Did it ruin my childhood?
No, but it sure was there as an influence. There have been uncertainties throughout human history — starvation, pestilence, war, invasion — that have weighed upon children, and still do. But this wasn’t just about local events. This was about The. End. Of. The. World. And it wasn’t some far-fetched conspiracy theory. It was on TV every night, with our trusted Uncle Walter telling us the latest developments.
That fear has never gone away. That concept of a world in ashes spawned a thousand movies, books, underground comics, and certainly influenced the attitude of a generation about the future.
And now, while that possibility still exists — and has gotten worse under the current lunatic squatting the White House and his indoctrinated sycophants, there is a more pressing threat. Global warming has threatened not only a future generation that is now old enough to be pissed off about it, but (again) the entire planet. And this certainly has an effect on how children view the future, as well as who is to blame for getting us into this in the first place (my generation, as well as the “Greatest” generation).
So, all due respect (in others words, no respect at all) to those who scoff and publicly revile Ms. Thunberg for being a “whiny, hysterical teenager” who is being “used by the radical left”. But she has a right to include “stolen childhood” in her list of crimes against humanity and Earth. Crimes that we have allowed.
There are plenty of kids who agree with her. And sooner or later, they will be in charge.