{"id":78465,"date":"2019-09-25T03:03:03","date_gmt":"2019-09-25T09:03:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=78465"},"modified":"2019-10-09T23:31:16","modified_gmt":"2019-10-10T05:31:16","slug":"dont-yell-dont-demonstrate-plant-some-trees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2019\/09\/dont-yell-dont-demonstrate-plant-some-trees.html","title":{"rendered":"Don’t yell. Don’t demonstrate. Plant some trees!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Greta<\/a>
Christopher Jay Campbell shared this image the other day, and I\u2019m borrowing it from him. I don\u2019t know the original source of the image or meme.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I haven\u2019t been following Greta Thunberg, the sixteen-year-old climate change activist, very much. \u00a0Not at all, really. \u00a0But I haven\u2019t been able to avoid seeing photographs of her. \u00a0They\u2019re everywhere. \u00a0And they almost always show her with an angry expression on her face, delivering an impassioned oration to a group of either rapt adult admirers or uncomfortable adult government officials constrained to act deferentially toward her.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t like it.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

It seems to me pure exploitation. \u00a0(I won\u2019t even mention the fact that she suffers from Asperger syndrome, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and something called \u201cselective mutism,\u201d which seems to me to make exploiting her even more objectionable.) \u00a0I heartily dislike pressing children into service for controversial political causes and especially dislike making little people with unformed minds and no experience into public spokespersons on complex topics or for strident ideologies.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t Listen to Greta Thunberg:\u00a0She is a pawn being used by adults for their own interests.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cGreta Thunberg Cannot Be Both a Shield and a Sword\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe \u2018Climate Kids\u2019 and the Pursuit of the Millennium\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf You Can\u2019t Sell Your Hysteria to Adults, Try Kids: Brainwashing is easier with teens and tweens. Just ignore that it\u2019s child abuse.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Just generally speaking, I dislike reducing policy questions to bumper sticker slogans, signboard propaganda, quasi-coercive marches, and simplistic moralizing. \u00a0I resist turning them into Manichaean struggles between the sons of light and the sons of darkness, between pure evil and pure unalloyed good. \u00a0I don\u2019t believe that children have the mental or psychological wherewithal to contribute much on such matters; that\u2019s, after all, why we don\u2019t permit them to vote.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Quite often, I suspect, adolescents enter into virtue signalling on complicated matters as much to feel important or, in the case of adolescents, to impress the opposite sex as because they really know what should be done. \u00a0In many \u00a0cases, I suspect that the moral indignation is even feigned, at least to some degree or another.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

As for climate change, it seems that there may be ways of dealing with it that won\u2019t involve vast government takeovers of the economy and private life. \u00a0Here, for example, is something that I could very easily get behind:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIn New \u201cMind-Blowing\u201d Study, Planting Trees Reduces Carbon Better Than Carbon Taxes\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Assuming that the scientific argument is correct, I still wonder whether this proposed solution will gain much support. \u00a0After all, it would furnish very little opportunity for increasing government control of the economy, multiplying regulations, and growing the administrative state.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Posted from Helsinki, Finland<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 I haven\u2019t been following Greta Thunberg, the sixteen-year-old climate change activist, very much. \u00a0Not at all, really. \u00a0But I haven\u2019t been able to avoid seeing photographs of her. \u00a0They\u2019re everywhere. \u00a0And they almost always show her with an angry expression on her face, delivering an impassioned oration to a group of either rapt […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1902,5970,674],"class_list":["post-78465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-climate-change","tag-greta-thunberg","tag-trees"],"yoast_head":"\nDon't yell. Don't demonstrate. 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