A psychotherapist explains why some adults react badly to young climate strikers
https://thenextweb.com/syndication/2019/10/20/a-psychotherapist-explains-why-some-adults-react-badly-to-young-climate-strikers/
Young climate strikers I spoke to recently are confused and distressed about the things adults are doing. It’s not just inaction during the worsening climate crisis that bothers them, but the increasingly bizarre criticism many older people throw at striking schoolchildren, in the media and elsewhere. In the absence of any meaningful attempts to restrain global carbon emissions, the direct action of young people should, logically, be applauded. But maybe we’re not dealing with an entirely logical problem here.
The Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison accused Greta Thunberg – the Swedish teenager who started the global strikes – of creating “needless anxiety” in children. So it’s Thunberg’s activism that is responsible for the anxiety children feel about their future, not the climate crisis itself? Thunberg has also been called mentally ill, a hysterical teenager and “a weirdo”. French academics criticized her looks and rather than address the points in her UN speech, dismissed Thunberg as “a happy girl looking forwards to a bright future”.