This title is from the TEDxStockholm talk given by 16 year old Greta Thunberg, 12/12/2018, the video of which is below. As I wrote yesterday, youth have the moral authority. “So we can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed. Everything needs to change, and it has to start today. “

Now we’re almost at the end of my talk,and this is where people usually start talking about hope, solar panels, wind power, circular economy, and so on, but I’m not going to do that.
We’ve had 30 years of pep-talking and selling positive ideas.
And I’m sorry, but it doesn’t work.
Because if it would have, the emissions would have gone down by now.
They haven’t.
And yes, we do need hope, of course we do.
But the one thing we need more than hope is action.
Once we start to act, hope is everywhere.
So instead of looking for hope, look for action.
Then, and only then, hope will come.
Today, we use 100 million barrels of oil every single day.
There are no politics to change that.
There are no rules to keep that oil in the ground.
So we can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
Everything needs to change, and it has to start today.

School strike for climate – save the world by changing the rules | Greta Thunberg | TEDxStockholm, 12/12/2018

Changing the rules is what the Green New Deal is about. Change from a fossil fuel based economy to one based upon renewable energy. Change from a corporate controlled world to one that prioritizes healing Mother Earth. One that is people driven, not profit driven. Change from white privileged governance to youth led policies, i.e. the Green New Deal.

I received the following from my friend and Quaker, Liz Oppenheimer, this morning:

We older adults have had our chance to make meaningful structural changes to how we source, use, and provide energy, individually and as a country—and we have failed to do so. Recycling wasn’t enough. Banning straws and plastic bags isn’t enough. Driving hybrids instead of only gas-powered cars, with no federal ban on gas-only vehicles, isn’t drastic enough. And the catalytic converter has hidden the environmental disaster that awaits us as surely as whitewashing history had hidden our moral catastrophe that has been white supremacy and anti-Semitism.
Believe our young people. Practice humility. Acknowledge that we adults and those we elected up to now have done too little to save our planet

Liz Oppenheimer

TOMORROW! One way you can help make the change is to tell Senator Joni Ernst that we need a Green New Deal.

Des Moines: Tell Senator Joni Ernst We Need the Green New Deal
Hosted by Sunrise Movement.
2/26/2019 at 2 PM – 4 PM
Neal Smith Federal Building – 210 Walnut St, Des Moines, IA 50309

https://www.facebook.com/events/2292802381043932/?notif_t=event_aggregate&notif_id=1551105902311038