{"id":26842,"date":"2020-05-06T12:24:00","date_gmt":"2020-05-06T16:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/?p=26842"},"modified":"2020-05-05T11:13:03","modified_gmt":"2020-05-05T15:13:03","slug":"coronapanic-proved-greta-thunberg-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2020\/05\/06\/coronapanic-proved-greta-thunberg-right\/","title":{"rendered":"Coronapanic proved Greta Thunberg right"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

“Greta Thunberg to UN: ‘You’ve stolen my childhood with your empty words'”<\/a> (DW, September 23, 2019):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“You come to us young people for hope. How dare you?” a visibly angry Thunberg told the high-level audience gathered for the UN Climate Action Summit in New York.<\/p>

“You have stolen my dreams and my childhood<\/strong> with your empty words, yet I’m one of the lucky ones. People are suffering, people are dying, entire ecosystems are collapsing,” thundered the 16-year-old Swedish girl, who has galvanized youth across the world to mobilize against climate change.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

This was a debatable point at the time, but just six months later children around the world were cut off from their playgrounds, their friends, and their schools (i.e., most of their “childhood”)! Bizarrely, one of the only countries where this did not happen is Sweden, home of infidels who reject the True Church of Shutdown<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So… Greta Thunberg might turn out to be wrong regarding atmospheric physics, just as the academic researchers who’ve gotten grants for climate modeling may turn out to be wrong (Cato article on a paywalled Nature <\/em>paper<\/a>). But I think she got the generational dynamics correct! Given the chance to cut their personal risk of contracting Covid-19 by a percentage point or two, older adults had no difficulty deciding to rob children of their childhood. (And when coronapanic is over, it will be time to for Boomers to go shopping for a new pavement-melting SUV!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Readers: What’s your best guess as to when children get their childhood back? Folks here in thoroughly plagued Massachusetts are saying that they do not expect schools to reopen in September. The general public will demand protection from child-to-child spreading, even if there are few examples of this documented by the countries that are good at contact tracing. Teacher unions will seek to keep the 100% pay\/5% hours\/0% commute system that is currently working for them. Children will not get a vote. New York City is saying “50\/50” on whether they reopen<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Related:<\/p>\n\n\n\n