How dare we?

The media describe her speech as "emotional." That's a dismissive adjective, especially when affixed to a young woman. If you have not heard Greta Thunberg's speech at the UN Climate Summit, you should listen to this clip which is one of the fuller versions available. It's not that long ...

If you really understood the situation and kept on failing to act, you would be evil -- and that I refuse to believe. ... How dare you pretend that this can be solved with just business as usual and some technical solutions? ... You are still not mature enough to tell it like it is. ... The world is waking up and change is coming whether you like it or not.

Yes, she's "angry." That's dismissive too. But how could she not be?

On YouTube, the comments on this clip are full of fury about the applause in the soundtrack. What's there to clap about?
...The challenge remains: how can well meaning people respond when the problem is our entire economic and social system? I've always been extremely wary of advocacy of personal solutions to societal, collective, problems. Sure let's recycle as much as we can; let's try to reduce our use of plastics and carbon intensive energy. But personal tweaks to our consumption habits are not going to do the job; sadly, personal solutions too often encourage no more than self-satisfaction and an assumption of smug superiority.

So knowing what Greta Thunberg knows -- what we all know if we dare to pay attention -- shoves us back into collective political struggle, that tiresome, grubby arena of compromises and imperfect half-measures. But social rehabilitation is going to require power, the stuff of politics.

The kids are organizing; we can weigh in with them. We really have no choice. They just might save humanity's short-sighted asses.