Baran Breakdown: Leave Greta Thunberg alone

Chances are you’ve heard the name Greta Thunberg — and for good reasons. At just sixteen years old, she’s made her unwavering passion for the planet clear.

She started a school strike for the climate outside the Swedish Parliament, has spoken at climate rallies in Stockholm, Helsinki, Brussels and London and has even given a TED talk, to name just a few of her accomplishments. Thunberg wants to help save our planet and is intent on informing the public about what needs to be done and how these things can get done. 

Thunberg wants to restore our Earth. Why, then, is this girl with such pure intentions being bashed by the international community? 

President Donald Trump posted a tweet mocking the young climate activist, sarcastically replying to a video of her speech at the United Nations with “She seems like a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future. So nice to see!”

Though such behavior has become characteristic of Trump, criticism of a sixteen-year-old making a conscious effort to help our planet marks an all-time low. What business does a man who claims climate change is a hoax have in the subject of the matter, anyway? 

One would think the man whose job it is to represent the nation would do so in a thoughtful, mature way. 

Thunberg is naturally blunt and straightforward. She is right to the point in her manner of speaking. She is not one to sugar coat anything, especially the decline of our world as we know it. After all, she is speaking about how humanity has ruined Earth.

 I don’t know about you, but that content isn’t something I would want to speak about in a sugary style. When talking about something with that much gravity, one must speak accordingly. 

Trump’s tweet may have been juvenile, but Dinesh D’Souza’s was pure lunacy. On Sept. 22 he tweeted: “Children—notably Nordic white girls with braids and red cheeks—were often used in Nazi propaganda.”

Similarly, Laura Ingraham said that Thunberg and the passionate protesters of the global climate strikes were comparable to cult members. 

These right-wing critics are attacking a child who is trying to do good in the world. Sure, there is a chance that Thunberg’s goals are not actually to help the planet and she has a self-serving agenda. There is always a chance. But it is not likely.

Why would she be missing school back in Sweden to speak to hordes of strangers if she did not truly care and was not serious about saving our world from something it may not be able to come back from? 

Thunberg wants to prevent our planet from declining into a place none of us want to see. So, here’s an idea. The superfluous strikes at Thunberg should stop. Instead, everyone should embrace this young girl’s fervor for the future and the Earth.

Greta Thunberg is a rare commodity in a generation of kids who spend their Saturdays on social media. She may be young and sound naïve, but she is actively facilitating change — and that is more than most people, sixteen years old or not, can say.