Greta explains it all

This is something I've never done before, taking someone else's post on facbook, however I think this is important. I am not trying to steal anything or to gain anything for myself, my only purpose here is to spread her words farther and, too, let her defend herself against the inevitable opposition. I was influenced by the movement the surviving Parkland students began and was heartened to see Greta Thunberg was influenced by them as well. There will never be written a better account of her journey from her solitary protest in Sweden to her call for a worldwide strike and facing the powers of the world at the United Nations. I sincerely hope she wins the Nobel Peace Prize. (I have not touched a word in her story. All the words are hers.)

By Greta Thunberg

Recently I’ve seen many rumors circulating about me and enormous amounts of hate. This is no surprise to me. I know that since most people are not aware of the full meaning of the climate crisis (which is understandable since it has never been treated as a crisis) a school strike for the climate would seem very strange to people in general.
So let me make some things clear about my school strike.

In may 2018 I was one of the winners in a writing competition about the environment held by Svenska Dagbladet, a Swedish newspaper. I got my article published and some people contacted me, among others was Bo Thorén from Fossil Free Dalsland. He had some kind of group with people, especially youth, who wanted to do something about the climate crisis.
I had a few phone meetings with other activists. The purpose was to come up with ideas of new projects that would bring attention to the climate crisis. Bo had a few ideas of things we could do. Everything from marches to a loose idea of some kind of a school strike (that school children would do something on the schoolyards or in the classrooms). That idea was inspired by the Parkland Students, who had refused to go to school after the school shootings.
I liked the idea of a school strike. So I developed that idea and tried to get the other young people to join me, but no one was really interested. They thought that a Swedish version of the Zero Hour march was going to have a bigger impact. So I went on planning the school strike all by myself and after that I didn’t participate in any more meetings.

When I told my parents about my plans they weren’t very fond of it. They did not support the idea of school striking and they said that if I were to do this I would have to do it completely by myself and with no support from them.
On the 20 of august I sat down outside the Swedish Parliament. I handed out fliers with a long list of facts about the climate crisis and explanations on why I was striking. The first thing I did was to post on Twitter and Instagram what I was doing and it soon went viral. Then journalists and newspapers started to come. A Swedish entrepreneur and business man active in the climate movement, Ingmar Rentzhog, was among the first to arrive. He spoke with me and took pictures that he posted on Facebook. That was the first time I had ever met or spoken with him. I had not communicated or encountered with him ever before.

Many people love to spread rumors saying that I have people ”behind me” or that I’m being ”paid” or ”used” to do what I’m doing. But there is no one ”behind” me except for myself. My parents were as far from climate activists as possible before I made them aware of the situation.
I am not part of any organization. I sometimes support and cooperate with several NGOs that work with the climate and environment. But I am absolutely independent and I only represent myself. And I do what I do completely for free, I have not received any money or any promise of future payments in any form at all. And nor has anyone linked to me or my family done so.
And of course it will stay this way. I have not met one single climate activist who is fighting for the climate for money. That idea is completely absurd.
Furthermore I only travel with permission from my school and my parents pay for tickets and accommodations.

My family has written a book together about our family and how me and my sister Beata have influenced my parents way of thinking and seeing the world, especially when it comes to the climate. And about our diagnoses.
That book was due to be released in May. But since there was a major disagreement with the book company, we ended up changing to a new publisher and so the book was released in august instead.
Before the book was released my parents made it clear that their possible profits from the book ”Scener ur hjärtat” will be going to 8 different charities working with environment, children with diagnoses and animal rights.

And yes, I write my own speeches. But since I know that what I say is going to reach many, many people I often ask for input. I also have a few scientists that I frequently ask for help on how to express certain complicated matters. I want everything to be absolutely correct so that I don’t spread incorrect facts, or things that can be misunderstood.

Some people mock me for my diagnosis. But Asperger is not a disease, it’s a gift. People also say that since I have Asperger I couldn’t possibly have put myself in this position. But that’s exactly why I did this. Because if I would have been ”normal” and social I would have organized myself in an organisation, or started an organisation by myself. But since I am not that good at socializing I did this instead. I was so frustrated that nothing was being done about the climate crisis and I felt like I had to do something, anything. And sometimes NOT doing things - like just sitting down outside the parliament - speaks much louder than doing things. Just like a whisper sometimes is louder than shouting.

Also there is one complaint that I ”sound and write like an adult”. And to that I can only say; don’t you think that a 16-year old can speak for herself? There’s also some people who say that I oversimplify things. For example when I say that "the climate crisis is a black and white issue”, ”we need to stop the emissions of greenhouse gases” and ”I want you to panic”. But that I only say because it’s true. Yes, the climate crisis is the most complex issue that we have ever faced and it’s going to take everything from our part to ”stop it”. But the solution is black and white; we need to stop the emissions of greenhouse gases.
Because either we limit the warming to 1,5 degrees C over pre industrial levels, or we don’t. Either we reach a tipping point where we start a chain reaction with events way beyond human control, or we don’t. Either we go on as a civilization, or we don’t. There are no gray areas when it comes to survival.
And when I say that I want you to panic I mean that we need to treat the crisis as a crisis. When your house is on fire you don’t sit down and talk about how nice you can rebuild it once you put out the fire. If your house is on fire you run outside and make sure that everyone is out while you call the fire department. That requires some level of panic.

There is one other argument that I can’t do anything about. And that is the fact that I’m ”just a child and we shouldn’t be listening to children.” But that is easily fixed - just start to listen to the rock solid science instead. Because if everyone listened to the scientists and the facts that I constantly refer to - then no one would have to listen to me or any of the other hundreds of thousands of school children on strike for the climate across the world. Then we could all go back to school.
I am just a messenger, and yet I get all this hate. I am not saying anything new, I am just saying what scientists have repeatedly said for decades. And I agree with you, I’m too young to do this. We children shouldn’t have to do this. But since almost no one is doing anything, and our very future is at risk, we feel like we have to continue.

And if you have any other concern or doubt about me, then you can listen to my TED talk ( https://www.ted.com/…/greta_thunberg_the_disarming_…/up-next ), in which I talk about how my interest for the climate and environment began. 

And thank you everyone for you kind support! It brings me hope.
/Greta
Ps I was briefly a youth advisor for the board of the non profit foundation “We don’t have time”. It turns out they used my name as part of another branch of their organisation that is a start up business. They have admitted clearly that they did so without the knowledge of me or my family. I no longer have any connection to “We don’t have time”. Nor has anyone in my family. They have deeply apologised and I have accepted their apology.

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About Asperger's

Bucket lists

     A conversation on TV tonight opened an insight into the personal bucket list.

     As TV writers do, they seem to believe every old guy in the world has a bucket list of things he wants to do before he dies. I've never had one. I had some idealistic goals as a younger man, but to a certain extent I achieved them all. Then one mention in the conversation I was watching triggered a thought about a bucket list … and a realization.
     One of the men wanted a cabin in Montana. That was the only thing he could think of for a bucket list.
    It only took a moment to absorb that and I realized in this fictional story something like that would be on my bucket list.
    That was when I realized if I didn't have it and didn't live there almost half the year, the cabin at the East Pole would be at the top of my own bucket list. If I didn't have that it would be the one thing in the world I would want to do, and that goes back to the time I was 8 and in the third grade.
     Mission accomplished.
   PHOTO GALLERY: At the East Pole

Impressions from a fire zone

   

This is Camp Caswell the way I prefer to remember it.

I went to the East Pole Saturday Sept. 7, to bring back a couple of things and take some measurements for some improvements I want to make here to take out when I go for the winter.
     The driving part of the trip is mostly along the Parks Highway, the main ground link between Anchorage and Fairbanks, and also the site of a huge wildfire that burned over 3,288 acres and is still smoldering in places. The fire destroyed 52 primary residences, three commercial properties and 84 outbuildings, but so far no reported injuries or deaths.
     On the road north coming out of Willow the first indications of fire are the rows of blackened spruce trunks lining the roadway on both sides,. only these were from a a previous fire a couple of years ago. It took a moment to realize it.
     After another 10 miles the first indications of this fire became painfully obvious. At almost every driveway or public building signs thanked the fire crews over and over again. It was heart warming. It hit me we don't have many public figures to cheer these days and seeing the outpouring of gratitude for the effort put out by the firefighters was monumental.
     Soon enough I started to pass blackened spruce trees still standing but obviously burned, lining the roadside.
   Then came the yards with houses still standing but brush and trees cleared around them, taken by the men and women of the fire crews so there was no fuel for the fire as it progressed toward the buildings. This was the south end of the fire which burned after the massive mobilizations of people and equipment to fight the flames. The bulk of the damage  occurred toward the north end around Mile 91 and several miles south of there. In that area the fire burned more freely and destroyed more buildings before the crews arrived in any number.
     I passed several houses untouched by the fire in the center of the wide, cleared areas made by firefighters that saved them from the flames.
    As I craned to look into each yard I managed to wander from side to side in my lane. That's when I learned something else. The sound of tires rolling over those safety rumble strips at the road edges blend perfectly with the more ethereal of Pink Floyd instrumentals and it took a moment to realize some of the sound wasn't coming from the stereo. I think Roger Waters' 70th birthday was yesterday or today; should I let him know about this discovery of a complementary sound the group could use?
      Symbols that demonstrated the tremendous amount of work that went on were everywhere. Of course there were the cleared yards, but also piles of spruce trunks cut for fire lines or whatever other reason lined the road for miles — tons. Here's a heartening image, very selfish and personal I admit. Almost all the downed trees were spruce and among those still standing white birch trunks stood out among the blackened spruce as if untouched by the fire. I noticed there were not nearly as many birch in the piles of cut trees as well. Why heartening? The majority of the forest around the East Pole is old growth birch, apparently more fire resistant than their softer-wooded cousins. Maybe that will save me if a fire eventually starts up in my country which is about 30 miles from the northernmost limit of the McKinley fire.
     Farther north I came through the area hardest hit. Yards that had held homes looked like landfills, the possessions of a lifetime reduced to blackened trash by the fire.
     Excavators worked in several yards clearing what the fire left behind and groups of firefighters remained looking for what I assumed were hot spots and directing water streams from fire hoses.
     For perhaps five miles, the speed limit had been reduced to a double-fine-enforced 45 mph and signs all over the place warned travelers about fire equipment in the road.
     Particularly sad was the property where the Camp Caswell  establishment had stood. That's it in its former grandeur in the photo above, long a landmark aside that part of the road, the space it had filled now looks like a combination of a bomb crater and an auto salvage yard, the charred skeletons of several vehicles decorating the bleak landscape.
     In one clearing stood the yellowish wood framing skeleton of a someone's new cabin going up already. On the news later I heard a 68-year-old man talking about hearing explosions from his cabin letting him know everything was gone. He wondered aloud about rebuilding from scratch again in his life and wondering if his aging body can do it. As a man approaching 77 years, I wondered if I would have the strength and will to do that. I thought of a couple boxes of ammunition in my own cabin and for a moment wondered what that would sound like going up. Something you don't often think of when you see the people fighting those fires in buildings, knowing just about every dwelling in that area holds a gun or two and that means live rounds to explode while they worked.
     Flaggers protected the entry from a side road where a sign warned drivers "Fire equipment crossing" and then the speed limit rose to 55 then 65 and those of us on the road passed out of the fire zone, humbled somewhat by what we'd seen and the dirge-like tones of one of those Pink Floyd instrumentals with the haunting sounds of their lingering guitar licks creating an atmosphere of mourning for what was lost there. Then, too, there was that one ray of human resilience rising from the skeletal framework of that one new dwelling rising.

I couldn't stop to take pictures. This link will take you to a gallery of photos of the fire area from the Anchorage Daily News.
Complete McKinley fire roundup

Hurricane forecast manipulation creates air of distrust

 By now most of us have seen some form of this photo. The administration

altered it by drawing a line including Alabama. Trump appointees in one 

agency defended him. You have to wonder what the folks in Alabama felt

hearing that. Fortunately the local Weather Service forecasters went on Twitter 

with the correct information. And their union official has openly criticized the

politicians who made the decision to support the #fakepresident. (Snopes photo)

     "I get all the news I need on the weather report…" — Paul Simon

       Well, this is a fine kettle of fish. The #fakepresident says a storm will hit Alabama when all the official agencies say not a chance. So he keeps claiming it, even breaking a federal law by doctoring an official Weather Service map, drawing a line extending a forecast to include Alabama. Caught, he blames the media. But here comes the kicker, NOAA, the parent agency of the Weather Service which is led by political appointees defends the president refuting the professionals in their own agencies. So stepping back, what has happened here?
     Once again the general public has been victimized by the #fakepresident's manipulations, that have now extended to his appointees changing a weather forecast to fit one of his lies.
     We love to complain about the weather report, but think, in reality is there a government agency we trust more than the Weather Service? This action has driven a wedge between the service and the people it serves. Can we ever trust a forecast again if they are going to be written to satisfy political demands.
      In the future when the Weather Service says evacuate ahead of a storm, will we, or will we hesitate, try to figure out if it's true or not? On the other side of that, if we are told there's no danger are we going to wait to see what the political motivation is for the report? When they say mudslides or floods whether this is a serious threat or an all-clear, do we wonder how this benefits some donor to a political cause? Any hesitation in some circumstances can be dangerous.
      As I have been there often, what happens on the big ocean when a forecaster gives storm warnings and you can keep to your course or steer well around the danger? Even an hour in the wrong direction can mean the difference. Does the forecast serve some political purpose or is it valid?
     The point is, the #fakepresident's actions have created a measure of distrust in reports vital to us all and once trust is broken it does not heal easily. And, what have we come to when we can't trust the word of an acting president in something as straightforward as a weather forecast?

NOAA staff told not to contradict Trump