My faith in rock music has been temporarily restored.
According to the manager of The 1975, the execrable essay/song that his band recorded with diminutive doom-monger Greta Thunberg had previously been rejected by other bands.
By ‘bigger artists than The 1975’, he says. He means this as a criticism. Like, ‘How dare these artists turn down the opportunity to work with Greta??’.
But I think it’s brilliant. Saying No to Greta and her establishment-backed moaning about the man-made cataclysm that will shortly devour humanity yadda yadda yadda is the most rock’n’roll thing you can do right now.
The 1975/Greta hook-up really is the most dreadful dirge. Over ambient piano music, Greta intones about the end of the world. Natch.
It is the usual mix of ageism and fearmongering we’ve come to expect from certain quarters of the eco-movement.
‘Older generations have failed’, says Greta, doing wonders for intergenerational relations. Apparently ‘we are facing a disaster of unspoken sufferings for enormous amounts of people’.
Amounts? If Greta and the other green school-strikers had attended lessons, instead of bunking off to complain about humanity’s wretched impact on the planet, she might know it is ‘numbers of people’, not ‘amounts’.
It’s unlistenable. Who switches on their Spotify or goes to a gig to be lectured about how destructive humankind is?
It reminds me of the time I went to see Radiohead, years ago, and Thom Yorke instructed the audience to buy George Monbiot’s latest book to find out what a mess we’ve made of Mother Earth.
That brought to mind Noel Gallagher’s comments on Yorke: ‘No matter how much you sit there twiddling, going, “We’re all doomed”, at the end of the day people will always want to hear you play “Creep”. Get over it.’
So the fact that ‘big artists’ rejected the offer to turn Greta’s essay into a song is heartening. There is nothing remotely rebellious or even very interesting about being an eco-doom-monger.
It’s the most mainstream thing you can be. In her 1975 essay/song, Greta calls for ‘civil disobedience’ and says ‘it is time to rebel’.
Who does she think she’s kidding? This is a young woman who has spoken at Davos, been feted by political stiffs across the globe, and who is shortly setting sail for the United States on a sixty-foot racing yacht. [Greta left for New York yesterday in a solar- and wind-powered yacht made from petroleum-based carbon fiber. –CCD Ed.]
Anyone who thinks that is rebellion is in urgent need of a dictionary.
It is time more adults said No to Greta. It is time grown-ups refused to listen to her simplistic and depressing message.
Like the right-wing politicians in France who boycotted her talk at the French parliament. Okay, they went too far on the insults.
One referred to her as a ‘guru of the apocalypse’. Another said she is ‘the Justin Bieber of ecology’. But their instinct was right: why should elected politicians, actual adults, nod along and cheer to the fear-laden speeches of a child?
None of this is Greta’s fault. I actually feel sorry for her. She is, in my view, being used. She is being pushed to the forefront of the eco-doomsday cult in order to give this flagging misanthropic creed a dash of youth and freshness.
The problem isn’t Greta. It’s the adults who really should know better than to encourage a young girl, who has autism, to believe that ‘the house is on fire’ — that is, the Earth is on fire — and that we might all soon die.
Who pumps a child, any child, with such dread and fear? Shouldn’t adults inspire children rather than clap and whoop as children effectively say, ‘I’m so, so scared’?
Right now there are fewer things more embarrassing, and sometimes even nauseating, than the sight of politicians and officials and celebrities going all goggle-eyed for Greta’s prophecies of calamity.
It has all the ingredients of a cult. The wise godhead; the uncritical, wide-eyed acceptance of everything she says; the predictions of hellfire if we don’t atone for our eco-sins.
What a lot of hysteria.
For the good of public life, and for the good of Greta herself, let’s call an end to this infantile fearmongering and try to get back to reasoned debate. Those rock stars who said ‘Nah’ to Greta’s essay have shown us the way.
Read more at The Spectator
Nice picture tied up at a dock with shore power .
This will be an excellent experience for Greta if she can make it
with calm seas . If its rough one day will feel like two weeks .
She is going to get a perspective of how big that ocean is
and how totally irrelevant humans are in the scheme of things .
She is going to understand where most of the worlds Co2 comes from too .
I would rank the chances of her sailing back at about zero .
The ocean isn’t politically correct , has no bias and will drown anyone
no matter their religion .
Good call, Randy, but
Greta is no Tom Hanks.
Sadly, this whole thing eerily reminds me of the movie “Forrest Gump.” As you may recall, Forrest starts jogging across the country and blindly, a bunch of people start following only to end up in Monument Valley with a disenchanted ending. That was a movie scene and had little basis in reality. Sort of like this whole Greta gig…
And behind it all Big Brother and the NWO and the Useless Nations
Who we associate with has a great impact on our image. I learned that in high school. The same person will be viewed very differently if they associate with heavy drinking losers than if their friends are people who really have it together. Though it may not be her fault, Greta is definitely a loser. The rock bands that turned her down were wise.
Unlike the author of this piece I do blame Greta. She may be getting used but she’s doing so willingly and taking advantage of the fact that she’s now famous. She’s an ignorant teen twit but how many other ignorant teen twits (there are lots of them) get this kind of attention. So yes, I do blame her.
We don’t want lectures from Brain-Washed kids from a different Country Go Home
“Creeps” pointing their fingers at normal folk and shouting DENIER!