Greta, Gaza & The Climate

Utrikesbyrån's latest episode about Greta Thunberg is perhaps the low-water mark of a long series of bad opinion programs on SVT about politics recently. The episode is about whether Greta's stated support for Gaza is harming the climate movement. All three panelists agree that this is the case.

Apart from the strange decision to have a panel consisting of members who all think the same, the arguments they put forward are far more damaging to the climate movement than Greta's support for a population living in unimaginable suffering.

First, the panel makes it seem like the climate issue and the war in Gaza are two completely unrelated issues that have nothing to do with each other. That's wrong. Occupation of land and theft of natural resources is a climate issue. Warfare has enormous climate impacts. But most importantly, the world order of imperialist neoliberal capitalism is itself the root cause of the climate disaster. It is a cancer that attacks its own body.

The Western media love to treat the climate issue as a political special interest. Just like they make the genocide in Gaza a political opinion. One of several different possible political stances. But the climate is NOT a bloc political issue, and treating it as if it is will lead to our downfall. Something that the population of Gaza is already experiencing.

People can have different ideas about political ideas and how we should organize our society. But "climate" and "nature" are not social constructs or political phenomena. Nor is it the same as the natural resources we harvest to build this society. Nor is it synonymous with the areas outside the cities where we can chill in the woods or get a summer cottage. Nature is not something "out there" in contrast to us who are "in here" — nature, climate, environment, are three concepts that all refer to the biological world. The living. The very foundation upon which our existence rests. The alternative is death. Life and death are real.

Beyond discourse and theoretical thinking is the reality that is independent of our opinions about it. Therefore, the program becomes even more ridiculous when, after their roast of Greta, they also state that it is the wrong approach of Återställ Våtmarker to block roads and carry out other disruptive actions. "It doesn't help the climate if people come to work late" — No? Try working in the empty vacuum that is a dead planet.