Demonstration against whom?

Demonstration in Berlin against climate change

The election, for the first time, of deputies from the environmentalist and pacifist party, The Greens, to the Bundestag, the German parliament, took place in 1983. The traditional balance of forces in Europe then suffered the first major shock of recent times. 

Twenty years earlier, President John Kennedy had stated that “The essential bond that unites us is that we all inhabit this little planet. We all breathe the same air. We all care about our children's future. And we are all mortal” expressing an essentially environmentalist feeling of concern. The statement was contained in his 1963 "Strategy for Peace" speech. Concerns about the more or less premonitory environment took on a global character when everyone realized that animal and plant species were disappearing due to malevolent or at least unconcerned and reckless action by human communities and constituted authorities.

Attitudes like those of US President Donald Trump do not reveal stupidity or ignorance, but rather greed. Trump is willing to sacrifice present and future humanity for the profit he makes from economic exploitation of what cannot be exploited because it is common and limited. Similar attitudes have been taken by communist regimes or by Jair Bolsonaro. Greed causes extremes to touch and merge.
Material recycling companies live on subsidies from governments or supra governmental entities, not caring at all about the public service they should provide, but only about making a profit and spending as little as possible, and if possible, without truly recycling.
The listing of scams would surely fill several books.
So environmental protection became a hot topic, and as environmental opponents often coincide with non-LGBT, it has taken center stage in all sectors of politics.

The teenager who triggered a world strike

Then a new phenomenon emerged: Greta Thunberg. A Swedish teenager who has launched a student strike movement for the protection of the environment, which according to some scholars was just a scam by the economic groups, who also used to earn money, to make money at the expense of those who think they are saving the planet.
The movement of little Greta, her mother and supporting capitalists, grew. It has taken worldwide proportions with people coming to the street on all continents to manifest. They were certainly moved by their parents, or whoever, to participate in the street demonstrations with pushchairs.
If these people are so determined to save the planet, I leave some truly practical questions that may be less noisy but will be welcomed by the planet and the generations to come. These are questions that I pose to each of the defenders of planet Earth, of Mother Nature.

Over time, people have used various aspects of nature as a source of energy.
Flour was made by milling cereals in mills that used the tides for energy.
Today we are using mills that use energy from nuclear power plants, coal or oil.
And they shout against climate change.

1. Are you willing to dispense with disposable baby diapers and use cotton cloth diapers?
2. Are you willing to do without soda cans?
3. Are you willing to do without fast food restaurants and all the disposables that serve there?
4. Knowing that beef production is one of the largest sources of pollution on the planet, are you willing to drastically reduce your consumption of beef, including hamburgers?
5. Scavenging diesel and gasoline cars and replacing them with more expensive and still polluting electric cars has been the suggestion of governments and consumer associations to fight pollution by supporting the manufacturers of these cars (in particular some cases, the same ones that fake automobiles devices to pretend they don't emit carbon derivatives). Would you be willing to do without the car using public transport, bicycles or walking? Not for long trips, but for everyday organization?
6. Are you willing to send lunch to school in appropriate boxes and jars, avoiding disposables?
7. Are you willing to keep the same phone until it stops working, not changing it just because there is a new model?
8. Are you willing to go to bed early and get up early to take advantage of sunlight and save on electricity?
9. Are you willing not to throw away (sending to recycle is to throw away) clothing just because it's from last year, it's out of fashion or you can't see it anymore and buy new clothes?
10. Children are getting used to using paper as if it is inexhaustible, make letters and figures of 5 or 10 centimeters and occupy a page with half a dozen words. And they don't write on the back. At the end of class, the notebooks that are in the middle, go to the trash. Are you willing to teach your children how to use paper as it was as expensive as fifty years ago?
11. Are you willing not to send household appliances to scrap just because and to use them while they last even if you are tired of seeing them?
12. And the cell phones. I talk about them again.
13. Are you willing not to change the furniture in your home just to give it a new look, wasting wood, plastics and metals that could continue to be used?
14. Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, President of Nestlé, defends the macabre view that all sources of drinking water, natural or mineral, should be privatized and paid for by those who want to consume them. We know this and continue to buy water bottles instead of having a bottle or canteen to fill on tap. And you?
15. A drop of water is worth more than gold in African countries where children die of thirst. Can you leave the tap running while you open the front door, or do anything else, can you have compassion for those people who are endangered for lack of water and not dry up your country and the world's potable reserves?
16. The food you waste at home is missing from those who miss it. Are you willing to act?

It is easy to go to the street to make noise. It can even be fun to go with the group of friends. Shout and display posters against those who kill the planet. But are you not speaking out against yourself?

Let us stop being hypocrites and take care of our common home. At once.

Portuguese version in https://nivelar-por-cima.blogspot.com/2019/09/manifestacao-contra-quem.html

Orlando de Carvalho