Gen Z's hypocrisy on climate change has made Greta Thunberg look a fool

Yahoo

18-02-2025

At the UN Climate Action Summit of 2019, a 16-year-old Greta Thunberg gave the most famous speech of her young life. I'm sure we all remember. It was the one in which she indignantly squeaked 'How DARE you!' at older generations for ruining their grandchildren's future.
'You are failing us!' she hissed. 'But the young people are starting to understand your betrayal. The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us, I say: we will never forgive you!'
Chastening stuff. In hindsight, however, I can't help feeling that Greta's ire may have been somewhat misplaced. Because it turns out that the young are wrecking the planet, too. In fact, they may be doing even more to wreck it than their grandparents.
Just look at the results of a new poll by the Civil Aviation Authority. It found that those aged 18-34 fly a lot more frequently than those aged 55 and over. In the past year, almost three quarters of the former group travelled by plane, compared with only half of the latter group.
This may seem unexpected, given that members of Greta's generation are always telling pollsters – and everyone else who will listen – how terrified they are about climate change. But then, perhaps we shouldn't be so surprised. In 2023, a poll by YouGov found that young adults did less recycling than Baby Boomers. They were also less likely to save water, wash their clothes at low temperatures, and switch off electric lights when leaving a room.
For Greta, findings such as these must seem terribly embarrassing. Nowadays, admittedly, she appears to spend more of her time ranting about Israel than the climate. But, if she ever gets invited to another UN summit, perhaps she should apologise for her previous speech, thank the old for their efforts – and denounce her own generation, instead.
'You two-faced, selfish brats! See how stupid you've all made me look, with your virtue-signalling hypocrisy! How DARE you!'
This year was meant to see the opening of Britain's biggest theme park, just along the road from me in north Kent. The plan ended up being abandoned, however – after it was found that the land was home to a rare species of jumping spider. And protecting the spider was apparently deemed more important than boosting the local economy.
Personally I was somewhat taken aback by this news. For the life of me I couldn't see why anyone would be so keen to save the lives of spiders, especially ones that have the ability to jump at us. If anything, I'd have thought, the theme park represented an ideal opportunity to get rid of them. In fact, I would have expected the developers to make this a key plank of their proposal.
'Not only will our theme park create thousands of jobs for local people. It will also eliminate a load of hideous spiders. No more having to fetch an empty glass and a piece of card every time you find some horrible great creepy-crawly in your bathtub. Now it won't get into your house in the first place. Because we're going to drop a roller coaster on its head.'
Ultimately, though, the spiders prevailed. And now, it seems, they've won again. Because a plan to build 1,300 new houses and flats in the area has just been blocked – in order to protect the same rare species of jumping spider.
Naturally this will come as a blow to Sir Keir Starmer, since he'll find it harder to meet his target of 1.5million new homes by the next election. On the other hand, it's exciting news for people who live in the countryside – not only in north Kent, but everywhere else in Britain. Because now, to prevent their beautiful rural surroundings from being destroyed to make way for ugly new housing estates, villagers across the land will be ringing round the nation's pet shops, zoos and university ecology departments, eager to find out where they can get hold of some of these marvellous jumping spiders. Simply place a few in the local woods and fields, and hey presto. The developers are screwed.
Admittedly it might not be easy to meet demand, given that these jumping spiders are so rare. As a result, unscrupulous country-dwellers may be plotting to sneak down to north Kent and kidnap some. In which case, the people of north Kent will have to guard their prized jumping spiders day and night. Because the moment the spiders are gone, the entire area will be covered in houses and theme parks.
The potential for conflict doesn't end there, though. The row could lead to furious protests. Not from people, but from other species of spider.
Just wait. Any day now we'll see them marching on Whitehall in their millions, demanding that all arachnids be made equal before the law. After all, no one ever blocks a housing development to protect a daddy longlegs. Talk about two-tier justice.
Way of the World is a twice-weekly satirical look at the headlines aiming to mock the absurdities of the modern world. It is published at 7am every Tuesday and Saturday
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