The Girl Who Silenced the World for 5 Minutes

November 27, 2019 3:12 AM

11 years before Greta Thunberg was born, 12 year old Severn Suzuki raised money to attend the UN Earth Summit in Rio in order to warn the world about our environment being destroyed. In her 1992 speech, she said: “I am afraid to go out in the sun now because of the hole in our ozone. I am afraid to breathe the air because I don’t know what chemicals are in it." (Via)

Earlier on MF.

posted by growabrain (3 comments total)

"There, see? Global warming is just the latest environmentalist fad. What ever happened to the hole in the ozone layer that was supposed to kill us all?"

"We worked hard to phase out the chemicals that attack the ozone layer and switch to safer alternatives. It was a concerted global effort that prevented catastrophe."

"Oh."
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 11:46 AM on November 27, 2019 [9 favorites]

And the work that was done on the phone later paused global warming for a decade. We'd be in much worse shape now if it didn't happen.
posted by rednikki at 7:30 AM on November 28, 2019

I was reminded of this speech when Greta started getting popular. Why was it nearly forgotten, whereas Miss Thunberg has gone viral? The first thing that comes to mind is that the cultural zeitgeist has changed, but I suspect it may be more than that. As we get increasingly nearer to climatic devastation, the enemies of reality are becoming increasingly desperate. The climate deniers are forced to not just recognize the prophets of doom, but to also discredit them if possible. Without realizing it, maybe they have actually given more exposure to an archetype that otherwise might have faded away.
posted by ambulocetus at 12:14 PM on November 30, 2019 [1 favorite]