Greta Backlash: 7 things you should know.

I have heard a lot of criticism of Greta Thunberg in recent days, many claiming she is hypocritical and should still be in school. All the adults who are turning their criticisms against Greta at this time should know this;

1. You are throwing abuse at a child who shouldn't have to know better than you - but clearly does.

2. She has acknowledged her privilege and is not speaking just for herself, but also those poor and uneducated of her generation around the world, who do not have the privilege of either having a voice or knowing what is being done to them by their elders; people you should have been speaking for, so that she didn't have to.

3. Even if she were being hypocritical and even if she were entirely wrong about all of this, which she is not, this would still not be the right way to treat our children. We do not mock them or abuse them or ridicule them for their beliefs, and we do not stamp on their enthusiasm to do good in the world. We encourage them to do better than we did. Why would any of us think it OK to do otherwise?

4. Yes she should still be in school, she herself has said so, but instead she is out doing the job that we should be doing on her behalf and on behalf of all generations to come.

5. If you were listening to her words - you would already know all of this, so why aren't you listening? I suspect because you are afraid. Well guess what? So is she, and she needs our reassurance that something will be done, not more excuses and accusations.

6. There are many jokes going around the internet about the protests. One of them is; "A million kids want to clean up the Earth. A million parents would love it if it started with their bedroom." Humour is important, never more so than when we are dealing with adversity, but it should never be at the expense of those who are suffering, never to undermine those who want to make things better. Those posting such flippant responses should be embarrassed and ashamed of their disregard for the genuine fear of young people for their future, especially when young people looking for genuine solutions are already being met with such a huge backlash of online abuse.

7. When the time comes to account for yourself before your children, your God, or even just yourself, about how you responded to climate change and to those who sought to make a real difference, "that 16 year old girl was hypocritical" and "she should have been in school" will not absolve you, it will ring out as a poor and hollow excuse. I am rarely a fan of shame, but here it is right, if we have shamed Greta, to feel the full force of that shame back upon ourselves.

Instead of criticizing, we should be seeking to move, to stand alongside the young people in their protests and put the real issues first. It's time to act like the grown ups in the room.

The parable of the stubborn farmer

There was a farmer who owned the same farm for many years. It had been is fathers farm before him. He had gained a great deal of knowledge and experience over the years. He knew about the seeds that he used to grow the crops, how to get them to germinate and how to recognise healthy seed that would bring a good yield. He knew about the soil, he could tell just by looking at it what condition it was in, whether it was too dry, too wet too acidic or just right. he knew about the crops and when to plant, when to reap.

But there had been three consecutive years of bad weather - the worst kind of weather. It had rained when the farmer needed sun and it was dry when he needed rain. Most of the crops had failed and the farmer was quickly falling into debt. So he went to speak to his friend from a neighbouring farm who seemed to be doing better than him. He asked his neighbour how he was managing to cope with the poor weather. The neighbour told the farmer how he had brought in a young agricultural expert who was researching new methods of farming. 'You should get  the expert to come and look at your farm' he said. Reluctantly the old farmer did what his friend advised.

The agricultural expert looked around the farm, for several days, weeks in fact. She looked at all the old famers methods, his land, his buildings and his farming tools and eventually came back to the farmer to offer her advice.

She said 'you need to do three things. Firstly you need to diversify your crops, keep some of your old crops and add in some new ones that can cope with the changing climate. Secondly you need to  make some measures to protect a proportion of your crops from the weather. Continue to grow some in the field as you do now, but put some under plastic sheeting, put some in greenhouses. And thirdly you need to improve your drainage and irrigation so that the soil will have the right amount of moisture.'

The farmer was angry because he had paid a lot of money that he couldn't really afford to get advice that he felt he already knew. 'I always do my best to choose the right seeds, I always try to protect my crops and I always give the crops the right amount of water, what you're telling me are things I already knew.' So he ignored the advice of the expert, and ignored the subtle differences between what the expert had said and what he was doing. That year the weather was bad again and the farmer lost too many crops to carry on running the farm. So he had to sell it. He met with his friend to share a drink and lament the loss of his farm. His friend gently asked the farmer, 'why didn't you take the expert's advice? If you already knew those things then surely you must have known the advice was good.'

He sat and thought for a moment and then said, 'I suppose I was just too proud to take advice from someone with less experience than me.'

The neighbour asked even more gently, 'well what did you think was going to happen?'

He sat and thought for a moment longer and then said, 'I suppose I just hoped that the weather would improve.'