Greta Thunberg's Political Assumptions

In a recent article, Greta Thunberg noted that the US bears special responsibility for climate reform because Swedish politicians claim there's no point in them initiating reforms when a big powerful country like the USA is not leading.

This way of looking at the world assumes central authority at the national level and ignores the fact that any government, state, corporation, group, or individual(s) can make decisions to change how they live for the benefit of climate reform.

Basically all Greta did was to reinforce the view that national governments are sovereign and that change can't emerge from any other level.

That view is arguably the cause of global apathy regarding climate reform and any other number of issues.

It's easy to point at someone else and say, "if they're not going to change, there's no point in me trying," but whenever people choose apathy as a response to blaming someone else, they are joining that someone else in responsibility for the problem that they're failing to solve together.

Just as Greta is free to sail instead of fly, so is every other Swedish citizen as well as US citizens. The question is what factors push people to travel according to schedules that don't make time for anything besides flight. That is not a problem of national governments but of corporate/business and economic culture/norms.

Good for Greta putting the effort into sailing instead of flying, but don't fall into the false belief that some governments, corporations, and individuals must be followers of others. Anyone can choose to lead by making independent choices; even though there may be others who want to ridicule or otherwise punish us for the choices we make.