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Don’t Listen to Greta Thunberg

Rich Lowry, Greta Thunberg
USA
2019
National Review
Instead of scolding the world for using fossil fuels Greta Thunberg and the United Nations should be working to protect people from poverty and wildlife from loss of habitat. But first Greta should stop skippinng school and get a basic education.

Rich Lowry, Editor of National Review: The youthful climate activists claim they’ve been sold out by their elders. Greta Thunberg put it with her usual accusatory starkness at the U.N.: “You are failing us, but young people are starting to understand your betrayal.” This is laughable. By no global measure of social and economic well-being have we failed kids. According to HumanProgress.org, the global poverty rate fell from 28 percent in 1999 to 11 percent in 2013. Life expectancy increased from 63.2 years to 71.9 years from 1981 to 2015. The completion rate for primary school increased from 80 percent in 1981 to 90 percent in 2015. The same benign trends hold for hunger, child labor, literacy.