Renewable Revolution

 
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July 26, 2018





Not sure if you've heard, but there’s a new cult in town. It’s run by teenagers who want climate justice and a livable future. Sounds scary!

Zero Hour 🌎 is a climate group led by youth of color from different parts of America. Understanding that combating climate change requires urgent action, they recently released an ambitious platform of demands that outlines what different levels of the government must do in order to safeguard their future. Last Saturday, they held marches across the country, which received overwhelming support from parents, scientists, celebrities, politicians and other climate groups.

But not, surprisingly from the shrinking tribe of climate deniers 🙉 🙊 🦕🦖 . The planet's actually really cold, schooled a few anonymous experts. It’s a hoax, yelled others. What snowflakes, said some others who clearly like being original.

In response to the youth's brave stand last weekend, the denier blogger community mainly screamed back that teenagers are being brainwashed, exploited and indoctrinated to believe lies about climate change. (We’ve heard those talking points before. Remember the shameful piece in the Federalist about children victimized by gun violence?)

Watts Up With That featured a guest post (or rather two lines followed by copy-pasted content) complaining that “climate indoctrination” begins at a very young age.

Ed Straker 🦕 from American Thinker wrote a blog post to share his belief that Zero Hour is a doomsday cult with a “militantly brainwashed doomsday leftist” leader. Apparently, Straker is very scared of 16-year-old founder Jamie Margolin. Margolin, Straker writes,"may seem young, but never forget that many of the Red Guards in Mao's China who committed unspeakable atrocities were young, too.” Straker never gets around to really explaining how Zero Hour is a cult, but does complain that Margolin doesn’t smile enough. (Again, very original stuff.)

Fire up your tiny violins for Straker's next complaint: he notes that the group doesn’t appear to be led by men, especially white men. “Are boys not as easily brainwashed as girls?” he wonders. (We're...not going to touch that one.)

But easily the most prolific hater of the youth climate march was blogger Tom Nelson 😈, who repeatedly barraged the Zero Hour teen team with denier tweets, calling them brainwashed, a scam and BS, anti-science, and so much more. He 🦖 even gloated that there was low turnout as videos showed the youth resiliently rallying and marching in the pouring rain. We've got a sneaking hunch Nelson might have been a big old bully in high school the way he keeps attacking these teens.

Unfortunately, 2018 seems to be the year of militant attacks from the right 😈🦖 against young people doing their best to preserve their future. At least there are school kids like those in Zero Hour giving us hope.