September 25, 2019
by Rob Roper
The events of this week’s Climate Strike demonstrate that we do have a real and serious crisis on our hands. No, it’s not impending environmental catastrophe, it is the evident psychological damage being systematically inflicted on our children.
Scott McKay, writing in The American Spectator, sums up the problem very well:
What we know about this And A Child Shall Lead Them fraud is that it’s the product of a widespread, 
persistent, and highly destructive indoctrination effort by the global Left in our schools and pop culture, so much so that it has caused mass hysteria among kids. A Rasmussen poll recently found that half of Americans under 35 believe the “mass extinction” Thunberg prattled on about is coming within 10 or 15 years, despite zero evidence anything like it is coming. And what do you get when you’re that successful in selling the (Earth’s) sizzle? Jon Gabriel at Ricochet delivers the bill:
According to the National Institutes of Health, nearly one-third of all 13- to 18-year olds will experience an anxiety disorder. The numbers continue to go up; between 2007 and 2012, anxiety in children and teens rose 20 percent.
The suicide rate for young Americans is now the highest ever recorded. Between 2000 and 2017, the number of suicides has doubled for females aged 15 to 24. Males between 15 and 19 killed themselves at a rate of 17.9 per 100,000, up from 13 per 100,000 in 2000.
Is that all from global warming hysteria? No, but it’s part of an abusive environment created within education and pop culture — worse in Europe than here, to be sure — that is targeted, relentlessly, toward wearing down to the nub the people who should be grateful for the bounty a market economy has delivered, and thus making them, in the words of Ming the Merciless, “satisfied with less.”
The worst case scientifically based scenarios (as opposed to totally made up doomsday predictions) put forward by the most alarmist activists indicate that by the turn of the next century Vermont will have a climate similar to somewhere between Pennsylvania and North Carolina. That would be different, for sure, but not a recipe for “mass extinction.” No sane, educated person thinks that the earth will literally be on fire in twelve years. (Or is it eleven now?) But lots of our kids do believe these things – and, as we just witnessed, are being terrified by them!
Actively keeping children in a constant state of fear, paranoia, and hopelessness is not education, it is not an expression of concern, it is a manipulative tactic to control. It is cruel. It is destructive.
This mass case of child abuse should not be allowed to continue. The people doing this to our kids – activists, teachers, politicians, the media (both entertainment and news) need to be stopped. That is the challenge the adults need to pick up and carry out if we want to leave the next generation with a genuinely healthy, happy and bright future.
— Rob Roper is president of the Ethan Allen Institute
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I’ve said for some years now that when you tell people, especially young people, that they are helpless to succeed on their own (e.g. “You didn’t build that.”) and that their very existence is evil (e.g. “Science proves kids are bad for Earth.” https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/science-proves-kids-are-bad-earth-morality-suggests-we-stop-ncna820781) you get people who want to escape reality, whether by drugs or suicide.
Well said!