And A Little Child Shall Lead Them — Greta, Malala, Tom and the Gang
We were driving this morning, listening to BBC Radio 4.
The almost never-ending effusive praise of the recently departed Prince Philip was interrupted by a personal essay by a not to be named BBC correspondent, waxing ecstatically about his ‘amazing’ experience of getting to spend time with Greta Thunberg.
His ‘report’ bore all the markings of a 21st century version of a vision of The Virgin Mary. She passed on bits of wisdom in every utterance.
Now, don’t get me wrong, Greta Thunberg seems like a nice kid. I know, she skipped Fridays at her school to hold up a sign protesting global warming. Very admirable. The next thing she knew, she was addressing the General Assembly of the United Nations at the age of 15, and was twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, all before the age of 18.
OK.
At the other end of the extreme we had Captain Tom Moore, another very nice person.
Captain Tom was a 99-year old pensioner who was living with his daughter in England.
He decided that for his 100th birthday he would walk, cumulatively, 100 lengths of his back garden with his aluminum walker.
Fair enough.
His son in law posted a go fund me site, trying to raise £100 for the NHS for his effort.
Luckily for Tom, The BBC picked up the story and ran with it. They did not let go. They tracked pretty much every step Captain Tom took. They made a major story out of this very nice pensioner. There was not alot to what he was doing, nor what he had to say, but the story grew, thanks to The BBC. It was a nice, simple and uncomplicated story.
And pretty soon, Captain Tom was a national hero. He was visited by major personalities. He was knighted by the Queen. His song went to #1 on the charts — a cover of You’ll Never Walk Alone. In the end, he raised an astonishing £38 million. Well done BBC!
Now, what did Captain Tom and Greta have in common?
They were purely creations of the media.
The media (all media) love characters. As human beings we relate to one person as the locus of our hopes, dreams and anxieties.
Since the time of Adam and Eve, we have loved the idea of a single person or two in whom we can express all of our fears and anxieties in the simplest form.
Are there people around who actually know something about climate change?
We could start with NASA’s James Hanson. He called it thirty years ago.
But he’s not a great candidate for a media star. Too much knowledge. Too many points to debate. You can’t debate with Greta. She doesn’t actually know anything — nice and clearly concerned person that she is. You can’t debate with Captain Tom. What’s to debate? Lovely man. Doesn’t say much but what he says is charming.
Malala?
Nice kid. Tragic story. Shot in the head for trying to go to school. She survive. Lucky. Then got a Nobel Peace Prize also — age 17.
Malala just signed a deal with Apple to produce “comedies, dramas and kids shows”.
“But she now says she is ‘exploring ideas’ for her suite of productions with Apple — adding that she has laughed along to cartoons since she was a child.
‘In my childhood, it was Cartoon Network and, you know, seeing Tom and Jerry, Courage, Scooby Doo and all of those TV cartoon shows,’ she said.
OK.
I guess it is little different from Prince Harry signing a $150 million deal with Netflix to produce shows.
Are there qualified documentary film producers around with great track records who could produce killer content for Netflix? Yes, but…
I am waiting for Greta to sign a deal with Netflix. They surely are not throwing $150 million at James Hanson. Too bad.
