By Stephen Moore
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A friend of mine’s third grade daughter came home from school a fewweeks ago with tears streaming down her cheeks. “My teacher says we only have 10 years before the oceans rise and we are underwater,” she moaned. “Are we all going to die?”
That’s a heavy burden to place on the shoulders of a nine-year-old.
STOP SCARING THE CHILDREN
Gloomy stories of the coming apocalypse have become commonplace in schools, textbooks, churches, movies, and even children’s bedtime stories. The Wicked Witch of the West and Darth Vader have been replaced by the oil corporations and auto company CEOs. This over-the-top campaign of doom is clearly affecting the psyches of the young. We saw an example recently when Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish girl, gained international
publicity by passionately telling a United Nations panel: “Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction.” She says we have only 8 1/2 years left. This poor girl, who some are saying triumphantly is the voice of her generation, sounded terribly frightened. Who filled her head with these morose beliefs that the end is near?
American Consequences
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