The Greta Thunberg of Substack

Probably all know the story of Greta Thunberg. As a 15-year-old girl she began skipping school to hold solitary vigils outside the Swedish Parliament demanding a stronger governmental response to the climate crisis.

At first, she was a small girl who struggled with personal issues, sitting alone behind a sign reading “School Strike for the Climate”. But her action inspired many others and led to the global school strike for the climate movement.

In 2019, at age 16, she addressed the United Nations Climate Change Summit:

“This is all wrong. I shouldn’t be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you!

“You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. . . . People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!”

Ms. Thunberg stood up forcefully and with clarity before those with power. She stood fearlessly, and she continues to do so today. Her example, her voice, matter to many. She put the fight for the future of the planet and its people ahead of any personal dreams. She’s made a difference.

SUE Speaks

The Crisis and Transition Substack seeks to inform readers about the polycrisis, and we recognize the very real possibility that humanity is facing collapse. As do a number of other Substack writers. Suzanne Taylor, writing on her SUE Speaks Substack is one of us.

However, for some time now, Suzanne has had an expanded conception of her Substack role. This began with her tracking what other polycrisis/collapse Substacks are saying and then posting comments on other’s Substacks — this Substack included. Her comments were often to goad these other Substacks to go beyond analysis and warnings and to put forward practical ideas for the immediate steps humanity needs to take to change course.

A little while back she further upped her engagement, challenging us — the polycrisis/collapse writers — to collaborate, to talk to each other and jointly build up a body of positive action ideas awakening mass consciousness about humanity’s peril.

Now, she’s taken her vision for us a step further. She’s asking us to consider whether we could creatively use the Substack medium in as yet unexplored ways to impact mass consciousness. She’s calling on us to collectively come up with interactive, collaborative initiatives that would penetrate the mass obliviousness as to what’s coming at us, should we fail to respond.

And she’s backing up this challenge with a promise to donate a significant chunk of personal money to fund such efforts.

Suzanne Taylor is a very different personality from Greta Thunberg, and her impact doesn’t begin to compare with that of Greta. But I find in them a similarity of spiritedness. Both exhibit the healthy human quality of caring enough to act.

Someone Has to Stand Up

My father was awarded a Purple Heart for combat in World War II, something I never knew until after he died. He was sent into Normandy on D + 5 and fought in the hedgerows of Belgium, getting just into France before a bullet tore into his leg. He only spoke to me about the war on one occasion. It was the last time I saw him before he died of a brain tumor.

At that time, he simply told me that when orders came down for troops to advance, someone had to stand up and lead the charge. (He was a master sergeant, and I assume that fell to him.)

“Someone has to stand up and lead the charge.” This made a profound impact on me.

We have a beautiful planet that’s dying from a thousand cuts. We have a human race, imbued with sublime capacities, facing existential crisis. Somebody has to stand up. Somebody has stand up for the renewal of life. Many somebodies have to stand up. In many places and in many ways, we need those who will stand for life.

Those who stand, if done with sacrificing spirit and purity of heart, deserve support. We may not fully agree with their approach, we may find fault in their thinking, but we cannot discount their spiritedness. Humanity desperately needs their spiritedness, their whole-hearted defense of life.

We have more than enough hand-wringing, whining, cynicism, obliviousness, punditry, alienation, distraction, self-absorption, and complicity. We have plenty of knee-benders, craven hypocrites, jello-spined politicians, would-be oligarchs, and greed-driven life-suckers. What we are short on is spiritedness in the cause of a new human destiny.

I wish to qualify the “spiritedness” that is needed. It is warrior spiritedness. What are the values of a warrior? — Bravery, honor, solidarity, duty, are they not? And are these not the qualities most needed to face this moment?

Taking Steps to Move Forward

When a Greta Thunberg, or Suzanne Taylor, stand up, their humanity shines for all of us. Should we be in position to do so, we should offer support.

Suzanne is asking for collaboration among the Substack sites that recognize humanity’s existential crisis. The Crisis and Transition Substack collective, with our PROUT orientation, is now paying attention. We’re assessing our resources. We’re beginning to communicate with her about what might be done. We’ve reached out to arrange for representatives to meet with her.

Is there — as Suzanne believes — a wealth of thought-leaders on Substack that could collaborate to more vigorously and compellingly project ideas that give people hope, vision, empowerment, and solutions? Is Substack a new medium of communication that, if used creatively, has the capacity to shift and uplift the collective awareness?

The cartoon superhero, The Phantom, once said: “Anything impossible is worth trying.” Is the near impossibility of awakening and saving humanity worth trying? Could the Substack media have an unexplored potential role in this?

Difficulty in the Beginning

The I Ching hexagram “Difficulty in the Beginning” is appropriate to Suzanne’s proposed undertaking. It counsels us:

Difficulty at the beginning works supreme success.

Furthering through perseverance.

It furthers to appoint helpers.

Times of growth are beset with difficulties. But these difficulties arise from the very profusion of what is struggling to attain form. Everything is in motion, therefore if one perseveres there is the prospect of great success.

It is very important not to remain alone. In order to overcome the chaos we need helpers. We must lend our hand and participate with inspiration and guidance.

In the beginning of a new venture, there is much that’s unformed, much that needs to get sorted out. This will almost certainly be the case with Suzanne’s venture, should it move forward. The thought-leaders who deal with the polycrisis tend to have big intellects that can see far — but each in their own way. They have put forward a profusion of paradigmatic frameworks for analyzing the polycrisis and for strategies of action.

Issues to Sort Out

So, there will be much to sort through.

• There will need to be agreement that a paradigm shift is needed to save us, not a regime change. We can rout the neo-fascists and end much cruelty, but this will not save us from the polycrisis. At best, it could only attenuate the onset of collapse.

• There will need to be clarity that a paradigm shift will bring a systems change — meaning a change that ripples through the whole society. A paradigm shift is not a return to liberalism and democracy (important though these may be).

• There will need to be recognition that rescuing liberal democracy would be a pyrrhic victory unless we deal with the wealth disparity that is the underlying rot corrupting democracy. Political democracy without economic democracy is meaningless.

• We should seek our ideological foundations in that which nurtures the most inclusive unity of free human beings. For this, we require that which best engenders love.

In collaborative work, agreement is often unnecessary. Pluralistic thinking can be there if those in collaboration find sufficient common ground. It’s been the experience of the Crisis and Transition Substack collective that common ground is more readily found around values than beliefs. People of diverse beliefs can readily find common ground in values such as equity, cooperation, decentralization, regeneration, inclusion, and unity based in love.

Crossing the Great Water

There is another I Ching hexagram, “Inner Truth”, which speaks to the need for inner work in taking up great ventures — in the I Ching’s words, to “cross the great water.”

Inner truth.

It furthers one to cross the great water.

Perseverance furthers.

The force of inner truth must grow great indeed before its influence can extend to intractable and difficult to influence people. . . . In this way one finds no obstacles insurmountable. One can undertake even the most difficult things, such as crossing the great water, and succeed.

Succeed we must. We must cross the great water and build up a life-centered society. This difficult undertaking cannot be achieved simply through a creative, collaborative campaign on Substack, though a Substack campaign can help. It cannot even occur through a massive multi-media campaign to awaken awareness of humanity’s perilous position.

The only open path forward that is one grounded in human unity. We require a vision of a planetary society that is for all, woven into the larger fabric of planetary life. And to manifest such a vision, we need people for whom this oneness is their inner truth. Such people are of utmost importance.

SUE Speaks

Suzanne Taylor’s Substack is called SUE Speaks. The “SUE” is not the nickname for Suzanne egotistically put in capital letters. It is an acronym for “Seeking Unity in Everything.” Suzanne gets it.