Imagined Conversation Between Rachel Carson and Greta Thunberg
by Iris Graville
~ inspired by a Kathleen Dean Moore “interview” with Edward Abbey in Great Tide Rising
What if Rachel Carson and Greta Thunberg were to meet today? I like to imagine moderating a conversation between the two women, all three of us sitting in Adirondack chairs on a stretch of rocky beach beside the Salish Sea. As a chilly breeze ruffles the blue-gray water, steam rises from our mugs of herbal tea.
I can’t know what these two climate activists would discuss if they met in the twenty-first century. But, modifying the form used by philosopher and essayist Kathleen Dean Moore in Great Tide Rising, I’ve prepared questions I’d ask of the two women. For their answers, I drew from their writing and speeches as well as what others have written about them.
~
Greta Thunberg, an eighteen-year-old from Sweden, stands barely five feet tall. She seems even smaller when on a stage before hundreds of people or being pursued by dozens of photographers. For our meeting, she wears her standard outfit: jeans, a T-shirt and a hoodie, and tennis shoes; her light brown hair is parted in the middle and braided.
Rachel Carson grew up in rural Pennsylvania. Her brown hair in tight curls frames her face. Just as in many photographs of this writer, scientist, and ecologist, she’s wearing a white blouse with a dark suit jacket and skirt. Biographies portray Ms. Carson as solemn and reserved with a forthright gaze, not given to quick smiles. She’s petite, like Ms. Thunberg, and speaks so softly I have to strain to hear her.1 However, I suspect if Ms. Carson could read the 2019 compilation of Ms. Thunberg’s speeches, she’d probably agree with its title, No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference.
The two activists share more than diminutive stature. Ms. Carson began writing stories (often involving animals) at age eight. Her first publication came when she was ten and won the Silver Badge from the respected children’s magazine, St. Nicholas.2 Ms. Thunberg’s eighth year was an important one for her, too. That’s how old she was when she began thinking about climate change and wondering why adults weren’t working to alleviate it. At fifteen, she won a writing competition about the environment, and her essay was published in a Swedish newspaper.3
In other ways, however, Ms. Thunberg’s and Ms. Carson’s experiences have been quite different. According to a 2016 story about Ms. Carson in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, she published pieces under the byline “R.L. Carson” to reduce the chance readers would dismiss her pro-environment message if they knew the writer was a woman.
Many people know Ms. Thunberg by her first name. When Penguin published her book of speeches, the white cover blared GRETA in black ink and in all caps in a bold, seventy-point typeface.
Time Magazine named Ms. Thunberg the 2019 “Person of the Year” and described her this way:
“She has Asperger’s syndrome, which means she doesn’t operate on the same emotional register as many of the people she meets. She dislikes crowds; ignores small talk; and speaks in direct, uncomplicated sentences… Where others smile to cut the tension, Thunberg is withering. Where others speak the language of hope, Thunberg repeats the unassailable science: Oceans will rise. Cities will flood. Millions of people will suffer.”4
A half-century before Time recognized Ms. Thunberg, that same magazine called Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring “unfair, one-sided, hysterically over-emphatic and filled with oversimplifications and downright errors.” Its review of the book included denials of its accuracy by a toxicologist and other “respected experts” from the US Public Health Service and the National Academy of Sciences, among others, as well as the Assistant Surgeon General. 5
Let’s hear what the two women have to say about the joys and struggles of being well-known environmental activists.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
IRIS GRAVILLE: Rachel, Greta, it’s a great pleasure to meet both of you and to talk with you about your lives and your work.
Rachel, let’s begin with you. Even though many people, Greta included, have read your books and know about your long struggle to prohibit the pesticide DDT, can you tell us what drove you to write about the environment?
RACHEL CARSON: First, let me say to Greta, I’m delighted to meet you. I admire your efforts and the way you’ve inspired thousands of people of all ages to recognize the catastrophe of human effects on the environment and demand change. [Greta’s solemn demeanor turns to a grin.]
I studied English in college, but a course in biology changed all that.6 The more I learned about the use of pesticides, the more appalled I became. I realized that here was the material for a book. What I discovered was that everything which meant most to me as a naturalist was being threatened and that nothing I could do would be more important.7
Even in the 1960s, we had persisted too long in the kind of thinking that may have been appropriate in the days of pioneers, but is so no longer—the assumption that the rivers, atmosphere, and the sea are vast enough to contain whatever we pour in them.8
IG: Rachel, in your day, people spoke of your efforts as conservation and ecology. Now we use terms like climate change and climate crisis. Greta, will you describe what you’ve been doing in response to the current crisis?
GRETA THUNBERG: Thank you. Hello, Rachel, I’m honored to meet you. [Rachel softens her usually compressed lips into a gentle smile.] I appreciate the way you spoke out about the sea and pesticides in the 1960s.
I come from Sweden, and I speak on behalf of future generations. In 2018, I sat alone in front of Parliament every Friday, on strike from school to show my concern about the climate. Now, thousands of other students from all around the world do the same. Many people don’t want to listen to us; they say we’re just children. But we’re only repeating the message of the united climate science.9
Adults keep saying: “We owe it to the young people to give them hope.” And I say, but I don’t want your hope. I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. And then I want you to act. I want you to act as you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if our house is on fire. Because it is.10
IG: Greta, millions of youth stand with you in your work. For example, four million people, many of them teens, joined the global climate strike on September 20, 2019. What do your parents think of your actions?
GT: When I told my parents about my plan, they weren’t very fond of it. They did not support the idea of school striking, and they said that if I were to do this, I would have to do it completely by myself and with no support from them.11 My parents were as far from climate activists as possible before I made them aware of the situation.12
IG: And other adults? What do they say? I know you’ve addressed heads of state at the United Nations, met with the Pope, and that Margaret Atwood compared you to Joan of Arc.13
GT: One of the funniest reactions was a Tweet by President Donald Trump in response to Time Magazine naming me “Person of the Year” for 2019. He posted: So ridiculous. Greta must work on her anger management problem, then go to a good old-fashioned movie with a friend! Chill Greta, Chill!14
So, I changed the personal biography on my Twitter account to read: “A teenager working on her anger management problem. Currently chilling and watching a good old-fashioned movie with a friend.”15
IG: Ms. Carson, I’m guessing you’re happy you didn’t have to deal with Twitter. There are many new ways people communicate now. It’s called “social media,” but not everyone who uses it is very social. But in your time, there were plenty of people who didn’t want to listen to your warnings, and others undermined them. How did you deal with the criticism?
RC: Hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent to not only discredit my book, Silent Spring, but also the hysterical woman who wrote it. Fortunately [a soft chuckle slips out], the attacks seemed to backfire, creating more publicity than my publisher ever could have afforded. I was also accused of communist sympathies, of being a peace nut, a fanatic, even a woman. A former Secretary of the Department of Agriculture asked, “Why is a spinster with no children concerned with genetics?” One reviewer claimed, “Her book is more poisonous than the pesticides she condemns.” The attacks weren’t pleasant, but they didn’t really get to me.16
There were supporters, even though magazines and newspapers that ran favorable reviews were told they’d lose advertising.17
IG: You may not know this, Rachel, but Silent Spring was translated into many languages and it still sells more than twenty-five thousand copies every year.18 [Another slight grin from Rachel.]
How about you, Greta? How is it for you when people say unkind things about you?
GT: I don’t care about being popular, I care about climate justice and the living planet.19 Many people love to spread rumors saying that I have people “behind me” or that I’m being “paid” or “used” to do what I’m doing. But there is no one “behind” me except for myself. 20
IG: Greta, you’re very skilled at speaking about the urgency to act as we would in a crisis. I’m sure people ask you how a young person like you can put so much attention on this subject. I think age doesn’t matter, but I do wonder how you have such strength and commitment.
GT: It is hard to be different sometimes. I have Asperger’s, so I’m on the autism spectrum. Many people see it as a weakness or disease, but it’s not. I’m in some ways grateful for my diagnosis; if my brain worked differently, I wouldn’t be able to sit for hours and read things I’m interested in.21
IG: Your father has said when you were eleven years old, you fell into a deep depression about climate change. For months, you stopped speaking almost entirely and ate so little you were nearly hospitalized.
GT: Yes. My parents took time off work to nurse me through what my father calls a period of “endless sadness.” I just remember feeling confused. I couldn’t understand how that could exist, that existential threat, and yet we didn’t prioritize it. I was maybe in a bit of denial, like, “That can’t be happening, because if that were happening, then the politicians would be taking care of it.” While learning about climate change triggered my depression in the first place, it was also what got me out of my depression because there were things I could do to improve the situation. I don’t have time to be depressed anymore. 22
IG: I’m glad to hear that, Greta. I know that, despite how desperate the climate crisis is, many people who feel sadness and fear are eased when they act.
What wisdom can the two of you offer to help us all keep going?
RC: If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children, I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against… boredom and disenchantment… the sterile preoccupation with things that are artificial, the alienation from the sources of our strength.23
Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. I believe that natural beauty has a necessary place in the development of any individual or any society.24
GT: We often talk about these negative tipping points, things we can’t change. There could be also positive tipping points, like when people say they’ve had enough. The tipping point we’re waiting for right now is when people will understand the power we actually have. I’d like to tell my grandchildren that we did everything we could. That we did it for them and for the generations to come.25
IG: Thank you, Greta and Rachel, for sharing your thoughts and for your words of hope. I’m glad you were able to meet each other, even if it was only in my imagination. You both inspire me.
Iris Graville has lived in Washington State for four decades plus, after childhood and early adulthood in Chicago and small towns in Southern Illinois and Indiana. A long-time Quaker, an environmental and anti-racism activist, and a retired nurse, Iris believes everyone has a story to tell. She’s the author of two collections of profiles—Hands at Work and BOUNTY: Lopez Island Farmers, Food, and Community. Her memoir, Hiking Naked, and essay collection, Writer in a Life Vest, received Nautilus Awards. Iris holds a Master of Nursing degree from the University of Washington; she focused most of her nursing career in public health. In 2015, she earned a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Northwest Institute of Literary Arts. In 2018, Iris was named the first “Writer-in-Residence” for the Washington State Ferries. Sometimes you’ll still find her writing on the Interisland ferry as the vessel courses among the San Juan Islands. Since 1996, Iris and her husband, a retired sign language interpreter, have lived on traditional Coast Salish lands, now called Lopez Island, Washington. They tend a large garden, ride bicycles, and walk the trails and beaches surrounding their home. irisgraville.com.
Endnotes
1-2 Lear, Linda, ed. Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson. Boston: Beacon Press. 2011(Kindle Edition).
3-4 Edward Felsenthal, “Time 2019 Person of the Year, Greta Thunberg,” Time Magazine December 4, 2019.
5 “Pesticides, the Price for Progress,” Time Magazine, Sept. 28, 1962.
6 Lear, Linda, ed. Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson. Boston: Beacon Press. 2011(Kindle Edition).
7 Carson, Rachel, Dorothy Freeman, Martha E. Freeman. Always, Rachel: The Letters of Rachel Carson and Dorothy Freeman, 1952-1964. Boston: Beacon Press.
8 Lear, Linda, ed. Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson. Boston: Beacon Press. 2011(Kindle Edition).
9-12 Thunberg, Greta. No One is Too Small to Make a Difference. New York: Penguin Press. 2019.
13 Edward Felsenthal, “Time 2019 Person of the Year, Greta Thunberg,” Time Magazine December 4, 2019.
14 Donald Trump (@realDonaldTrump,) “So ridiculous,” Twitter, December 11, 2019.
15 Madeline Roth, “Chill! Greta Thunberg Flips Script on Trump by Telling Him to Work on His Anger Management Problem,” The Independent December 12, 2019.
16 Sense of Wonder, one-woman play about Rachel Carson, written and performed by Kaiulani Lee, excerpted on “Bill Moyers’ Journal: Rachel Carson’s Legacy,” Season 11, Episode 24, PBS.
17 Lear, Linda, ed. Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson. Boston: Beacon Press. 2011(Kindle Edition).
18 Sense of Wonder, one-woman play about Rachel Carson, written and performed by Kaiulani Lee, excerpted on “Bill Moyers’ Journal: Rachel Carson’s Legacy,” Season 11, Episode 24, PBS.
19-20 Thunberg, Greta. No One is Too Small to Make a Difference. New York: Penguin Press. 2019.
21-22 Edward Felsenthal, “Time 2019 Person of the Year, Greta Thunberg,” Time Magazine December 4, 2019.
23 Carson, Rachel. The Sense of Wonder. New York: Harper Collins, 1956.
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