Little Sister Is Watching: Scowling Greta Coming to a Kitchen Near You

A trend in Tel Aviv workplace cafeterias – photos of a judgemental Greta Thunberg next to disposable utensils. Here is #1: pic.twitter.com/8Zk93RfZ5s

— Allison K. Sommer (@AllisonKSommer) November 5, 2019

Little Sister Is Watching You.

Imagine you’ve strolled into your office break room to enjoy some lunch, you open a cabinet to grab a paper napkin, reach in, and — egads! — see the visage of that 16-year-old emotionally troubled climate crusader, Greta Thunberg, scowling at you from behind the plastic spoons.

Is this a prank? Some weird new diet plan? Did Greta get lost on her latest fake-carbon-neutral adventure and wind up somehow in your work fridge?

None of the above. “Greta Shaming” is the latest lame stunt from the planet-saving crowd, intended to make you think twice before… I dunno… having the desire to go on living.

Actually, it’s to make people reconsider using disposable utensils and the like, and it’s apparently a very big deal in Israel where the whole Greta Shaming thing is taking off.

Israelis are ‘Greta shaming’ each other over plastic https://t.co/wniyP6taaU via @timesofisrael

— Tree.St (@_TreeSt) November 7, 2019

Allison Kaplan Sommer reports for Haaretz that “employees have been placing photos of a judgmental-looking Thunberg on top of their office’s supply of disposable cups, plastic plates and utensils.” This is kind of a big deal in Israel, where there’s a high proportion of workers trying to keep kosher — and that means using disposable utensils in non-kosher kitchens. As Kaplan writes, “many more workplaces, including the Israeli army, have been more resistant to getting rid of paper and plastic” for exactly that reason.

So what’s a Gaia-worshipping buttinsky to do? Why, the same thing they do at various UN conferences, for major media outlets, and on fake eco-tours: Turn for help to that GenZ superhero, Scowling Greta.

'Greta shaming': Photos of famous climate activist are being used to stop Israelis from using disposables at work https://t.co/9U1Quf6WVb

— Don Loepp (@donloepp) November 7, 2019

I’m a fairly libertarian-minded guy, and very much an anti-prohibitionist. But if this is what color printers and photocopiers have enabled, maybe we ought to consider banning them. For the planet, of course.

I kid.

There is a more serious angle to this story though. Following WWII and the Holocaust, Israel was founded — and backed up by a sierra-hotel defense force — as the one place in the world where Jews would always be free to practice Judaism. Flash forward to today, and you have simple soldiers and office workers being shamed out of keeping kosher. I’m not religious, and I’d probably be terrible at it if I tried, but what gives Gaia-worshippers the right to harass people of other faiths in their own workplaces?

Oh, right… progressives always know best, and enjoy nothing but impunity for their annoying little stratagems. And here’s an easy prediction: Now that Greta Shaming has made the papers, it won’t be long before it goes global.

I was going to take a lunch break after filing this piece, but I seem to have lost my appetite. But then, ruining nice things for everyone else is what postmodern environmentalism is all about.

This may be controversial on Academic Twitter, but I am glad to take part in "Greta shaming" the clinical labs' capsule coffee supply pic.twitter.com/Mrz366SGNk

— Benjamin Katz (@DrBenKatz) November 7, 2019

You can have my K-Cups when you pry them from my cold, dead hands.