Greta Thunberg built one of the most well-known activist movements of the 21st century around a quite simple proposition: listen to the scientists.

Whether you admired her conviction or found her sanctimony exhausting, her message was refreshingly uncomplicated. The planet was warming. The evidence was overwhelming. Political leaders weren’t doing enough. The solution was to pay attention to expertise rather than ideology.

There was something almost quaint about that version of activism. It asked us to believe that objective facts could still persuade people.

This week, Greta was photographed wearing a shirt bearing the slogan “Yalla Intifada.”

Whatever one thinks of the slogan itself, the journey between those two messages tells us something interesting—not only about Greta, but about activism itself.

Somewhere along the way, saving the planet stopped being enough.

Today’s activist isn’t just expected to care about every issue. Every issue is expected to fit the same ideological framework. Climate change must be linked to capitalism. Capitalism to colonialism. Colonialism to Gaza. Gaza to policing. Policing to race. Race to gender. Gender to immigration. Every cause becomes evidence for every other cause until politics begins to resemble a single, sprawling belief system rather than a collection of distinct problems requiring distinct solutions.

The single-issue........

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