Well done, Mike Williams. Take a bow, Aaron Templin . They should be applauded for finding a spot for the controversial mural of climate change activist Greta Thunberg. The mural will be installed on the backside of Templin’s Front Street Taproom in downtown Fargo. Williams raised the $1,300 needed to put up the mural in Fargo.

The mural will be based on a brilliant and compelling photograph of Thunberg taken by renowned Bismarck photographer Shane Balkowitsch when Thunberg visited the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota last October. The mural was supposed to be put up on the side of a building that houses a bakery in Bismarck, but that turned ugly. The threats of vandalism and boycotts against the bakery were alarming. The bakery didn’t even own the building, but that didn’t matter to those making the threats. As if to prove the threats were real, another mural by Balkowitsch, already on display in Bismarck, and ironically called, “Liberty Trudges Through Justice,” was disgracefully vandalized and egged.

I have a hard time trying to figure out why there’s so much anger directed at the gutsy 17-year-old Thunberg. She’s trying to protect the planet. Yes, fossil fuel industries are huge in North Dakota, but the world is so dependent on oil and gas, those industries should thrive for many years to come. Maybe it’s because President Donald Trump has ridiculed and bullied Thunberg. Maybe this is a way for Trump’s sheepish followers to support the president.

It’s indisputable that climate change is real and dangerous. The five warmest years on record have occurred since 2015, ice sheets and glaciers are shrinking, oceans are warming, sea levels are rising, massive fires and extreme weather events are taking place, while fisheries and ecosystems are being threatened. Meantime, under Trump’s orders, the U.S. became the only country out of 196 to pull out of the Paris Climate Agreement, federal government scientists who are experts on climate change have been silenced, and Trump is undoing previous actions taken to flight climate change.

Perhaps the worst things about the mural controversy are the threats against freedom of speech and freedom of artistic expression. If you don’t like the mural, then don’t look at it. In Fargo, as it would have been in Bismarck, you have to go out of your way to find it.

listen live watch live

RELATED

Meantime, just like the strong opposition to refugees in Bismarck, the mural threats received national news coverage. This is an embarrassing look for Bismarck and North Dakota. At the risk of sounding like Trump after Charlottesville, there are many fine people in Bismarck. However, most Americans have never visited North Dakota and have no concept of this state. The image they will come away with now is of an intolerant state.

Thanks to Balkowitsch, Williams and Templin, freedom of speech and artistic expression will be alive and well in Fargo.