We are living through some scary times. As Greta has told us so often: “Our house is on fire.” And I firmly believe that there are three things that have to align if we are going to douse the flames. First, we need the courage to dream of a different kind of future. To shake off the sense of inevitable apocalypse that has pervaded our culture. To give us a destination, a common goal, a picture of the world we are working towards.

But those dreams are useless unless we are willing to embrace the other two forces. One is the need to confront the truth of our moment in history — the truth of how much we have already lost and of how much more we are on the brink of losing if we do not embrace revolutionary levels of change.

The other thing we have to do is this: We have find our fight. We have to come together across differences and build credible, unshakable power. In the face of the fires roiling our world, we have to find our own fire. Truth and fire.

Greta Thunberg is one of the great truth-tellers of this or any time. Let me refresh your memories about some of her most iconic lines. To the U.N. climate negotiators in Poland last December, she said: “You are not mature enough to tell it like it is. Even that burden you leave to us children.”

To the British MPs who asked her to speak, she asked, “Is my English OK? Is the microphone on? Because I’m beginning to wonder.”

To the rich and mighty at Davos who praised her for giving them hope, she replied, “I don’t want your hope. … I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. I want you to act. I want you to act as you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if the house is on fire, because it is.”

She also told them that not everyone is to blame for the climate crisis. No, she looked them in the eye and said that they were to blame. And we will always love her for that.