Science Greta Thunberg Megathread - Dax Herrera says he wouldn't have a day ago (I somewhat doubt that)

Why is Greta Thunberg so triggering? How can a 16-year-old girl in plaits, who has dedicated herself to the not-exactly sinister, authoritarian plot of trying to save the planet from extinction, inspire such incandescent rage?

Last week, she tweeted that she had arrived into New York after her two week transatlantic voyage: “Finally here. Thank you everyone who came to see me off in Plymouth, and everyone who welcomed me in New York! Now I’m going to rest for a few days, and on Friday I’m going to participate in the strike outside the UN”, before promptly giving a press conference in English. Yes, her second language.

Her remarks were immediately greeted with a barrage of jibes about virtue signalling, and snide remarks about the three crew members who will have to fly out to take the yacht home.

This shouldn’t need to be spelled out, but as some people don’t seem to have grasped it yet, we’ll give it a lash: Thunberg’s trip was an act of protest, not a sacred commandment or an instruction manual for the rest of us. Like all acts of protest, it was designed to be symbolic and provocative. For those who missed the point – and oh, how they missed the point – she retweeted someone else’s “friendly reminder” that: “You don’t need to spend two weeks on a boat to do your part to avert our climate emergency. You just need to do everything you can, with everyone you can, to change everything you can.”

Part of the reason she inspires such rage, of course, is blindingly obvious. Climate change is terrifying. The Amazon is burning. So too is the Savannah. Parts of the Arctic are on fire. Sea levels are rising. There are more vicious storms and wildfires and droughts and floods. Denial is easier than confronting the terrifying truth.

Then there’s the fact that we don’t like being made to feel bad about our life choices. That’s human nature. It’s why we sneer at vegans. It’s why we’re suspicious of sober people at parties. And if anything is likely to make you feel bad about your life choices -- as you jet back home after your third Ryanair European minibreak this season – it’ll be the sight of small-boned child subjecting herself to a fortnight being tossed about on the Atlantic, with only a bucket bearing a “Poo Only Please” sign by way of luxury, in order to make a point about climate change.

But that’s not virtue signalling, which anyone can indulge in. As Meghan Markle, Prince Harry, and their-four-private-jets-in-11-days found recently, virtue practising is a lot harder.

Even for someone who spends a lot of time on Twitter, some of the criticism levelled at Thunberg is astonishing. It is, simultaneously, the most vicious and the most fatuous kind of playground bullying. The Australian conservative climate change denier Andrew Bolt called her “deeply disturbed” and “freakishly influential” (the use of “freakish”, we can assume, was not incidental.) The former UKIP funder, Arron Banks, tweeted “Freaking yacht accidents do happen in August” (as above.) Brendan O’Neill of Spiked called her a “millenarian weirdo” (nope, still not incidental) in a piece that referred nastily to her “monotone voice” and “the look of apocalyptic dread in her eyes”.

But who’s the real freak – the activist whose determination has single-handedly started a powerful global movement for change, or the middle-aged man taunting a child with Asperger syndrome from behind the safety of their computer screens?

And that, of course, is the real reason why Greta Thunberg is so triggering. They can’t admit it even to themselves, so they ridicule her instead. But the truth is that they’re afraid of her. The poor dears are terrified of her as an individual, and of what she stands for – youth, determination, change.

She is part of a generation who won’t be cowed. She isn’t about to be shamed into submission by trolls. That’s not actually a look of apocalyptic dread in her eyes. It’s a look that says “you’re not relevant”.

The reason they taunt her with childish insults is because that’s all they’ve got. They’re out of ideas. They can’t dismantle her arguments, because she has science – and David Attenborough – on her side. They can’t win the debate with the persuasive force of their arguments, because these bargain bin cranks trade in jaded cynicism, not youthful passion. They can harangue her with snide tweets and hot take blogposts, but they won’t get a reaction because, frankly, she has bigger worries on her mind.

That’s not to say that we should accept everything Thunberg says without question. She is an idealist who is young enough to see the world in black and white. We need voices like hers. We should listen to what she has to say, without tuning the more moderate voices of dissent out.

Why is Greta Thunberg so triggering? Because of what she represents. In an age when democracy is under assault, she hints at the emergency of new kind of power, a convergence of youth, popular protest and irrefutable science. And for her loudest detractors, she also represents something else: the sight of their impending obsolescence hurtling towards them.

joconnell@irishtimes.com
https://twitter.com/jenoconnell

https://web.archive.org/web/2019090...certain-men-1.4002264?localLinksEnabled=false
Found this thought-provoking indeed.

 

[TowinKarz]

Because she "ticks" three of the boxes on the Top Ten Things Liberals do That Piss Everyone Off card

1. - Totally manufactured by the media to appear as a grassroots response to a civil/social "Crisis" that doesn't exist, or if it does, nobody cares about
2. - Pushing the green agenda which the left of late has been caught admitting is not about the environment, but about using that as a pretext to forcibly regulate the crap out of us and turn us all into socialists for the Planet's sake.
3. - Deliberately putting it all into the mouth of a young girl so any criticism is bullying, sexism, and probably both.

 

[Slimy Time]

Add to that more than likely abusive parents behind the scenes and you got it.

What parents allow their kids to run around the world doing this sort of activism? Or allow their kid to go on a fucking sailboat for 10 days to cross an ocean to own the climate deniers? You are beyond rich, send that kid to a top school or do something to set her up to be a success. This girl, assuming she's not being passed around paedophile politicians, is going to be yesterdays news in another year or two, a literal "who?" in another 3. Then what?

It's negligence on behalf of the parents of the highest order at best.

 

[frozenrunner]

I like how they close past the sale and assume "triggering" is a real phenomenon amongst normal people.

 

[Larry David's Opera Cape]

Seeing her have facial tics so severe they look like a small seizure, demonstrating that she is under an inhuman amount of pressure to perform for a bunch of rich goons who care naught about her as a human, does indeed "trigger" me. It triggers my natural instinct to want to launch the people who would abuse and exploit a young girl to the point that she is physically and mentally deteriorating beyond repair, into space.

 

[George Floyd Sneed]

I don’t think anyone is actually triggered by her. She’s the 2019 iteration of David Hogg.

 

[Coleslaw]

Can't help but feel sorry for the girl that's being used as a fucking pawn.

 

[MemeGray]

I like how they add she has Aspegers like we should feel bad, it makes me want to mock her more

 

[ES 195]

You've been called out incel kiwis, what's your response?

They're both freaks, duh. Why does this person think there only has to be one?

 

[Get_your_kicks_with_30-06]

Mainly because I was forced to watch one of her Ted talks for a college course before she blew up and it was the most autistic ted talk ive ever seen. And there are a lot of autistic ted talks.

 

[adorable bitch]

Because imagining what might've happened to me if my 16 year old political hot takes were being broadcast and advertised for millions of people to see makes me want to retract my body so far into my ass I enter another dimension, hopefully one that isn't as clownish.

 

[The Great Citracett]

Why are her eyes so small?

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.

 

[Iwasamwillbe]

Just ignore Greta Thunburg. She'll go away on her own.

 

[Red Hood]

I don’t think anyone is actually triggered by her. She’s the 2019 iteration of David Hogg.

Tbh I think Hogg could pull off that hairstyle better.

 

[Calooby]

Literally who?

 

[Mister Dodo]

There's a lot of bullshit "climate change advocates" out there anyway. Not saying she is, but many of her followers are. Get off your fucking high horse. Just because you use a metal straw and say "save the turtles" doesn't make you a fucking activist. It makes me want to punch these fucking kids (and adults) in their smug faces. Same with teachers who put a "safe space" sticker on their door. They just do it to feel good about themselves without actually doing anything.

 

[mr.moon1488]

"Here's a """"""""""cute"""""""""" Jewish girl from a country now comprised mainly of gay Muslims. She did something cool, now give up your plastic straws, and kill yourself so you can be more like her." The whole thing is just so condescending. It's like the retarded kid in class getting a participation medal for smearing shit on a canvas during an art competition, and then looking down on you because you declined to participate.

 

[Larry David's Opera Cape]

"Here's a """"""""""cute"""""""""" Jewish girl from a country now comprised mainly of gay Muslims. She did something cool, now give up your plastic straws, and kill yourself so you can be more like her." The whole thing is just so condescending. It's like the exceptional kid in class getting a participation medal for smearing shit on a canvas during an art competition, and then looking down on you because you declined to participate.

I am virtually certain she is not Jewish, unless you know something I don't. There are a lot of -bergs in Swedish and very, very few of them are Jews.

 

[Super-Chevy454]

Perhaps it was already mentionned in another thread but PJW did a vlog about Greta.

PJW along with one Youtuber commenter, hit the target.

Mohammed Irfaan
As an Indian I agree, she never mentioned India or China. Always going after western and European countries.

 

[mr.moon1488]

I am virtually certain she is not Jewish, unless you know something I don't. There are a lot of -bergs in Swedish and very, very few of them are Jews.

Given the way they're idolizing her, it's likely a pretty safe bet.

 

[CivilianOfTheFandomWars]

The same reason people like Soph are so triggering for others I guess. They both represent a child 'weaponized' to spread ideas deemed wrong by one side or the other. The difference seems to be that Soph gets banished for her ideals while Greta gets lauded for hers by the media. Both are seen as tools by the other side.
I don't know how true the whole 'brainwashing' thing is, to me it seems like all children absorb the ideas of those around them, and either follow them or rebel. I do not have a horse in this race.
But, I do dislike the whole 'climate change advocates' thing because it blames me for the actions of giant companies and governments. And yes, I drive, I drink out of plastic stuff, I use the fruits of all of those harmful things. What I don't do is decide to farm almonds and soy in California and blame the citizens for droughts, I don't dump shit into the ocean because it's cheaper that way, and I certainly don't have a private jet and multiple homes.
I’m also vaguely tethered to reality at times, so I don’t think that Africa and India and China will respond well to us telling them to not do all the neat shit we’ve done because we found out it might be bad. They’ll tell us to go fuck ourselves and keep on pouring cement.
It’s not the kid, it’s the adults who say the same stuff and would clearly cast her aside if she changed her tune.