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.

 

[Elwood P. Dowd]

One long ass article about everybody's favorite activist. Did I finish it? LOL, no, it goes on seemingly as long as the Korean War.

It’s Greta’s World But it’s still burning. The extraordinary rise of a 16-year-old, and her Hail Mary climate movement.

Attention Required!

This quote is great, though. She's Joan of Arc. So...a schizophrenic girl cynically used by the powers that be to rile up the common folk to fight a war?

By the time she stepped off the yacht in New York on August 28, two weeks after she’d set sail from Plymouth, England, wobbly legged from the weeks at sea as she walked to address a crowd of many hundreds, she had become something even more unusual than an adolescent protester or even a generational icon. She was the Joan of Arc of climate change, commanding a global army of teenage activists numbering in the millions and waging a rhetorical war against her elders through the unapologetic use of generational shame.

I may make this my avatar. This Stephen King level creepiness.

Spoiler

 

[Larry David's Opera Cape]

Spoiler

View attachment 939333

Disaster girl, all grown up.

 

[Dynastier]

One long ass article about everybody's favorite activist. Did I finish it? LOL, no, it goes on seemingly as long as the Korean War.

It’s Greta’s World But it’s still burning. The extraordinary rise of a 16-year-old, and her Hail Mary climate movement.

Attention Required!

This quote is great, though. She's Joan of Arc. So...a schizophrenic girl cynically used by the powers that be to rile up the common folk to fight a war?



I may make this my avatar. This Stephen King level creepiness.

Spoiler

View attachment 939333

This is very science and evidence based behavior.

Remember when a 12 year old cried about relativity until the physicists changed the science? Or that little girl who told the church the earth revolves around the sun?

 

[Stoneheart]

Or that little girl who told the church the earth revolves around the sun?

The story you based your joke on is fake news, the problem was that galileo made some remarks about the pope and the pope realy didnt like that.

 

[Null]

Greta Thunberg to Congress: ‘You’re not trying hard enough. Sorry’

The Swedish environmentalist was one of several who spoke at a Senate climate crisis taskforce

www.theguardian.com

Greta Thunberg to Congress: ‘You’re not trying hard enough. Sorry’

The Swedish environmentalist was one of several who spoke at a Senate climate crisis task force

web.archive.org

At a meeting of the Senate climate crisis task force on Tuesday, lawmakers praised a group of young activists for their leadership, their gumption and their display of wisdom far beyond their years. They then asked the teens for advice on how Congress might combat one of the most urgent and politically contentious threats confronting world leaders: climate change.

Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish activist who has galvanized young people across the world to strike for more action to combat the impact of global warming, politely reminded them that she was a student, not a scientist – or a senator.


“Please save your praise. We don’t want it,” she said. “Don’t invite us here to just tell us how inspiring we are without actually doing anything about it because it doesn’t lead to anything.

“If you want advice for what you should do, invite scientists, ask scientists for their expertise. We don’t want to be heard. We want the science to be heard.”

In remarks meant for Congress as a whole, she said: “I know you are trying but just not hard enough. Sorry.”

The audience laughed. Supporters broke into applause. Senator Ed Markey, the Massachusetts Democrat who co-sponsored the Green New Deal and leads the Senate task force, was perhaps surprised by her bluntness. But he smiled.

Seated at the table with the teens were some of the most sympathetic and vocal supporters of bold action on climate change in Congress. But facing a Republican-controlled Senate and a hostile White House, the prospect of enacting reforms at the scale and scope called for by activists – and many scientists – is bleak.

“We need your leadership,” he told Thunberg. “Young people are the army politically, which has arrived in the United States. You put a spotlight on this issue in a way that it has never been before. And that is creating a new X factor.”

Still, Markey vowed to try: “We hear you. We hear what you’re saying and we will redouble our efforts.”

Thunberg was one of several youth activists invited to address the task force during two days of action and speeches aimed at urging lawmakers to support “transformative climate action”. She was joined by activists from across the US and South America, part of a “multiracial, intergenerational” effort to combat climate change.

The meetings and speeches in Washington are intended to raise awareness ahead of a global climate strike on Friday in which students and workers will walk out of schools and offices to pressure their governments to act as world leaders gather in New York for the annual United Nations summit.

“The generation of the Green New Deal will not only survive but we will thrive,” said Nadia Nazar, co-founder of the advocacy group Zero Hour, at a news conference earlier on Tuesday.

“We will no longer be known as the kids fighting the apocalypse. We will be known as the solution to the climate crisis.”

In the US, support for sweeping action on climate change is polarized. Many Republicans – among them Donald Trump – are still openly skeptical of the science behind global warming. Republican leaders have mocked Democrats for introducing a Green New Deal and have used the proposal as a cudgel against lawmakers and presidential candidates.

The Green New Deal is an ambitious 14-page resolution that calls for a “10-year national mobilization” that would eliminate the nation’s emissions in one decade. Scientists say limiting warming to 1.5C would require cutting manmade carbon levels by 45% by 2030 and reaching net zero around 2050.

Markey said their movement is shifting the political landscape. The senator pointed to the 2020 presidential debates as evidence of what has changed. Candidates are being asked about climate change and pushed to introduce plans to combat global warming. This is in stark contrast to 2016.

“What has happened? You have happened,” he told the activists. “You are giving this extra level of energy to the political process that is absolutely changing the dynamics of politics in the United States.”

The 2020 election, Markey said, will in many ways be a “referendum on climate change”.

Thunberg arrived in the US after crossing the Atlantic on a solar-powered yacht. She rose to international prominence after launching “Fridays for Future”: student-led strikes that have spread to 135 countries. She has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.

On Monday, she met Barack Obama. The former president shared a photo from their meeting, in which he praised Thunberg as “one of our planet’s greatest advocates” and someone who is “unafraid to push for real action”.

Barack Obama on Twitter

“Just 16, @GretaThunberg is already one of our planet’s greatest advocates. Recognizing that her generation will bear the brunt of climate change, she’s unafraid to push for real action. She embodies our vision at the @ObamaFoundation: A future shaped by young leaders like her.”

twitter.com

Later on Tuesday, the group was scheduled to meet Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who is a co-sponsor of the Green New Deal in the House.

On Wednesday, Thunberg will deliver what has been billed as a “major address” to members of Congress.

 

[Arm Pit Cream]

When I skipped school my Mom yelled at me, when Greta does it, she gets a nomination for a Nobel Peace Prize.

 

[Rio]

She's not even wrong. A million people can talk about how it's brave of her to talk about climate change, but it amounts to nothing when nobody actually tries to do anything about it.

 

[Sīn the Moon Daddy]

I've got some advice for you Greta

Get your ugly ass home and stop bugging the adults

 

[The Cunting Death]

The Planet is going anywhere....

WE ARE!

-George Carlin

 

[heathercho]

We don’t want to be heard. We want the science to be heard.

Does that include the science you don't like Greta? What about the impact of the Solar Minimum period?
The safe use of nuclear? Or is it only science when it includes sailboats that have to have crews flown out to man back home?

 

[Feline Darkmage]

Congress largely gets paid to do nothing. Gotta protect those special interests.

 

[Gravityqueen4life]

whats your personal thoughts of Greta Null?

 

[Franjevina]

She needs to be deported back to Swedistan ... i'm sure all the Iraqis and Pakistanis there are dying to hear her message .

 

[⠠⠠⠅⠑⠋⠋⠁⠇⠎ ⠠⠠⠊⠎ ⠠⠠⠁ ⠠⠠⠋⠁⠛]

whats your personal thoughts of Greta Null?

 

[Snow Fox]

She's a puppet-sped being used by adults around her as a political cudgel. Any time someone uses children in their political message, it is inherently weak and disingenuous.
It's either Nuclear Energy, or a massive scaleback on industry that would cripple all major nations and send the quality of life plummeting globally for the common people.

 

[Vince McMahon]

View attachment 939812

Ukrainians are known for their exquisite taste in perversity.

 

[4str4staleatherbelt]

Deport this sperg back to Sweden immediately.

 

[Rancid Flid]

A lot of the leftists & the media in the UK will say that the teenage girls who travelled to Syria to become ISIS jihadi brides were too young to know what they were doing but they think a mentally ill, teenage girl is somehow an expert on the complicated subject of climate change ?

 

[Vince McMahon]

A lot of the leftists & the media in the UK will say that the teenage girls who travelled to Syria to become ISIS jihadi brides were too young to know what they were doing but they think a mentally ill, teenage girl is somehow an expert on the complicated subject of climate change ?



View attachment 939822

Women good, men bad, get it through your head, you penis oppressor.

 

[Grinrow]

She should sail on over to china and protest their emission seeing how massive their emission is each year I'm sure Xi Jin will really give a shit.