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.

 

[AlexJonesGotMePregnant]

I do but I can't penetrate myself.

The internet has plenty of tutorial videos on how to solve this problem.

 

[Stoneheart]

It really bothers me how so much of her message is about how whites have ruined the world and the colored people are innocent heroes.

She isnt wrong about that. Africans would have never changed the climate on their own, its hard to start an industrie with an iq of 80...

 

[Arkancide Pact]

She loves ol arnie Schwarzenegger though. His oversize hum-vee didn't seem to make her say "how dare you" during their bike trip...

Oh, but it's ok. He chartered 3 separate flights to the factory to make sure it was built in an "eco friendly" way.

It's so fucking fake and obvious and stupid.

 

[Malagor the dank omen]

I swear to christ, I think Greta believes that my fucking Corolla will put out less pollution if I gift it to a poc even if that poc puts exactly as much gas into it and drives it as much as I do. I think that's what she and her kind want the peasantry to believe.

This is the thing. They firmly believe that the "poor colored people" can pollute and do whatever the fuck they want with climate, even if that means chop down rainforests to expand farms that are less efficient than a suburban garden. And you know why? It's the magical word of the day: Colonialism.

Those poor people in Africa got oppressed the living shit out of them by whitey. You know china? Oh, the brits were extremely mean to uncle chang. And you better don't forget about india. It doesn't matter that China and India pollute more than everyone else in the world, have backwards traditions and are horrible at planning, they NEED to pollute in order to pull themselves out of the inmense amounts of poverty they have.

And there is also the shit about the industrial revolution and whitey polluted the everlasting shit out of everything. And like slavery, you better pay climate reparations for all the coal that was burned in that foundry your great great great grandfather worked nearly 12 hours a day to barely feed his family.

She isnt wrong about that. Africans would have never changed the climate on their own, its hard to start an industrie with an iq of 80...

I will always recommend everyone to watch "Empire of Sand". It's a enlightening reminder that when colonialism was over the people in charge didn't packed all the industry, technology and roads and left. All that the brits or the french built in their colonies stayed in Africa but nogs are so utter shit at everything that in 30 years they ruined everything so much they are back in the stone age.

 

[Arkancide Pact]

Also, "climate change" is fake and based off false data. NOAA still keeps the original non "adjusted" data set, you can literally see it for yourself.

Raw NOAA data
Adjusted NOAA data

Note both links go directly to the noaa.gov site.

Here's that data in graph form:


As you can see, the adjusted data shows a rise of 2.5 degrees over time. The unadjusted data shows no such rise.

They accomplish this mainly by adjusting old temperatures downward. They simply made the year 1900 2 degrees colder than the recordings of the instruments say it was.

 

[Yotsubaaa]

Also, "climate change" is fake and based off false data. NOAA still keeps the original non "adjusted" data set, you can literally see it for yourself.

Raw NOAA data
Adjusted NOAA data

Note both links go directly to the noaa.gov site.

Here's that data in graph form:
View attachment 1010159

As you can see, the adjusted data shows a rise of 2.5 degrees over time. The unadjusted data shows no such rise.

They accomplish this mainly by adjusting old temperatures downward. They simply made the year 1900 2 degrees colder than the recordings of the instruments say it was.

Apparently the adjusted data use Pairwise Homogenization Algorithm (PHA) adjustments to account for bias introduced by things like moving network stations, changes in recording instrumentation and observation times, and so on.

Understanding Adjustments to Temperature Data - Berkeley Earth

There has been much discussion of temperature adjustment of late in both climate blogs and in the media, but not much background on what specific adjustments are being made, why they are being made, and what effects they have. Adjustments have a big effect on temperature trends in the U.S., and...

berkeleyearth.org

(https://archive.li/I2PgY)

The algorithm, implemented in Fortran (because of course it is, fucking climate scientists), is available here.

Not saying that this all isn't suspect as hell. In fact, I saw this as I was skimming through the PHA source code files. Gotta say, it doesn't inspire a lot of confidence that their software works the way they say it does.

From the header of filnet_subs.v4p.f:

C   WARNING - POTENTIAL FOR A MAJOR ERROR IN THE PRECIP CODE HAS BEEN
C     DISCOVERED. THE ALGORITHM MAY BE COMPROMISED DUE TO THE USE OF
C     OF A SHORTCUT FOR CALCULATIONS. IT SEEMS AS IF THE ESTIMATION OF 
C     THE CONFIDENCE INTERVAL AND THE CORRECTION FACTOR ARE NOT 
C     CALCULATED IN NATURAL LOG SPACE AS IN THE ORIGINAL SPERRY VERSION
C     AT PRESENT THE EFFECTS ARE UNKNOWN, BUT UNTIL FURTHER INVESTIGATION
C      !!!!!! CONSIDER THE CODE CORRUPTED !!!!!!
C                                                07JUN01 CW

 

[ditto]

moving network stations, changes in recording instrumentation and observation times, and so on

Why aren't they using satellite data for world-wide climate projections instead of land based observations? The only adjustments that should be for historical data, it shouldn't be ongoing.

 

[Yotsubaaa]

Why aren't they using satellite data for world-wide climate projections instead of land based observations? The only adjustments that should be for historical data, it shouldn't be ongoing.

Good question. They absolutely used the land-based observations for historical data, as you said. But you're right: you'd expect that satellite-data would remove the temperature heterogeneities that were messing up their data (and why they needed the PHA adjustment in the first place).

So I looked into it and found this research paper asking that very question back in the mid-2000's:

Climate analysis with satellite versus weather station data

This paper compares how well satellite versus weather station measurements of climate predict agricultural performance in Brazil, India, and the United States. Although weather stations give accurate measures of ground conditions, they entail sporadic observations that require interpolation...

link.springer.com

(full paper accessible link from sci-hub)

Here's a more recent paper comparing temperature estimates between land-based instruments and satellite measurements:

Recent global warming as confirmed by AIRS - IOPscience

The academic answer seems to be that there were/are still some issues with using satellite-based data inference (because the satellite can't really measure the temperature directly in the same way that land instruments can, right? They have to estimate the temperature by measuring microwave radiation and making inferences based upon the emissivity of the local terrain), as compared with direct land-based measurements. They've gotten much better in recent decades though, and now the satellite-based measurements and the land-based measurements are typically in full agreement with each other for most climate parameters.

So that's the academic answer for why they probably still default to land-based measurements. But given that it's academia we're dealing with, the real answer is probably closer to good old bureaucratic inertia and laziness.

(I mean, for an example of such inertia, look no further than that header code comment in my previous post. The signature says the comment was added by 'CW' in 2001. So in the best case, they're still using 20 year old software written in Fortran for their climate data adjustments. In the worst case? They still haven't even triaged CW's bug report yet, and that same 20 year old PHA code has a fatal error in it that nobody ever got around to fixing.)

 

[Mitt Doggy Dogg]

Those poor people in Africa got oppressed the living shit out of them by whitey. You know china? Oh, the brits were extremely mean to uncle chang. And you better don't forget about india. It doesn't matter that China and India pollute more than everyone else in the world, have backwards traditions and are horrible at planning, they NEED to pollute in order to pull themselves out of the inmense amounts of poverty they have.

There darkie buddies sold them into Slavery so they oppressed there selfs , the only reason Africa isn't polluted more is because they are too stupid and poor to have a industrial revolution like all modern countries had at some point, they would rather chase lions and chuck spears at each other, but oh noes whitey!

 

[bippu_as_fuck_ls400]

Greta looks very odd here. She has a young body and an old looking face.

Does she only own one pair of shoes? The only time I've seen her in different shoes was on the boat during her transatlantic trip.

I feel like I'm setting myself up for autistic ratings by even mentioning this.

 

[Big Nasty]

Does she only own one pair of shoes? The only time I've seen her in different shoes was on the boat during her transatlantic trip.

I feel like I'm setting myself up for autistic ratings by even mentioning this.

Could be a autism thing.

I know that Chris always wore the same shoes everywhere until they looked like complete garbage and then Sockness bought them and jacked off in them.

I fear that her shoes will probably suffer the same fate at the hands of some pervert.

 

[Feline Supremacist]

I still don't understand why anyone would listen to a fugly sixteen year old vegan with autismo who had a tantrum at the UN.

 

[kūhaku]

I still don't understand why anyone would listen to a fugly sixteen year old vegan with autismo who had a tantrum at the UN.

Because she's a gen z #relateable child with autism who just wants to make the world a better place!! If you diss her, that makes you the bad person.

Or, that's the theory behind her being a figurehead at least.

 

[Judge Holden]

I still don't understand why anyone would listen to a fugly sixteen year old vegan with autismo who had a tantrum at the UN.

Because doing so gives them the bragging rights of "I listened to a fugly sixteen year old vegan with autismo who had a tantrum at the UN! I am so progressive and understanding and sensitive to the needs of ugly tardlings!" without having to do anything more difficult than tweet

The more wretched and unfortunate looking the object of pity is, the more virtuous and compassionate those who declare their pity for it appear

 

[Feline Supremacist]

Because doing so gives them the bragging rights of "I listened to a fugly sixteen year old vegan with autismo who had a tantrum at the UN! I am so progressive and understanding and sensitive to the needs of ugly tardlings!" without having to do anything more difficult than tweet

The more wretched and unfortunate looking the object of pity is, the more virtuous and compassionate those who declare their pity for it appear

Oh, so they feel sorry for this tard then? Wait until she becomes an even fuglier woman with schizophrenia and autismo screaming at every passerby in the street about Area 51 causing climate change or something. A few phone calls later and she'll be so full of Thorazine she won't remember what her name is, let alone the UN.

 

[Malagor the dank omen]

Wait until she becomes an even fuglier woman with schizophrenia and autismo screaming at every passerby in the street about Area 51 causing climate change or something. A few phone calls later and she'll be so full of Thorazine she won't remember what her name is, let alone the UN.

At the rate this is going i kinda expect this to happen when she's in her early 20s and she snaps at some event and attacks someone like somre rabid monkey on PCP instead of just throwing a mean look at them and saying "How dare you pollute?"

 

[AnOminous]

The more wretched and unfortunate looking the object of pity is, the more virtuous and compassionate those who declare their pity for it appear

But Greta is more scary looking than sympathetic.

 

[AltisticRight]

Also, "climate change" is fake and based off false data. NOAA still keeps the original non "adjusted" data set, you can literally see it for yourself.

Raw NOAA data
Adjusted NOAA data

Note both links go directly to the noaa.gov site.

Here's that data in graph form:
View attachment 1010159

As you can see, the adjusted data shows a rise of 2.5 degrees over time. The unadjusted data shows no such rise.

They accomplish this mainly by adjusting old temperatures downward. They simply made the year 1900 2 degrees colder than the recordings of the instruments say it was.

Looks like you don't know what adjusted data is. It's not "lol we gonna adjust the data by adding 2 degrees lmao haha people won't find out".

In statistics, an adjusted data set will use some kind of algorithm to account for certain inherent biases that exist in the data set. Even though the biased data might not have a grand impact, it's still something that must be avoided since it violates one of the fundamental premises of statistics.

Climate change is real or otherwise is beyond the point here. No sampling method is perfect, there's stupid stuff such as human errors, instrumental calibration integrity and what-not. In an ideal world, all this should be accounted for.

 

[Big Nasty]

But Greta is more scary looking than sympathetic.

That, and the tantrums are a performance. She has been taught to perform this way. Her mother is a stage performer.

 

[teriyakiburns]

In statistics, an adjusted data set will use some kind of algorithm to account for certain inherent biases that exist in the data set.

The biases are unknown in this case, and unpredictable on a per-station basis.