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.

 

[ditto]

I hope that Greta turns out to be Q, working to bring down the UN pedo rings from the inside.

GRETA is an anagram of GREAT- Make America GREAT Again.. Coincidence??

 

[CWCissey]

Greta's in Davos right now, look out for potential memes.

 

[Overly Serious]

I hate the omnipresence of Greta. But it isn't only her parents, who exploit her. There are indications for Greta and the climate movement being pushed and installed by certain actors of some industries. Mainly the nuclear hydrogen industry uses her as tool for their agenda. As irritating as that sounds to me, but the Green party when in power in Germany promoted the development of "better, clean nuclear power" for "the hydrogen age", somewhat behind the scenes. There are strong interests at work, big profit interests and therefore it's useful to push the sense of urgency. Plans have been made, studies written but the people still need to be persuaded to accept some tens of thousands nuclear reactors worldwide. Bill Gates is invested in Terrapower (nuclear technology) also.

What? Can you source some of that or give more information? This is in contradiction to the mainstream environmental movement as I know it. I've been pushing nuclear power and HFC technology for years and the largest opposition I get to my views isn't from fossil fuel advocates and those who don't believe in AGW, but from Extinction Rebellion and Friends of the Earth types who want their wind power and batteries and will slander any technology that can out-compete those things. Thunberg was asked about nuclear power in public and started talking about how it wouldn't help dismantle the patriarchy or capitalism or something. And the German Green Party is, so far as I knew, one of the main reasons Germany has been shutting down its nuclear power stations. So what you say seems really weird to me.

 

[Sweet and Savoury]

I wish these Green freak could understand the environmental damage their darling lithium batteries cause.

Lithium is hellishly hard to mine, is basically strip mined out of poor African nations by little more then slave labor. It has a short use life and when discarded unless treated properly (and expensively recycled) it simple become a toxic soil contaminant.

But noooo nuclear is bad. Its just bad...don't ask me why! Are you a Nazi! Chernobyl! 3 Mile Island! Radiation and Hellfire!

Shitty scare tactics and emotional manipulation.

If these Green freaks were honest about saving the environment they'd call out China and Indian for their massive pollution footprint and stripping the oceans of life with illegal fishing methods and (lol, as if) non enforced quota's.

The current wave of Environmentalists are no different the the last 4 or 5...they want to tell you what to do and how to live. Give up modern life and go back to subsistence farming for your lifeblood you peon! We're your betters we know whats best for everyone! Do as we say not as we do!

Lets be honest wee need to reign in the 3rd world in both pollution and methodology. Instead of strip mining, drag net fishing and slash and burn farming we need to supply them with the tools to do it right. Modern methods are far more efficient and far more productive. But its easier to toss money into the hole that is Africa then it is to demand results for your finical aid.

India and China are the real issue for me when it comes to both pollution and over-exploitation of resources buuuuut...I do understand they have booming populations they have to feed and the lack the technical know how and industrial base the West has. So I don't know what the solution is there...how do you tell 3 billion people that they have to stop feeding their families in the way they have for generations?

Its a tuff issue we cant tackle while Greta and her handlers yak on about climbing world temperatures...which I feel are the least of the problems.

Yes the world is getting hotter...but its been much hotter in the past. Yes the coastlines are changing but they're always changing. Yes weather patterns are shifting but they've always moved around. These are issues we can deal with as a society but when the oceans are empty of life, chocked full of garbage, the coral reefs are all dead and the rain forests are cut down...then we as humans are really fucked.

We as people can move when the coastlines move, we can adjust our living areas when the weather patterns change and we can adapt to new farming areas and methods.

But how will we adapt to no fish in the ocean? How can we adapt to no more oxygen producing areas in the oceans and land. When the CO2 sinks are gone it will be game over for us as the O2 level's slowly but surely creep back to where they would be without the life that created them.

We do need solutions but it sure as shit ain't what these pricks are pushing.




sorry...its a sticking point with me. I've talked to waaaaay to many Green-freaks to have any hope of them being realistic about the future. To them the past time was idyllic times when man lived in harmony with nature rather then the more realistic point that each day was a struggle just to survive and every time I've asked them why they haven't done as such themselves...well the excuses fly.

I'm just sick of their hypocrisy...

 

[LetThemEatCake]

sorry...its a sticking point with me. I've talked to waaaaay to many Green-freaks to have any hope of them being realistic about the future. To them the past time was idyllic times when man lived in harmony with nature rather then the more realistic point that each day was a struggle just to survive and every time I've asked them why they haven't done as such themselves...well the excuses fly.

You get the very occasional middle-class one (usually couples) who makes a shitload of money in the city or in some professional, skilled or technical pursuit, buys some land in the arse end of Wales or wherever and fucks about on it, growing this and that organically, having chickens and such, while using all the technologies and benefits of western civilization and STILL not being able to feed themselves or their kids without going to the supermarket to stock up regularly. Then they use their contacts in the media world to get a book deal or some fawning magazine article on the BBC praising them for being good little greenies with their little windmill and own egg supply when in fact they are just fucking tourists and produce little to nothing or worth unlike the actual lifelong farmer down the road using modern agritech to farm properly, raising crops and animals for sale to make their living.

Nobody wants to live as a subsistence farmer, even subsistence farmers. It's the shittest life possible. People came off the land for the cities during the Industrial Revolution because even a life in a stinking city working in a factory was better than rural poverty where you would actually starve, and continue to come off the land in various poorer nations to work in sweatshops because that's still better than rural poverty.

 

[LetThemEatCake]

What? Can you source some of that or give more information? This is in contradiction to the mainstream environmental movement as I know it. I've been pushing nuclear power and HFC technology for years and the largest opposition I get to my views isn't from fossil fuel advocates and those who don't believe in AGW, but from Extinction Rebellion and Friends of the Earth types who want their wind power and batteries and will slander any technology that can out-compete those things. Thunberg was asked about nuclear power in public and started talking about how it wouldn't help dismantle the patriarchy or capitalism or something. And the German Green Party is, so far as I knew, one of the main reasons Germany has been shutting down its nuclear power stations. So what you say seems really weird to me.

Yeah, I agree with this. I cannot for the life of me understand how any of this ER or other greenie shite could ever be a deep cover op for the nuclear industry. There's zero evidence for it. It sounds like the wet anxiety dream of someone who is actually still stuck in the 80s fear mindset of nuclear anything.

I recall Greenpeace spending god knows how much to produce anti-nuclear energy ads which they paid to run in cinemas in the UK in the 1980s. Check it out. Trying to persuade us we'd have mass funerals in NCB suits if we switched to nuclear. This was in 1987. Here's a more recent anti-nuclear, pro 'alternate' energy ad produced for the German market.

They've been anti-nuclear energy for decades and nothing as far as I can see has changed. The scaremongering around the nuclear industry was HUGE and did a real number on public perception of nuclear power that remains to this day. The German government started shutting nuclear power stations after Fukushima, in some pathetic knee jerk response to the usual hysterics. Then of course they ended buying energy from crappy Belgian stations over the border anyway. The French who relied on nuclear for cheap electricity for years have started reducing the number of stations as part of some 'green; idiocy. I don't see anyone promoting nuclear at all at NGO or gov levsl.

The eco-movement and government shilling is for bullshit 'alternate' energy sources such as wind power, solar (great in some countries, but not in cloudy northern climes which lack more than a few full hours of daylight for months per year), wood pellet fuelled power stations, more or less anything that produces a tiny fraction of the energy needed to power the grid. After that it's 'reduce your footprint' via bug eating, living in slave quarters, never washing your clothes again and having emotional meltdowns at the sight of a plastic bottle of shampoo. Nuclear is never, ever mentioned except in a purely pejorative sense or hand-waved away as when Greta dismissed it as not a solution to Muh Patriarchy.

 

[Jeff Heaney]

I read that heart disease, suicide, and epilepsy are leading causes of death for those with the ‘tism Asperger’s is no longer acknowledged as a disorder, under the DSM-V. It’s just autism. Hopefully, little Greta won’t live to see 20. archive.li/0uTRe

Wishing death on a teenager to own the libs?

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Nobody wants to live as a subsistence farmer, even subsistence farmers. It's the shittest life possible. People came off the land for the cities during the Industrial Revolution because even a life in a stinking city working in a factory was better than rural poverty where you would actually starve, and continue to come off the land in various poorer nations to work in sweatshops because that's still better than rural poverty.

I kinda wonder if the immigration to cities was due to agriculture being very risky (especially if you don't have a lot of land), while cities had more stable work (or at least the promise of it).

The eco-movement and government shilling is for bullshit 'alternate' energy sources such as wind power, solar (great in some countries, but not in cloudy northern climes which lack more than a few full hours of daylight for months per year), wood pellet fuelled power stations, more or less anything that produces a tiny fraction of the energy needed to power the grid. After that it's 'reduce your footprint' via bug eating, living in slave quarters, never washing your clothes again and having emotional meltdowns at the sight of a plastic bottle of shampoo. Nuclear is never, ever mentioned except in a purely pejorative sense or hand-waved away as when Greta dismissed it as not a solution to Muh Patriarchy.

I don't know if solar is even good. Israel had 2 years ago finished building a solar power plant to the tune of 570M$ which supplies a whooping 1.58% of the country's electricity, and that's a new facility with (probably) cutting edge technology in a country known for having very hot weather with regular clean skies. So going full solar for a country of 7 million is 37B$.

Ashalim Power Station - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Mikoyan]

I kinda wonder if the immigration to cities was due to agriculture being very risky (especially if you don't have a lot of land), while cities had more stable work (or at least the promise of it).


I don't know if solar is even good. Israel had 2 years ago finished building a solar power plant to the tune of 570M$ which supplies a whooping 1.58% of the country's electricity, and that's a new facility with (probably) cutting edge technology in a country known for having very hot weather with regular clean skies. So going full solar for a country of 7 million is 37B$.

Ashalim Power Station - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

That's essentially the cost of providing peak load with solar, disregarding the other things (batteries, peaking backup capacity, etc, etc) that you'll need to make that full-solar grid a reality. Those costs are probably more than the stations.

 

[Super-Chevy454]

View attachment 1108284

The Daleks are so pissed to be compared to Greta.

 

[LetThemEatCake]

I kinda wonder if the immigration to cities was due to agriculture being very risky (especially if you don't have a lot of land), while cities had more stable work (or at least the promise of it).

In England, the drive to the cities and factories was increased by the parliamentary Enclosure Acts in the late 18the and 19th centuries which deprived the peasants of the right to forage and farm on strips of common land - aright they had often exploited to keep from starving. Once that right was removed, they did start to starve, so the choice was stay and starve, seek work in the cities or emigrate to the New World.

I don't know if solar is even good. Israel had 2 years ago finished building a solar power plant to the tune of 570M$ which supplies a whooping 1.58% of the country's electricity, and that's a new facility with (probably) cutting edge technology in a country known for having very hot weather with regular clean skies. So going full solar for a country of 7 million is 37B$.

Ashalim Power Station - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Yeah, I've seen Patrick Moore (the original founder of Greenpeace, the only one with an ecology degree and the guy who they now airpbrush out of their history as he has denounced them for being driven by little more than far left politics) tell about the devastation solar farms do to the deserts they are placed in - basically they have to remove every living thing that lives there and all vegetation that may damage the things. They scoop up tortoises etc which then usually die, it's horrific. I was really referring just to the amount of electrocity generated. In countries such as the UK, it's pathetic, we don't get enough light year round or clear skies yet it's still promoted for householders to invest in. In Australia or wherever it must generate more power - but as you say there are other costs involved as well as environmental impacts. Nothing's 'free' and nothing comes without its own impact environmentally.

 

[Frostnipped Todger]

We just looked into getting solar in my new house (in Australia). Lots of promises about how good the system was, how much we could save on our electricity bill etc...
All of which may be true, but the thing that got my tinfoil hat quivering was when being told about how high tech the control system was, and how it works through our WiFi so that we can check out the current output, the sales guy mentioned that the system for houses was made by Huawei.
I asked if it needed to be hooked up to the internet, and I was told that it had to be. While I don't think the Chinese government cares about my browsing the Farms, or looking at random hunting forums, I wonder how many police, politicians, and government officials have the same system on their houses.

 

[queerape]

I find that the media’s approach to climate change in general is irresponsible, and may push people to denialism by backlash or nihilism by despair. By constantly screeching “WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE BY 2030 AND THE EARTH WILL TURN INTO VENUS” people will at a point stop believing you and turn to denialists offering platitudes, or worse yet think there’s no point to trying to stop it because the bad guys are just gonna win anyways and there’s no hope of turning it down, so might as well go out with a bang.

meanwhile, there is no recognition of victories no matter how small, from the success of the Ozone layer, species pulled back from the brink and strides made in controlling acid rain, to reforestation efforts, growth in renewables, people elected on environmental issues, new laws passed, and anti-environmentalists being kicked to the curb. An issue explodes for a few years, it’s the new rapture until it improves somewhat due to action at which point it vanishes from the news.

When people see failures but no success, they see the movement as futile, and don’t want to contribute to it. If you want empowered people who can act, you need to avoid darkness induced audience apathy and show them examples of positive change or even potential positive change no matter how big or small.

 

[Evilronald]

The entire enviromental movement is currently run by big corporations. If the group wasn't peddling bullshit they'd go against mass consumption, fighting polluting countries and going against the constant movement of resources around the globe to save a few pennies in assembly.

Instead they want you to consume more. Buy new shit that is now 10% more enviromentally friendly rather than reuse old shit that was already produced. Have corporations waste fuel to show you how fuel efficient they are. Make new energy plants that cost a fortune, need harvested rare metals to work and only supply a fraction of a regular coal energy plant. Make new legistation that forces people to buy new shit and put regulations that will only apply on small competitors.

It is beyond bullshit. The amount of corruption makes me completely skeptical of global warming because you'd think people in the academia would have said something rather than raise a plan to make women in Africa study coding, because when you have an "imminent threat" the first thing you want to do is make a plan that will take decades to have an effect.

Not just that, but there have been studies that say people in the West consume way more resources than elsewhere in the world but they want to import people to the West where they’ll consume more. If these environmental groups took this shit seriously, they’d be as hawkish on immigration as say Nick Fuentes (if he actually believes any of that).

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

We just looked into getting solar in my new house (in Australia). Lots of promises about how good the system was, how much we could save on our electricity bill etc...
All of which may be true, but the thing that got my tinfoil hat quivering was when being told about how high tech the control system was, and how it works through our WiFi so that we can check out the current output, the sales guy mentioned that the system for houses was made by Huawei.
I asked if it needed to be hooked up to the internet, and I was told that it had to be. While I don't think the Chinese government cares about my browsing the Farms, or looking at random hunting forums, I wonder how many police, politicians, and government officials have the same system on their houses.

I really wonder how much the Chinese benefit from solar power. I read somewhere that one the metals used for it is mined nearly exclusively in china.

I find that the media’s approach to climate change in general is irresponsible, and may push people to denialism by backlash or nihilism by despair. By constantly screeching “WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE BY 2030 AND THE EARTH WILL TURN INTO VENUS” people will at a point stop believing you and turn to denialists offering platitudes, or worse yet think there’s no point to trying to stop it because the bad guys are just gonna win anyways and there’s no hope of turning it down, so might as well go out with a bang.

meanwhile, there is no recognition of victories no matter how small, from the success of the Ozone layer, species pulled back from the brink and strides made in controlling acid rain, to reforestation efforts, growth in renewables, people elected on environmental issues, new laws passed, and anti-environmentalists being kicked to the curb. An issue explodes for a few years, it’s the new rapture until it improves somewhat due to action at which point it vanishes from the news.

When people see failures but no success, they see the movement as futile, and don’t want to contribute to it. If you want empowered people who can act, you need to avoid darkness induced audience apathy and show them examples of positive change or even potential positive change no matter how big or small.

It's not as irresponsible as outright manipulative. From the onset with "An Inconvenient Truth" Global Warming was presented with a clearly political spokesperson who employed clearly political goals. It's not that the movement was overtaken with people who wanted to subvert it for political preassure, it started out with clearly political purpose - Get a (maybe manufactured) crisis that the democrats can leverage to get political power. Employing anti capitalist ideas despite over-consumption is not something that is inherent in a capitalist society (just a rich one).

 

[queerape]

It's not as irresponsible as outright manipulative. From the onset with "An Inconvenient Truth" Global Warming was presented with a clearly political spokesperson who employed clearly political goals. It's not that the movement was overtaken with people who wanted to subvert it for political preassure, it started out with clearly political purpose - Get a (maybe manufactured) crisis that the democrats can leverage to get political power. Employing anti capitalist ideas despite over-consumption is not something that is inherent in a capitalist society (just a rich one).

Even if the science behind it is not conducted with a political aim, the movement that uses the science is, which makes sense as movements are generally political and at level of policy change. Science is just the facts, politics is what you do about the facts, and most people do recognize it as XR and other groups clearly state they are leftist in nature.

What do you mean by it not being inherent in a capitalist society? Do you mean that a capitalist society can exist without overconsumption?

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Even if the science behind it is not conducted with a political aim, the movement that uses the science is, which makes sense as movements are generally political and at level of policy change. Science is just the facts, politics is what you do about the facts, and most people do recognize it as XR and other groups clearly state they are leftist in nature.

What do you mean by it not being inherent in a capitalist society? Do you mean that a capitalist society can exist without overconsumption?

Even the science is tainted. Climate science huge popularity is dependent on global warming being real. That's a conflict of interest right there. There are rumours that trying to go against the grain will get you excumonnunicated, which if it wasn't true a decade ago is definitely true now.

I should have expanded that anti capitalism extends to increased government control over the economy and regulations. With the justification being that capitalism leads to over-consumption.

But in case of over-consumption it's purely cultural. You can have a capitalist society that tries to not over consume. You can have a Socialist society that will over-consume if they can (if anything they will likely have a higher rate of consumption due to resources being free). Countries with free healthcare are a great example of how it's abused. But I can point to primitive examples like Indians slaying massive number of animals and only using a fraction of the meat.

 

[TerribleIdeas™]

Please mark a date 30 years from now on when Greta comes out against her current business handler in #metoo way.

With a street-shitting pajeet in the mix, I'll bet he's alreadyt asked for bobs and vagene.

Hair has too much life and color in it. The eye-bags aren't big and dark enough. The despair in her eyes is too reserved. Fake and gay.

Not to be a sick fuck but I wonder if they force her to not eat meat and tape down her breasts for the little girl look?

Hate to cross-cow, but her appearance reminds me of how under-developed Desmond Napoles looks, and it skeeves me the fuck out.

 

[queerape]

Even the science is tainted. Climate science huge popularity is dependent on global warming being real. That's a conflict of interest right there. There are rumours that trying to go against the grain will get you excumonnunicated, which if it wasn't true a decade ago is definitely true now.

What do you mean by the “popularity” being dependent on global warming being real? Do you mean like public concern about it or political concern?
I’d argue that even if we cannot prove climate change is real, the consequences are so great that we may as well treat it as if it is. It’s like Pascal’s wager.

Climate Change turns out to be a massive hoax perpetuated by “scientists paid off by governments to deceive people so they can get re-elected: If we denied it all along, nothing changes. If we treated it as if we were real,nothing changes, we have all this useful technology and a less polluted world anyways.

climate change is real: If we treated it as if were real- so once again the day is saved, thanks to the Scientists! If we denied it- everything goes to hell and Earth is burnt to a crisp.

Denial has the option of doing nothing or losing everything. Belief has the option of doing a little more than nothing or winning everything.

Even if the science doesn’t leave much room for skeptism, the stakes do not either, but it could still do good to be critical of movement tactics and media coverage when it comes to efficacy and transparency.

 

[Karl der Grosse]

I kinda wonder if the immigration to cities was due to agriculture being very risky (especially if you don't have a lot of land), while cities had more stable work (or at least the promise of it).

What has fuelled the move towards urban living more than anything was the development of large-scale fertilizers and pesticides. That allowed many fewer people on much less land to provide much larger and more reliable crop yields. Those excess workers had to go somewhere. That surplus labor was available to develop an industrial base.