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.

 

[Iron Hamster]

I hope someone has called this out for the shameless cashgrab that it is. A Mighty Girl is another one of those communities of grown ass adults who are way too invested in what little kids are doing.

Also lol at Greta’s black friend back there. If the giants aren’t all white and male I’d be surprised.

It's certainly no 'New Guy'

 

[NIA-DOA 2.0]

Haven't seen it mentioned so here we go.

Greta's fearmongering activism inspired a number of picture books for kids. Here's one of the better-looking ones called Greta and the Giants, drawn by Zoe Persico. (Which is how I found out about it at all)

View attachment 1116454

From A Mighty Girl, a girlpower website that teeter-totters between sweet and creepy:

"Greta is a little girl who lives in a beautiful forest threatened by Giants. When the Giants first came to the forest, they chopped down trees to make houses. Then they chopped down more trees and made even bigger homes. The houses grew into towns and the towns grew into cities, until now there is hardly any forest left. Greta knows she has to help the animals who live in the forest, but how? Luckily, Greta has an idea...

This inspiring picture book retells the story of Nobel Peace Prize nominee Greta Thunberg — the Swedish teenager who has led a global movement to raise awareness about the world's climate crisis — using allegory to make this important topic accessible to young children. A section at the back explains that, in reality, the fight against the "giants" isn't over and explains how you can help Greta in her fight.

This book has been printed sustainably in the US on 100% recycled paper. By buying a copy of this book, you are making a donation of 3% of the cover price to 350.org."

And from the Amazon page, most of the 5 star reviews are praising the art and not much about the writing. While the more saner reviews are the ones giving this 3, 2, or 1 stars, like this one:
View attachment 1116465

(I like this artist and it's a shame to see her work wasted but if there's one thing porn and propaganda have in common it's how well it pays at the cost of your dignity.)

Honestly, if I didn't know that this was an astroturfed thing, I would say this was a perfect example of a Guy Debord's reification. An icon for what had the potential to be a revolutionary movement. But hey, what do I know? I'm just a frog in a quarantine suit.

 

[Particle Bored]

 

[Positron]

Greta knows she has to help the animals who live in the forest,

Nice to know we are animals in the forest.

 

[Super-Chevy454]

View attachment 1117605

That photo will be a new sources of memes.

 

[Overly Serious]

If there's a kids book that talks about protecting our forests and woodland, I'd love that. I believe in that. But what it really is is a bait-and-switch for wind farms, which are terrible. It goes: "the environment is dying, we must build wind farms". Which is like saying "you have cancer, we must apply leeches".

 

[Urist Steelthrone]

I wish we could start eco-activism again with nuclear energy and farming without industrial fertilizers that turns the ocean into piles of green goop when they run off.

 

[Fluoxetine Man]

If she dressed like a normal 16 year-old girl, used make-up, did her hair fashionably, wore clothes indicating she was approaching normal adulthood, well ... she wouldn't look as pure and inncent, would she?

She'd be told not to hog the bathroom in the morning and clean her damn room.

 

[CWCissey]

She'd be told not to hog the bathroom in the morning and clean her damn room.

She'd also likely be out with people her own age who actually like her. Dare I say she'd have a nice if slightly awkward boyfriend to spend time with too?

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

View attachment 1117605

I want to say it's a waste of a car, but that radiation yellow color is abysmal by itself.

 

[Glad I couldn't help]

Has the climate strikes produced any identifiable reduction in carbon emission, or even moves towards such reductions?

 

[CWCissey]

Has the climate strikes produced any identifiable reduction in carbon emission, or even moves towards such reductions?

Nah it's just produced a lot of hot air.

 

[TaimuRadiu]

If there's a kids book that talks about protecting our forests and woodland, I'd love that. I believe in that. But what it really is is a bait-and-switch for wind farms, which are terrible. It goes: "the environment is dying, we must build wind farms". Which is like saying "you have cancer, we must apply leeches".

The Touchlings

"
On an expedition to a remote African valley, a scientist discovers strange green furry creatures that emanate a feeling of well-being affecting everyone who touches them. Google Books"

The plot of the book has to do with maybe you shouldn't greedily kill all the members of a species that just exists to make people (read: little kids) feel good in order to have oodles of cash. Also people start skinning the Touchlings and turning them into fur coats and wearing them tortures the wearer because they feel what the Touchlings felt when they were brutally murdered. Affected me when I was 5 anyhow.

 

[Positron]

On an expedition to a remote African valley, a scientist discovers strange green furry creatures that emanate a feeling of well-being affecting everyone who touches them.

You should not physically touch any animal or plant you don't know. Period.

 

[Kiwi Farms Lurker]

Nice to know we are animals in the forest.

Like sheeple to the slaughter.

 

[Kaiser Wilhelm's Ghost]

Her recent speech at Davos was interesting.

All of the hypocrisy aside. I couldn't help but be taken aback by her speech and what she said and the sheer lunacy of the comments. Like beyond that of AOC. Stop all world carbon emissions, instantly? Like literally no more fossil fuels. done, because we have to do what we can to save the planet, by grinding everything to a halt.

Economic downfall aside, the amount of people who would die globally from such an event due to food scarcity or starvation would make all of the famines and wars of the 20th century look benign in comparison.

Even if there was some sort of mass return to the land movement, ala Khmer Rouge style, the infrastructure and ability to produce the food demands of the modern world through traditional conventional farming doesn't exist anymore. The population density of any nation on earth has always been dominated by the availability of food, surplus food leads to surplus population growth, and the systems that mass transportation and fossil fuels has provided in terms of output have been incredible. So much so, that even with the whole population working towards the goal of food production, there wouldn't be enough ways to actually subsist to sustain the whole population and starvation would be the result. And that's not even considering inter-regional and international food shortages, because even if you are able to net produce this food you have no way to effectively transport it without transportation. Even centralized distribution like rail would not make it possible to feed the mass of the population without some form of industrialized preservation method.

So regardless of economic damage, in terms of human cost alone and food security. Greta's cure is worse than the disease.

That said, the other thing that went through my mind as I watched what essentially equated to a chicken little style tantrum at these world leaders is the fact that she seems to think that this is going to have some magical effect. Western cuckold politicians in government aside. Your addressing the rest of the world, and the rest of the world doesn't care. They don't care about your white guilt. They don't care about your climate change. These are the governments of people, who have likely over seen mass conflict, mass starvation, and grinding poverty, and will not stand idly aside and tell their countrymen that they must set aside their aspirations because some 17 year old Swede told them to.

It's mind boggling the level of cognitive dissonance.

 

[ditto]

Prince Charles flew 16,000 miles in just 11 days using three private jets and one helicopter before proudly posing with Greta Thunberg in Davos

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...days-proudly-posing-Greta-Thunberg-Davos.html (http://archive.li/V44VB)

As soon as there is a more efficient way of travelling, bearing in mind all the factors involved, he’ll be the first to adopt them.

I bet Greta didn't say a word.

 

[Gravityqueen4life]

still want to feed that kid some good meat. i will be that feeder!

 

[MasterCylinder]

Give this kid a happy meal already, good lord.

 

[Mola Ram]

I just heard the best nickname for this scowling Scandinavian hobgoblin, and I thought I'd share it with you fine folks:

"Scoldilocks."