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

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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
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https://web.archive.org/web/2019090...certain-men-1.4002264?localLinksEnabled=false
Found this thought-provoking indeed.
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AnOminous said:
I don't know, murdering something like 90% of the population isn't exactly middle of the road.
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All her proposals - divestment of fossil fuels, emissions treaties, veganism etc - are totally in line with what the rest of the global ecological left is pushing. IMHO radical solution would be carpet-bombing chinese factories and forcibly sterilizing africa.
Cyclonus said:
It's easy to be casual about this if you don't live on a fucking island. If the sea level rises, I'm fucked.
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If sea levels are really rising then coastal real estate would be plummeting in value and the Obamas wouldn't be buying private beaches either.
 
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ditto said:
If sea levels are really rising then coastal real estate would be plummeting in value and the Obamas wouldn't be buying private beaches either.
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Sea levels absolutely are rising, and the coast isn't a very great place to live. It will take time (it isn't as drastic as many would like you to believe), not like the houses will be flooded tomorrow, but given like 15-20 years many beaches will be mostly flooded and real estate on them will have to be abandoned or walled off. If you look at California, people are building and paying millions for expensive houses on the cliffs that are eroding down daily. The cliffs are falling apart and people still buy houses on them, that doesn't make them suddenly not fall apart. Never use people's actions to dictate what is actually going on because you are underestimating peoples stupidity.
 
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Cyclonus said:
It's easy to be casual about this if you don't live on a fucking island. If the sea level rises, I'm fucked.
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Indeed. But the question for most is about the causes of climate change and, as a direct inference from that, working out how much it is likely to. If the temperature is rising primarily due to solar variances, for example, you'd benefit far more from all that money and attention going into mitigating the effects of climate change than wind power which would not help. There was a book I read years ago, I think by Normal Lamont, that argued we should be putting our efforts into mitigating climate change rather than King Canute methods of stopping it.

I don't know who is right, btw. I'm just saying that the question of whether claims of people like Greta are accurate is a different question to whether or not climate change is happening.
 
teriyakiburns said:
If you can figure out a process to extract uranium from sea water, you have an effectively unlimited supply of fuel as well.
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How much uranium is in seawater exactly? In addition, wouldn't thorium reactors be more efficient anyways? If we're going to go all out on fission, we might as well try to do it with the cleaner and more abundant fuel source.
FlightOfTheBumbleBee said:
www.youtube.com

Donald Trump: Democrats Want to Kill Your Cows and 'You're Next'

President Donald Trump ridiculed Democrats promoting the Green New Deal on Thursday, during a campaign rally in Iowa.
www.youtube.com www.youtube.com

Greta is a mass murderer in waiting.
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As someone who has actually READ the Green New Deal, and as someone who is a staunch nuclear supporter, someone who does think global warming is real, and as someone with admittedly only a basic level of knowledge of economics, I can say that it fundamentally fails to address any real issues, the byproducts of its implementation would be horrendously polluting, it would be horribly expensive, and hilariously impractical.

If the Democrats want to push climate science as part of their platform, that is all well and good, but I'd much rather they push a competent, feasible plan alongside their stances rather than total autistic wish fulfillment and bullshit atop a mountain of titty sprinkles and Idpol Engsoc.
 
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Dr W said:
If the Democrats want to push climate science as part of their platform, that is all well and good, but I'd much rather they push a competent, feasible plan alongside their stances rather than total autistic wish fulfillment and bullshit atop a mountain of titty sprinkles and Idpol Engsoc.
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It's really easy to push completely unrealistic, impractical platforms when you plan on throwing the election to Trump anyway because you'd rather scream helplessly at the sky than govern.
 
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AnOminous said:
It's really easy to push completely unrealistic, impractical platforms when you plan on throwing the election to Trump anyway because you'd rather scream helplessly at the sky than govern.
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The most astonishing thing about this observation is that it's not even an exaggeration. They really did that. They really hurled primal screams at the sky when the God-Emperor was inaugurated. I still can't wrap my mind around that.
 
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AnOminous said:
It's really easy to push completely unrealistic, impractical platforms when you plan on throwing the election to Trump anyway because you'd rather scream helplessly at the sky than govern.
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If a government was supposed to govern, they would have put it in the fucking name- oh wait
 
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DrunkJoe said:
Has this bitch done anything other than wine? Like has she even gone to a park or trail and pick up some trash? That is kind if what i hate about these climate alarmists they are giant hypocrites.
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Why do you care. I don't get why the American mouth breather brigade shit them self in anger over this girl.
She is a fucking nobody that makes a few speeches. WELL better be outraged about it and shit all over here because hurdur she dumb/ugly/stupid. Now go back to sucking more corporate cock.
 
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Mola Ram said:
The most astonishing thing about this observation is that it's not even an exaggeration. They really did that. They really hurled primal screams at the sky when the God-Emperor was inaugurated. I still can't wrap my mind around that.
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Current year has completely ruined hyperbole. I used to love to exaggerate things just to make a point. Now I can just literally describe shit exactly as it actually happens and still sound like I'm making completely unbelievable claims.

 
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RandomTwitterGuy said:
Why do you care. I don't get why the American mouth breather brigade shit them self in anger over this girl.
She is a fucking nobody that makes a few speeches. WELL better be outraged about it and shit all over here because hurdur she dumb/ugly/stupid. Now go back to sucking more corporate cock.
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Why do you? Why are you shitting yourself in anger at random people on the net discussing the flaws in her, or should I say handlers, plans?

You do realize that you're on the Kiwi Farms right? Mocking speds is our time honored tradition.
 
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RandomTwitterGuy said:
Why do you care. I don't get why the American mouth breather brigade shit them self in anger over this girl.
She is a fucking nobody that makes a few speeches. WELL better be outraged about it and shit all over here because hurdur she dumb/ugly/stupid. Now go back to sucking more corporate cock.
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I actually take time and clean up trash that careless fucks leave in the area I enjoy fishing. I have donated to local conservation. Helped clean up atv trails. So climate change faggots that fly around and bitch yet dont actually help anything can get fucked.
 
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Dr W said:
How much uranium is in seawater exactly? In addition, wouldn't thorium reactors be more efficient anyways? If we're going to go all out on fission, we might as well try to do it with the cleaner and more abundant fuel source.

As someone who has actually READ the Green New Deal, and as someone who is a staunch nuclear supporter, someone who does think global warming is real, and as someone with admittedly only a basic level of knowledge of economics, I can say that it fundamentally fails to address any real issues, the byproducts of its implementation would be horrendously polluting, it would be horribly expensive, and hilariously impractical.

If the Democrats want to push climate science as part of their platform, that is all well and good, but I'd much rather they push a competent, feasible plan alongside their stances rather than total autistic wish fulfillment and bullshit atop a mountain of titty sprinkles and Idpol Engsoc.
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I don't know what to say about that trashfire. My idea was that the market could save the environment while creating jobs to do it is good. What if the Government helped low income people in cold states hire contractors to reinsulate their houses?

Once that plan succeeds in lowering heating costs and energy usage, and it's so basic and sound that it can't help but to succeed, we can move on to something else.

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Take notes Alex
 
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