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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Ginger Piglet said:
The solution to global warming is simple and has been known for decades but is politically unpalatable - massive expansion of nuclear power.
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If we were really smart, we'd come up with some kind of modular design that would be relatively easy to upgrade to fusion once we get that online. As it is, we'll probably just fuck up and wait until we're about out of fossil fuels and then to avert imminent catastrophe, switch painfully to nuclear barely in time to avert a world war over resources.

(That or fail to do it entirely and nuke the world.)
 
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AnOminous said:
If we were really smart, we'd come up with some kind of modular design that would be relatively easy to upgrade to fusion once we get that online. As it is, we'll probably just fuck up and wait until we're about out of fossil fuels and then to avert imminent catastrophe, switch painfully to nuclear barely in time to avert a world war over resources.

(That or fail to do it entirely and nuke the world.)
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Hmmm, you mean like the reactor assembly is a sort of big drop-in thing? Interesting. I think there's actually some work being done on modular reactors to that end, so that as new forms of reactor such as thorium or similar come along. Unfortunately no1curr because radiation is EEEEEEEEVIL.
 
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Ginger Piglet said:
Hmmm, you mean like the reactor assembly is a sort of big drop-in thing? Interesting. I think there's actually some work being done on modular reactors to that end, so that as new forms of reactor such as thorium or similar come along. Unfortunately no1curr because radiation is EEEEEEEEVIL.
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Yeah, you'd think we'd have come up with something better than "heat source heats water which turns turbine which makes electricity" but that's still what we do, even when the heat source is nuclear. So at least in theory having a set of generating stations that can take a standard shape of heat source makes sense.
 
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greengrilledcheese said:
They're dragging 8yo kids into it now.

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https://twitter.com/ReutersScience/status/1310634451395895309 (https://archive.vn/p0wXC)
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Earthquakes aren’t really a rallying point for the dangers of climate change, are they? They’re caused by the movement of tectonic plates. I doubt carbon in the air affects that too much.

If we’re talking obnoxious climate activists though then that 18 year old who recently did a photoshoot on some Arctic ice is up there. Haven’t done too much digging into her background but it screams rich girl - being able to go to the Arctic for a photoshoot, really?
 
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Ly Erg said:
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:story: Everyone losing their shit and trying to whiteknight like a bunch of Autists while the actual Autist is fine with it.
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Unlike her autistic supporters, the actual autist knows if you get a Spitting Image parody you've more or less made it as a public personality.
 
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LetterlandMafia said:
Earthquakes aren’t really a rallying point for the dangers of climate change, are they? They’re caused by the movement of tectonic plates. I doubt carbon in the air affects that too much.
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They aren't a sign of anything climate change wise, but these are the cargo cultists who pretend they understand science while refusing the actual solution: nuclear.
 
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I think Greta Thunberg raises a few good points like reducing plastic and conserving energy but she's being used to ploy overhyped climate change fearmongering and paranoia. She's a well-meaning girl and has a right to feel concerned, however, her history and background of depression, anxiety, OCD, and autism is very concerning. This is a young woman who has been in depression for a long, long time. Thunberg is probably in a state of panic 24/7 and her black and white attitude won't help. If this was any other normal kid with her disorders and struggles, anybody would question this and they wouldn't be put on the limelight. It doesn't help that the climate change narrative and "the house is on fire" creates a boy crying wolf sort of scenario. Climate change is an issue, but the media's been oblivious to the elephants in the room (i.e. China) and the scientists have lied, withheld reports, and fudged the data multiple times. They've been making crazy claims since the 70s and very few have happened or weren't almost as bad as they claimed. The mainstream media treats her like if she's some second coming of Christ and if you critique her and question what she's pushing or what she's doing, you're promoting "toxic masculinity" and some other nonsense. However, the rude comments about her autism, the speculations of her being a fetal alcohol baby, and disgusting caricature of her getting raped are entirely inappropriate and vile. People seem to be keen on bringing politics into everything, including children. Do you really think that they can grasp something complex like climate change and gun control? Like for goodness sake, let them be kids, enjoy life, do things like having fun with friends. The most of their worries should be keeping their room clean and having good grades.
 
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Legoshi said:
I think Greta Thunberg raises a few good points like reducing plastic and conserving energy but she's being used to ploy overhyped climate change fearmongering and paranoia. She's a well-meaning girl and has a right to feel concerned, however, her history and background of depression, anxiety, OCD, and autism is very concerning. This is a young woman who has been in depression for a long, long time. Thunberg is probably in a state of panic 24/7 and her black and white attitude won't help. If this was any other normal kid with her disorders and struggles, anybody would question this and they wouldn't be put on the limelight. It doesn't help that the climate change narrative and "the house is on fire" creates a boy crying wolf sort of scenario. Climate change is an issue, but the media's been oblivious to the elephants in the room (i.e. China) and the scientists have lied, withheld reports, and fudged the data multiple times. They've been making crazy claims since the 70s and very few have happened or weren't almost as bad as they claimed. The mainstream media treats her like if she's some second coming of Christ and if you critique her and question what she's pushing or what she's doing, you're promoting "toxic masculinity" and some other nonsense. However, the rude comments about her autism, the speculations of her being a fetal alcohol baby, and disgusting caricature of her getting raped are entirely inappropriate and vile. People seem to be keen on bringing politics into everything, including children. Do you really think that they can grasp something complex like climate change and gun control? Like for goodness sake, let them be kids, enjoy life, do things like having fun with friends. The most of their worries should be keeping their room clean and having good grades.
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No, I'm almost certain she was just an asset for the two narcissists that created her. She was trained and effectively abused into becoming this spokesman, all because her parents wanted a human shield and the fame. Activists forcing their desires and dreams on a kid who they groomed for it.

I actually despise parents like the ones she has, since there's supporting and hoping they do what you wanted to do. And then there's taking her intentionally out of school and celebritizing her (with all the molestation that brings), thus ensuring her life is fucked when she becomes 18 and irrelevant as a human shield.
 
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Legoshi said:
She's a well-meaning girl and has a right to feel concerned, however, her history and background of depression, anxiety, OCD, and autism is very concerning.
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I don't think it's a particularly great idea if you're trying to promote something that's being dismissed as chicken little paranoia to pick someone with a handbag full of mental illnesses all directly associated with that kind of behavior.
 
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AnOminous said:
I don't think it's a particularly great idea if you're trying to promote something that's being dismissed as chicken little paranoia to pick someone with a handbag full of mental illnesses all directly associated with that kind of behavior.
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It also really doesn't help when your parents are actors trying to follow grampa Thunberg's example and are very likely c-list given their desperate activism. That's how Macaulay Culkin's shitshow of a childhood began.
 
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