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.

 

[Gravityqueen4life]

What, that old hag? What use could she be to him?

Then again, I guess she could keep Hunter busy for maybe an hour, or two.

i thought uncle joe liked them in ALL ages. not like he can tell the difference anyway.

 

[Ginger Piglet]

How soon before President Biden invites Greta for a sniffing at the White House.

Serious question. What does the Swedish Doom Goblin actually smell like, do we reckon?

I'm thinking handmade lye soap with a hint of surstromming.

 

[Iron Hamster]

Serious question. What does the Swedish Doom Goblin actually smell like, do we reckon?

I'm thinking handmade lye soap with a hint of surstromming.

Wrångebäck and wet dog.

 

[some Sketchy dude]

Haven't seen this mentioned in here since its release; they made a Greta Thunberg documentary and it's available on Hulu as of today.

Wikipedia article: https://wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Greta

IMDB page: https://imdb.com/title/tt10394738/

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/11/12/entertainment/i-am-greta-review/index.html

(CNN)Greta Thunberg's inspiring children's crusade on the climate-change crisis receives dutiful if somewhat sluggish documentary treatment in "I Am Greta," an intimate portrait of the teenage activist that at its best conveys her courage and spirit, before bogging down in what becomes a somewhat repetitious call for action.

For those familiar with the name but perhaps not the details, at 15, Thunberg began a lonely school strike outside the Swedish parliament to awaken people to the dangers of climate change, arguing that kids must take up the cause because adults weren't.

"I want you to act as if the house is on fire," Thunberg says, chiding government leaders for their inaction, and for mortgaging the future of those generations that will survive them.

Directed by Swedish filmmaker Nathan Grossman, "I Am Greta" puts the lie to many of the criticisms directed at Thunberg, most from dismissive conservative pundits, whose unbecoming gibes are presented alongside images reminding us that Thunberg is a teenager, despite her extraordinary poise.

For starters, Thunberg very clearly chose this fight, not her parents, who have been accused of using her to serve their political goals. They appear, rather, understandably concerned and protective.

As for those put off by Thunberg's tendency to lecture adults, the angry tone reflects both a sense of urgency and her frustration over their unwillingness to heed the science.

The documentary captures the remarkable inroads that Thunberg has made -- addressing conferences and parliaments, meeting with world leaders like France's Emmanuel Macron and strategizing with Arnold Schwarzenegger -- as well as the dizzying demands all this has placed upon her time and energy.

The film feels too drawn out, however, during what amounts to its extended climactic sequence, in which she is invited to speak at the United Nations Climate Action Summit in 2019.

Because she won't fly (Thunberg doesn't just talk the talk but walks the walk, griping about the lack of vegan options at a climate conference), the trip requires a harrowing ocean voyage to New York -- a journey presented in exhaustive and, indeed, exhausting detail.

"I Am Greta" nevertheless stirs admiration for Thunberg's idealism, a passion that has transformed her from a shy kid into the leader of a youth movement.

"Change is coming whether you like it or not," Thunberg says in one speech, expressing her attitude that when it comes to this particular fight, those in power must either lead or get out of the way.

In the broadest strokes, the film succeeds in its primary objective, which is to draw attention to Thunberg's cause. It's in the execution where "I Am Greta" sometimes can't get out of its own way.

"I Am Greta" premieres Nov. 13 on Hulu.

 

[IAmNotAlpharius]

I would respect her if she became an activist on her own and without her parents controlling the strings or being attention whores.

 

[Jason Wynn]

The birth of her crusade stems from autism, pure unfiltered autism.

There, no need to watch the doc now. Sorry for the spoilers.

 

[5ever a crab]

is there anything remarkable this gremlin has done besides sperging in public?

 

[Cilleystring]

Birth of an acting gig pushed on an autistic teenager by her actor/grifter parents to make money by promoting fear in children and impressionable idiotic adults

 

[Positron]

"I Am Greta" premieres Nov. 13 on Hulu.

No twerking. 0/10.

 

[round robin]

And of course it's all about her, as all of these activist grifts are.

 

[Trump's Chosen]

I didn't know it got moved, so I posted a new thread with my shitpost:

https://kiwifarms.st/threads/i-am-barron-chronicles-the-birth-of-barron-trumps-crusade.79393/

 

[Antipathy]

Birth of an acting gig pushed on an autistic teenager by her actor/grifter parents to make money by promoting fear in children and impressionable idiotic adults

To be fair, that actually sounds like a good movie, talking about the exploitation of children by making use of them as a political meatshield.

Cowards hide behind God, the Flag, and the children. Remove one, and they hide behind the others all the more.

 

[Sage In All Fields]

Ngl I kinda have a crush on her

 

[bippu_as_fuck_ls400]

View attachment 1726698

She has never had that color to her skin in any pictures I've ever seen. I get that it's a promotional photo for a movie and you can't have a pale, doughy looking girl on it but that is too much.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Greta's grand achievement is getting teenagers a week off school for a week. Besides that, her whole "struggle" wound up increasing pollution both personally and as globally. Her getting "immortalized" by a film that doesn't have any point and will now lay in an energy guzzling server for all eternity is the perfect summation of her life, especially when it will be joined by her inevitable sex tape.

 

[Ginger Piglet]

a harrowing ocean voyage to New York -- a journey presented in exhaustive and, indeed, exhausting detail.

Wasn't that the one where her millionaire's eco-yacht had no toilet on it so she shat in a bucket and threw it over the side?

And totally aside from polluting the oceans with raw sewerage in that way, wasn't there a number of support vessels powered by (gasp!) fossil fuels shadowing them? And didn't the replacement crew to sail it back to Monaco fly out to New York to take over from there?

 

[Don't Tread on Me]

No twerking. 0/10.

Hey, you don't know that.

 

[Windows XP Home Edition]

Based New Zealander

 

[Adjustable Autism]

I don't know if this or the lolcow thread is the right one to post this. But this this one is more active, so here is the trailer for her inevitable biopic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDdEWkA15Rg

The funny part is, that this movie throws a wrench into the whole "it was totally her own idea and nobody helped her and her parents disliked her doing it in the first place" (even though everyone who had a few brain cells to rub together knew that already). Because her parents hated it so much, they asked a filmmaker to document their little goblin. And a camera pointed at a girl sitting in front of parliament doesn't make it look more important, no sir!

 

[Arm Pit Cream]

Happy 18th birthday to Greta Thunberg