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.

 

[Gender Affirming Surgery]

That's a myth and there's a bunch of shit down there including shit we know next to nothing about, including whether it connects to the stuff higher up in some critical way.

Gimme sources on that one. While I’m down for “everything is connected” ideology, everything I’ve ever read says the Abyssal Plains are dead asf. And then there’s still the Moon (people want to colonize it, but I think it’d be more effective as a trash dump).

 

[TowinKarz]

The cost of putting things on the Moon is, literally, astronomical.

It is not feasible or economical to put garbage of any kind on the Moon.

NASA says it costs roughly $10,000 per pound to put something in orbit, let alone TLI for the Dark Side.

That means it'd cost $2,500,000 , that's two and half million bucks, to ship me off the planet, and as much as some people here never want to see me again, they'll never pay that much when I, like toxic waste, can be covertly buried somewhere in a concrete trench for a LOT less.

 

[AnOminous]

Gimme sources on that one. While I’m down for “everything is connected” ideology, everything I’ve ever read says the Abyssal Plains are dead asf. And then there’s still the Moon (people want to colonize it, but I think it’d be more effective as a trash dump).

Wikipedia cites a number of them.

Though the plains were once assumed to be vast, desert-like habitats, research over the past decade or so shows that they teem with a wide variety of microbial life.[55][56] However, ecosystem structure and function at the deep seafloor have historically been very poorly studied because of the size and remoteness of the abyss. Recent oceanographic expeditions conducted by an international group of scientists from the Census of Diversity of Abyssal Marine Life (CeDAMar) have found an extremely high level of biodiversity on abyssal plains, with up to 2000 species of bacteria, 250 species of protozoans, and 500 species of invertebrates (worms, crustaceans and molluscs), typically found at single abyssal sites.[57] New species make up more than 80% of the thousands of seafloor invertebrate species collected at any abyssal station, highlighting our heretofore poor understanding of abyssal diversity and evolution.[57][58][59][60] Richer biodiversity is associated with areas of known phytodetritus input and higher organic carbon flux.[61]

Anyway just assuming you can mindlessly dump every bit of toxic waste on earth into it without any impact is silly.

 

[Gender Affirming Surgery]

The cost of putting things on the Moon is, literally, astronomical.

It is not feasible or economical to put garbage of any kind on the Moon.

NASA says it costs roughly $10,000 per pound to put something in orbit, let alone TLI for the Dark Side.

I get that. But the arguments against nuclear are all to do about the disposals. If you crunch the numbers, which I have not, *do we come out behind* launching rafioactive waste to the Moon? Or, hell, just *away?*

 

[Sheryl Nome]

If we could put it onto the moon, we would just shoot it into the sun instead

 

[Gender Affirming Surgery]

Wikipedia cites a number of them.



Anyway just assuming you can mindlessly dump every bit of toxic waste on earth into it without any impact is silly.

It is silly. BUT.

If you value human lives above all others, if you think we are special and privileged—I do—then, you conclude, some worms can die so we can advance.

We aren’t getting any further without more energy. Nuclear is our best hope. If the microecology of the Abyssal Plains has to be sacrificed for that, I’m still down. So long as the krill aren’t affected.

 

[thx1138]

humanity should try to limit its impact on the earth's environment if possible.

When Mt. Pinatubo erupted in the Philippines in the early 90s, it blew more CO2 into the atmosphere than the entire industrial revolution from 1900 to 1990 had. So tomorrow if we shut down everything, everywhere, just went entirely pastoral and green and whatnot, three of those eruptions worldwide would nullify any efforts.

 

[TowinKarz]

I get that. But the arguments against nuclear are all to do about the disposals. If you crunch the numbers, which I have not, *do we come out behind* launching rafioactive waste to the Moon? Or, hell, just *away?*

Yes, otherwise we'd be doing it now for the waste from the active reactors we have now, it is a profoundly STUPID idea.

Or rather, just ignorant.

At twenty MILLION dollars per ton to use the cosmic wastebin, well, nobody is going to pay that bill if there's a terrestrial solution that costs less.

 

[CWCissey]

If we could put it onto the moon, we would just shoot it into the sun instead

Do you want Nuclear Man?

As that's how you get Nuclear Man.

 

[AnOminous]

If we could put it onto the moon, we would just shoot it into the sun instead

It takes an absurd amount of energy to get a single gram of payload into space. Why would you waste fuel on that? There isn't a single on-earth way to dispose of waste that costs more than the $20K or so to get a single kilo into space. Probably more to accelerate it to escape velocity instead of just into orbit.

 

[Gender Affirming Surgery]

Yes, otherwise we'd be doing it now for the waste from the active reactors we have now, it is a profoundly STUPID idea.

At $20,000,000, twenty MILLION per ton, nobody is going to pay that bill if there's a terrestrial solution that costs less.

Yes, otherwise we'd be doing it now for the waste from the active reactors we have now, it is a profoundly STUPID idea.

Or rather, just ignorant.

At $20,000,000, twenty MILLION per ton, nobody is going to pay that bill if there's a terrestrial solution that costs less.

OK. If that cost is real, I’m corrected. My position is that nuclear power will solve many problems. My understanding is that waste disposal is the issue. Where am I wrong?

 

[Nguyen Van Phuoc]

Just wanted to say Greta looks like that alien girl from that PS2 ad.

 

[DDBCAE CBAADCBE]

I never imagined I'd ever see a face and say "Yes, that is the perfect face to explain the term Bull Dyke to a person without words"

 

[Sheryl Nome]

It takes an absurd amount of energy to get a single gram of payload into space. Why would you waste fuel on that? There isn't a single on-earth way to dispose of waste that costs more than the $20K or so to get a single kilo into space. Probably more to accelerate it to escape velocity instead of just into orbit.

I'm just saying if we were going to put it on the moon for some dumb reason, we would just shoot it into the sun instead because its fundamentally the same amount of energy

It wouldn't be worth it anyways.

 

[AnOminous]

Just wanted to say Greta looks like that alien girl from that PS2 ad.
View attachment 951403View attachment 951422

She looks like if Pippi Longstocking had Carrie Nation's facial expressions.

 

[Gender Affirming Surgery]

It takes an absurd amount of energy to get a single gram of payload into space. Why would you waste fuel on that? There isn't a single on-earth way to dispose of waste that costs more than the $20K or so to get a single kilo into space. Probably more to accelerate it to escape velocity instead of just into orbit.

So what about the Abyssal Plains, worms aside? (If you’re willing to put worms aside).

 

[AnOminous]

So what about the Abyssal Plains, worms aside? (If you’re willing to put worms aside).

It sounds like a really shitty idea to just dump a bunch of incredibly toxic shit somewhere we have no idea what effect it will have.

 

[⠠⠠⠅⠑⠋⠋⠁⠇⠎ ⠠⠠⠊⠎ ⠠⠠⠁ ⠠⠠⠋⠁⠛]

At twenty MILLION dollars per ton to use the cosmic wastebin, well, nobody is going to pay that bill if there's a terrestrial solution that costs less.

I think the risk of a rupture somewhere in the lower atmosphere well before Alpha Centuari is a much greater issue.

Now, if we had mass drivers, or if Gerald Bull had not been murdered by the Mossad cowards before he had further developed the Supergun, it would be a different matter.

The only 'cheaper' way to get rid of nuclear byproducts is to give your weaponizable nuclear waste to a hostile power that hates the entire human race for free, while they contaminate the groundwater of your own people. Do not recommend.

 

[Positron]

Of course, the Venusian runaway greenhouse effect (assuming it happened) was triggered by the natural increase of solar luminosity over time

Another thing that Venus is different from Earth is that Venus doesn't seem to have tectonic plates, therefore the Carbon Cycle, which segregate carbon into Earth's interior, could not operate on Venus.

CO2 is plant food so I am surprised that a vegan would be against more plant food.

For fucking real though, the interplay between photosynthesis and cellular respiration is one of the core components of the entire biosphere. It blows my mind that people can call CO2 a pollutant when it is vitally necessary for the continuation of most life on Earth.

The problem is the rising temperature. Efficiency of photosynthesis tend to decrease with temperature; that's why desert plants have auxiliary biochemical pathways to ameliorate this -- and such pathways can't develop over mere decades.

One science teacher said to once my class when climate change was brought up and one student argued that climate had changed before humans too “Yes that’s true and it’s also true that we don’t know what level human activity affecting. But we do know that humans are affecting so it’s better if try to control that part best of our ability because we benefit from stady climate and clean nature.” I think that’s pretty reasonable position to take.

Another thing to take heed is that geological climate changes took place over a very long time scale, not decades or centuries. Biological systems have had time to adapt back then, but we aren't sure if they can do so on such short notice.

 

[heathercho]

So what about the Abyssal Plains, worms aside? (If you’re willing to put worms aside).

I'm extremely pro nuclear, but dumping shit into the ocean is autistic. We have safer and cleaner ways than we used to, we're developing better cleaner ways even more so.
Besides, currents would churn that shit up eventually. You can't put it on the moon either or mine the moon like that tardbaby Elon wants to do.

Most people are worried about meltdowns because they have no fucking clue how modern nuclear energy works.