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.

 

[The Great Citracett]

Apparently this is what we're going to do:

 

[Manwithn0n0men]

Apparently this is what we're going to do:

View attachment 951917

Dumb laws from side A are always abused by Side B

 

[AveraDiane]

I wouldn't mind making changes to help the environment (promoting public transportation would be a great start). I don't really give a fuck about some child finger-wagging at us like every other 'activist' in current year.

That aside, I do feel bad for her being placed in the spotlight and paraded like she's Jesus. Judging from her voice, I feel like she really needs help for her anxiety issues. I freaked out about the end of the world once upon a time, but to be anxious about such 24/7 is not healthy.

 

[The Great Citracett]

 

[Nacho Man Randy Salsa]

Every child activist has a handler that's holding the checkbook.

 

[Super-Chevy454]

Lolcow Styx talk of the elephant in the room of climate change: overpopulation. Talk to blacks to do less babies and no need to guess the upcoming reaction.

 

[Slimy Time]

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.

Also, would you really want a giant rocket filled with toxic nuclear waste to be flying up and down? Oh no, we just had a fuck up while it was exiting the atmosphere, now toxic waste is falling towards the earth.

Short of us getting to space opera levels of science, that's not happening.

 

[AnOminous]

Well I mean she is pretty much the end result of generations of literary cultural marxism where plucky and smug little girls show the silly adults how they're running the world all wrong.

Ironically Astrid Lindgren has been canceled by SJWs recently for being white or something.

 

[ZMOT]

Short of us getting to space opera levels of science, that's not happening.

just needs a space elevator really.

 

[AnOminous]

Lolcow Styx talk of the elephant in the room of climate change: overpopulation.

And let's just assume the First World does its job and gets its own pollution under control. Now what are we going to do? Tell Africa they don't get their own industrial revolution and just have to continue to exist in endemic famine because the path to sustainable agriculture goes through fossil fuel burning times?

 

[Crystal Golem]

Ironically Astrid Lindgren has been canceled by SJWs recently for being white or something.

If any more first wave feminist authors get revealed as being the golliwog doll having, horse riding, servant abusing veruca salts they are white girls 16-25 are going to have to get rid of the only books on their shelves they've actually read.

 

[TFT-A9]

If any more first wave feminist authors get revealed as being the golliwog doll having, horse riding, servant abusing veruca salts they are white girls 16-25 are going to have to get rid of the only books on their shelves they've actually read.

Dude Germaine Greer had soft CP of little boys (allegedly) and the only thing that got her canceled was being a TERF.

 

[billydero]

I saw that Chinese social media cast quite a bit of aspersion on little Greta, and were generally dismissive of her message. Regardless, she has no climate shaming or for that matter anything else to say to China.

I agree that climate change is a problem but Greta Grumpyface isn’t helping at all. It’s like the house is burning down, we’re standing here wondering how to put it out, and the neighbors slightly spastic daughter comes over to scream at us about how we’re just the worst! And we’re ruining her life!!

Not helping, Greta.

 

[kidatari]

not sure if posted, but this seems very new and from /pol/

 

[Crystal Golem]

Dude Germaine Greer had soft CP of little boys (allegedly) and the only thing that got her canceled was being a TERF.

I'm more talking about the Miles Franklyn generation of female writers whose sole contribution to feminism was pop literature and making the brave decision not to marry but just live off the inheritances they got from their fathers instead.

Feminists 1919: Emily Davidson is a heroine!
Feminists 2019: Emily Davidson was a cis white oppressor and King George was a brave trans-womxn of color.

 

[thismanlies]

Apparently this is what we're going to do:

View attachment 951917

Republicans are going to take your cars and cut off your electricity because they hate poor black people!

Also, we're going to take your cars and cut off your electricity because you're too poor and stupid to put them to good use.

 

[Sheryl Nome]

I mean I'm for carbon pricing and it would make it harder for poor people but you know, I just want to make sure those resources are allocated efficiently.

Its not really my fault if the gas being utilized by a poor black man has low economic output in comparison to the carbon output.

 

[JohnDoe]

The obvious solution to the Third World threatening a pollution apocalypse is to simply genocide them. You could blockade Africa and 90% would starve in the first five years from their inability to do anything except steal aid packages, and a few months of drone or helicopter raids would finish the rest.

We don't need a population of 7+ billion.

 

[BOONES]

>Thunberg
>Berg
Spotted the jew.

 

[JektheDumbass]

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.

Ironically, modern farming techniques are less polluting and more efficient. Wed fuck ourselves.

America absolutely should do everything we can to stop global warming. Just because a billion Indians are shitting in the street doesn't mean you should too. But if we want to reduce the chance for ecological disaster, we literally have to either genocide shitskins, or enslave them and drag them kicking and screaming to the 18th century. Or deal with the ecological disaster (which might be more efficient, the last time we tried forcing niggers to act human it did not go well).