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.

 

[Salt_Merchant]

I don't understand why this particular kid was trotted out by the activists/"green" corporatists behind this movement. Is it because she's so intense? It's not because she's particularly appealing as a human being. She's to climate activism what John Kerry was to political campaigns: a blackhole of charisma. The only people who (pretend to) like her are already on her side.

because she can screech at the audience like a harpy and no one will point out how exceptional she looks

If an adult got up in front of the UN and banged on like a banshee as shes done they would be a laughingstock

 

[Feline Supremacist]

Every time I hear her voice I want to backhand her so bad I have to turn the tv/radio off.

 

[CIA Nigger]

I don't understand why this particular kid was trotted out by the activists/"green" corporatists behind this movement. Is it because she's so intense? It's not because she's particularly appealing as a human being. She's to climate activism what John Kerry was to political campaigns: a blackhole of charisma. The only people who (pretend to) like her are already on her side.

It's the same reason they trotted out David Hogg and "clock boy". They're kids or teens and if there's anything political lobbyists love it's using a kid for the propaganda value. Kids haven't exactly formed political opinions yet and teens tend to do or say things they regret later. They also crave the idea of the next generation of humans parroting all their talking points at an early age. This leads to shit like the much mocked 18to8 campaign that backfired hard, a half joking campaign that demanded the voting age to be lowered to 8 so that the climate change push could go forward.

They also do it to try to influence more kids into voting for their policies and becoming politically active. When the Parkland kids were being trotted out by the media it's obvious that they weren't solely trying to target adults with kids, they were also trying to sway other teens into voting for their policies. Oh and they're kids please don't make fun of them.

 

[Red Hood]

There's a cast to her face that reminds me of another sperglord European from a while back, that liked to get on a podium and shout angrily and tell people what to do.

For real though, the Jim Henson company makes more convincing puppets. I'm honestly not against confronting climate change, but I want it done by legit scientists and engineers and not a) dictatorial teenagers that have never smiled in their lives b) pop culture "I fucking love science" types like Bill Nye.

 

[Ahriman]

The complaint accuses the respondent countries — Argentina, Brazil, France, Germany and Turkey — of knowing about the impact of their carbon emissions on the climate and doing nothing to mitigate it.

>Argentina
Oh fuck off back to Swedistan, you snownigger piece of shit. Or better - paddle your canoe all the way to China and India, and try berating them in their own country.

 

[The Pink Panther]

This sounds like something fucking Metokur would say. Lol. This is gonna finna be on the news a lot, I bet.

 

[thx1138]

“Today, we celebrate the first glorious anniversary of the Environmental Purification Directives. We have created, for the first time in all history, a system of pure ideology—where each subject may bloom, secure from the pests purveying contradictory truths. Our Unification of Thoughts is more powerful a weapon than any fleet or army on earth. We are one people, with one will, one resolve, one cause. Our enemies shall talk themselves to death, and we will bury them with their own confusion. We shall prevail!”

God damn, I didn't have to change the dialogue hardly at all. Terrifying to consider.

 

[From The Uncanny Valley]

because she can screech at the audience like a harpy and no one will point out how exceptional she looks

If an adult got up in front of the UN and banged on like a banshee as shes done they would be a laughingstock

Plus she's a teenwho has somehow never hit puberty (likely due to an atrocious diet)

 

[ElAbominacion]

So her parent's programmed their autist with a wokescold script, and that's her one and only trick.

Ryan Saavedra on Twitter

“This speech by far-left activist Greta Thunberg is absolute madness https://t.co/RFyIPZlajQ”

twitter.com

She's basically a Furby.

She actually believes what she says, which makes me laugh as hard as the people who heard her retarded spiel live.

 

[Water-T]

Oh no! Wednesday Addams' turbo autist cousin is MAD about pwo-woo-shun! I'm sure all the rich old white men are just fucking terrified.

 

[Feline Supremacist]

The biggest problem with hydro-power isn't water supply its that you need a change in altitude and good place to set up a reservoir.

The big new thing in europe for renewable power is offshore wind farms there's a lot of untapped energy from the tides and the winds they bring.

Frankly though the most practical solution would be a large scale conversion to nuclear power, of which no one really talks about in the mainstream

You have to put it in practical terms. When I bring it up I always tell them one uranium rod could provide for all the energy needs in a neighborhood for years at a minuscule fraction of what they're paying it doesn't seem so scary. Nuclear power isn't impossible to to do safely but it's always some complacent idiot that fucks shit up, you know the kind that thinks I got away with jury rigging it last time, I'm late and I've got shit to do so just flip that switch and let the guys on the next shift deal with it. I think you'd have to rotate workers regulary and keep hammering into their skulls nuclear reactions aren't forgiving in nature.

 

[From The Uncanny Valley]

Oh no! Wednesday Addams' turbo autist cousin is MAD about pwo-woo-shun! I'm sure all the rich old white men are just fucking terrified.

Don't worry, they're behind her 100%!

 

[Exceptionally Exceptional]

I really hate it when parents turn their kids into political puppets. It's fucking revolting.

 

[Exigent Circumcisions]

The last five years have been the hottest on record, the report said

EVERY.
GOD.
DAMN.
TIME.

 

[Dante Alighieri]

So is China and India named? What about Africa?

 

[Chicken Picnic]

So she apparently has Asperger's, OCD and a history of selective mutism. Found out about climate change around age 8 and got really anxious about it because she didn't understand why everyone in the world wasn't trying to stop it from killing us all.

Her mother is an opera singer and father an actor, got that good cash money flowing in and now their daughter is famous too! How lovely!

So yeah let's just make her the figurehead for climate change for the whole world to see. I bet her meltdowns are spectacular, fueled by all this stress. Take advantage of your kid's autism giving them anxiety about something they can't really do much about to push your own agendas, works pretty well by the looks of things.

She's right, she should be in school right now. Poor girl.

 

[Denmark Mafia]

Definitely need megathread for this sperg

 

[Dr. Dingo DVM]

I wouldn't be surprised if her autistic fixation genuinely is the environment. And that's fine, left to her own devices with proper schooling I see her working in some research capacity. Who knows, she could've discovered a solution to an environmentalist problem. I don't doubt she has Aspie booksmarts but she clearly has the Aspie emotional re.tardedness.

But the adults in her life decided to take her interest and twist it for their own agenda. They chose to scare the shit out of a girl with a disability because it makes for good media coverage. A girl with a disability that renders her socially stunted and dependent on the adults to help her with social skills. That is absolutely fucking disgusting and she is nowhere near emotionally capable of all this press and heat. The fact she couldn't control herself on this international stage is proof.

Climate change didn't steal your childhood, Greta. The adults in your life did. And I am sorry nobody stopped them.

 

[Gravityqueen4life]

why dont she have her own thread at this point?

 

[Water-T]

I just saw a video of her speech, and I don't know if it's because of her 'tism, or the fact the English was not her first language, but...she comes off so...."bleh".

It's not inspiring at all. It's like watching a porn actor trying to do Shakespeare - stilted and clumsy. If she at least had some charm and humor, she could get away with it, but she's like a black hole of personality. This won't be as cute when puberty kicks in and she doesn't look like she jumped off a box of Swiss Miss cocoa anymore.