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.

 

[Coleslaw]

Are Swedes mentally defective? They literally told terrorists to bring bombs to police stations?

Are Utah and the Dakotas the only states Scandinavians don't fuck up?

 

[Dreams Mask]

Has anyone felt like Greta has slowly fallen off the radar of mainstream politics and just everything she was prominent on?

 

[Dante Alighieri]

Has anyone felt like Greta has slowly fallen off the radar of mainstream politics and just everything she was prominent on?

Of course, people were about to see the men behind the curtain if she kept getting attention, and not getting a Nobel Prize really fucked shit up for her handlers.

 

[Tour of Italy]

Are Utah and the Dakotas the only states Scandinavians don't fuck up?

Fun fact: Utah and Idaho are among the tiny handful of states that have England as the primary point of ancestry, due to Mormon converts from the UK settling there in large numbers during the early to mid 19th Century.

The majority of remaining states have primarily of German, Mexican, or African ancestry, with a few other exceptions.

 

[Manwithn0n0men]

Between Greta's family and her handlers I can't get over how Goddamn ugly looking Swedes are. Where the deuce did the idea in America that all Swedish people look like chad vikings and bikini models come from?

Because the Swedes let those people out into the world more often then normie swedes

 

[Recoil]

I think what killed the climate Extinction momentum was the collective realization that China and India are by far the worst offenders and that nothing will ever be accomplished until they get in line. Even the boomers I run into at work have been saying it.

 

[Manwithn0n0men]

I think what killed the climate Extinction momentum was the collective realization that China and India are by far the worst offenders and that nothing will ever be accomplished until they get in line. Even the boomers I run into at work have been saying it.

Also its all fake news and everyone knows it

 

[Coleslaw]

Fun fact: Utah and Idaho are among the tiny handful of states that have England as the primary point of ancestry, due to Mormon converts from the UK settling there in large numbers during the early to mid 19th Century.

The majority of remaining states have primarily of German, Mexican, or African ancestry, with a few other exceptions.

Wasn't the founder effect first documented at the University of Utah in the 60s because the population had relatively few male ancestors?

 

[TowinKarz]

I agree, people have moved on for a while now. It’s funny how all these “organic”and “grassroots” movements wither and die when billionaires stop funding them and media stops covering them. Almost as if it’s a total lie that people are concerned about cow farts and can’t wait until they can eat a steak made entirely with bugs.

It's actually quite funny how, over the last few years, the populace has kinda been cut out of the loop of media, and it's just been the MSM and it's paymaster billionaire elites performing for each other... or rather, the media performing like a court jester/trained monkey so that the parent company can congratulate itself on being perfect, promote it's "Right side of history" branding. While at the same time, they think the very same populace they cut out for being dumb cattle are still impressed by any of this bizarre theater routine.... unaware of how fundamentally disconnected they are from the problems those dirty masses have as evidenced by the fact that these sudden "crises" arise out of nowhere and then dissipate in the same 10 day window all year long.... you completely forget about them until the Year in Review articles or when some activist makes a resume that includes being at the head of 35 dead "grassroots change" movements.

Meanwhile, a year straight of Yellow Vest protests and the media, after their 10 day blitz couldn't bury them as racist/sexist/plebeian provocateurs, just flat-out ignored them and continue to do so.

The media sings and dances at the feet of the King on command. They think having royal favor proves how right and noble they are, when it only tells the rest of us no humiliation is beneath them, nor any falsehood too tall a tale to tell, since we can see they're only in it for ego and some gold coins. They do not care about us, or our real world problems, they only care about securing that spot in the court for money and favors to be called upon.

Disgusting.

 

[Dante Alighieri]

Wasn't the founder effect first documented at the University of Utah in the 60s because the population had relatively few male ancestors?

Might be thinking of the FLDS as that's what's appearing in a cursory search.

 

[Tasty Tatty]

"As #COP25 has officially been moved from Santiago to Madrid I’ll need some help. It turns out I’ve traveled half around the world, the wrong way Now I need to find a way to cross the Atlantic in November... If anyone could help me find transport I would be so grateful. "

Greta Thunberg on Twitter

“As #COP25 has officially been moved from Santiago to Madrid I’ll need some help. It turns out I’ve traveled half around the world, the wrong way:) Now I need to find a way to cross the Atlantic in November... If anyone could help me find transport I would be so grateful. -> https://t.co/vFQQcLTh2U”

twitter.com

So, she's basically,

 

[CWCissey]

"As #COP25 has officially been moved from Santiago to Madrid I’ll need some help. It turns out I’ve traveled half around the world, the wrong way Now I need to find a way to cross the Atlantic in November... If anyone could help me find transport I would be so grateful. "

Greta Thunberg on Twitter

“As #COP25 has officially been moved from Santiago to Madrid I’ll need some help. It turns out I’ve traveled half around the world, the wrong way:) Now I need to find a way to cross the Atlantic in November... If anyone could help me find transport I would be so grateful. -> https://t.co/vFQQcLTh2U”

twitter.com

So, she's basically,

View attachment 993541

Grass it is I guess.

 

[teriyakiburns]

"As #COP25 has officially been moved from Santiago to Madrid I’ll need some help. It turns out I’ve traveled half around the world, the wrong way Now I need to find a way to cross the Atlantic in November... If anyone could help me find transport I would be so grateful. "

Greta Thunberg on Twitter

“As #COP25 has officially been moved from Santiago to Madrid I’ll need some help. It turns out I’ve traveled half around the world, the wrong way:) Now I need to find a way to cross the Atlantic in November... If anyone could help me find transport I would be so grateful. -> https://t.co/vFQQcLTh2U”

twitter.com

So, she's basically,

View attachment 993541

I'll give her this, she's sticking to her retarded guns, unlike all the other hypocrites who jet out to these shindigs and pretend to fix problems while driving around in giant limos, gulping champagne, and stuffing down more food in a day that most people see in a week.

Still a fucking sped.

 

[Tasty Tatty]

I'll give her this, she's sticking to her rətarded guns, unlike all the other hypocrites who jet out to these shindigs and pretend to fix problems while driving around in giant limos, gulping champagne, and stuffing down more food in a day that most people see in a week.

Still a fucking sped.

She's not sticking to anything, she's out of money.

And, indirectly, proving our point. The only people who can make those stupid virtue-signalling journeys are rich people. She can just take a plane and go, she has the money for that. She and her family don't have the money to have a sustainable boat.

 

[Hatoful Dandy]

Bit dangerous for a minor to ask random strangers online for a lift.

 

[YooA]

These articles appeared right next to each other on my homepage.

New Delhi, Choking on Toxic Air, Declares Health Emergency

Schools were closed after pollution in India’s capital soared, reaching levels many times the global safe limit.

www.nytimes.com

A toxic, throat-burning cloud has settled over India’s capital, swallowing national monuments, sending people to emergency rooms and prompting officials on Friday to declare a public health emergency and close schools for days.

But don't worry guys, Greta is joining fellow teenagers in LA today to fight to save our planet from global warming.

Photo: Ringo H.W. Chiu, AP ​

Greta Thunberg call to fight global warming cheers LA rally

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Greta Thunberg, Sweden's 16-year-old climate-change activist, joined fellow teenagers from throughout California Friday in telling a cheering crowd of hundreds at a Los Angeles rally that they can and will fight to save their planet from global warming. Thunberg, who has...

www.sfgate.com

 

[CWCissey]

What even is that facial expression?

 

[YooA]

What even is that facial expression?

Leadership.

 

[KittyGremlin]

I'll give her this, she's sticking to her rətarded guns, unlike all the other hypocrites who jet out to these shindigs and pretend to fix problems while driving around in giant limos, gulping champagne, and stuffing down more food in a day that most people see in a week.

Still a fucking sped.

Even then... Hitching a ride on a budget commercial airplane causes little environmental impact all things considered.

 

[CWCissey]

View attachment 993630

Leadership.

Into Wensleydale?