Science Greta Thunberg Megathread - Dax Herrera says he wouldn't have a day ago (I somewhat doubt that)

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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
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https://web.archive.org/web/2019090...certain-men-1.4002264?localLinksEnabled=false
Found this thought-provoking indeed.
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Shouldn't she be asking her parents for the money? Why do nobodies have to hand over their hard earned cash? We didn't tell her to play hookie in America.
 
Hatoful Dandy said:
Bit dangerous for a minor to ask random strangers online for a lift.
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Shes to old and Ugly for the Pizza guys and Epstein got killed... Maybe she gets a seat on bills private aircraft. he is into younglings, and ugly speds.
 
Hatoful Dandy said:
Bit dangerous for a minor to ask random strangers online for a lift.
Click to expand...

According to Forbes, she can just walk it solo, it's totally safe for any female to do that, the kidnappings/rapes/deaths in 3rd world countries are just fake news.
 
Hatoful Dandy said:
They're probably the ones who put her up to this.
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The parents are the ones asking for money, obviously. They manage the account, as it happens with most -if not all- of these woke kid activists.

All jokes aside, it's odd that whoever is sponsoring her, won't pay for her to go to Spain. Unless they were expecting her to stay in America forever, she should have had a ship to take her back to Europe at some point.

There are two options. One, that whatever transport she was going to have, had an schedule already and they're doing her a favor and they can't go and pick her now.

The other one is that they were trying to abandon her in America and she's finding out just now...
 
Greta doesnt know how to get out of America to attend a climate conference in Europe without making carbon emissions. She is tweeting for help.

news.google.com

Greta Thunberg is stuck on the wrong continent after the year's most important UN climate change summit got moved from Chile to Spain

- Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old activist, has emerged as the face of a global youth movement demanding action to curb climate change. - Thunberg refuses to fly in airplanes because of their carbon footprint, so she used a zero-emissions sailboat to cross the Atlantic to attend climate summits in...
news.google.com news.google.com
 
mindlessobserver said:
Greta doesnt know how to out of America to attend a climate conference in Europe without making carbon emissions. She is tweeting for help.

news.google.com

Greta Thunberg is stuck on the wrong continent after the year's most important UN climate change summit got moved from Chile to Spain

- Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old activist, has emerged as the face of a global youth movement demanding action to curb climate change. - Thunberg refuses to fly in airplanes because of their carbon footprint, so she used a zero-emissions sailboat to cross the Atlantic to attend climate summits in...
news.google.com news.google.com
Click to expand...

Why is she always making those horrible scrunch faces?
 
mindlessobserver said:
Greta doesnt know how to out of America to attend a climate conference in Europe without making carbon emissions. She is tweeting for help.

news.google.com

Greta Thunberg is stuck on the wrong continent after the year's most important UN climate change summit got moved from Chile to Spain

- Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old activist, has emerged as the face of a global youth movement demanding action to curb climate change. - Thunberg refuses to fly in airplanes because of their carbon footprint, so she used a zero-emissions sailboat to cross the Atlantic to attend climate summits in...
news.google.com news.google.com
Click to expand...
>zero-emissions sailboat
>had to fly two men in via airplane to sail it home

Just get on the plane, fatass.
 
I just wanted to see Greta drive through Mexico in her electric car and chauffers. Why do ya gotta move the conference, Chile and UN?
 
AnOminous said:
Why is she always making those horrible scrunch faces?
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It's the same face Chris has sometimes. Probably after :briefs:.


You know, if I didn't know any better, I'd say that Greta has a fear of flying. She didn't want her mother to fly, so her mother gave up her career. She refuses to fly. She says it's because muh climate, but autistic people aren't very reasonable, as we know. I'm starting to think this is an elaborate :ruse: coz she's an aviophobic lil autist.

I legit don't why this lil turbosperg won't just fucking fly and then plant enough trees to make up for her carbon emissions. It's almost like she doesn't want to do anything but avoid flying or school.
 
heathercho said:
It's the same face Chris has sometimes. Probably after :briefs:.


You know, if I didn't know any better, I'd say that Greta has a fear of flying. She didn't want her mother to fly, so her mother gave up her career. She refuses to fly. She says it's because muh climate, but autistic people aren't very reasonable, as we know. I'm starting to think this is an elaborate :ruse: coz she's an aviophobic lil autist.

I legit don't why this lil turbosperg won't just fucking fly and then plant enough trees to make up for her carbon emissions. It's almost like she doesn't want to do anything but avoid flying or school.
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She could fly Qantas like Rain Man.
 
Why doesn’t she just conference in? Does she really need to be there physically?

I wonder if her parents just wanted time alone. Maybe she’s a real buzzkill. That would explain why they didn’t accompany her.
 
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