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.

 

[Secret Asshole]

Yes it is. Whatever that other shit is has nothing to do with CO2, whether it's bad, and whether emissions of it should be reduced. Presumably, if it's so super important that it absolutely must be done, you're going to need every country in the world on board with it. That means people who disagree with you about all your other dumb shit, special interests, "muh patriarchy" and whatever other moonbat shit you're on about.

Mentioning these things basically obliterates any semblance of anyone helping you. Nobody in reality is going to be swayed by whatever gibberish this is.

She also finally was forced to answer the nuclear question and it basically ended her. Honestly it's over for this kid. You just got a nice round of applause ffom the minority that are progressives and now the world is looking at you like you are speaking an alien language.

To me, she's done. This killed whatever semblance of influence she had. There's no point in any but the most cucked of countries giving her the time of day. This means she'll be given permanent speaking privileges at the UN until she ages out.

Was that the point of Greta? That was really her life's ambition?

Did her handlers actually expect her hysterics to impress the United States Congress?

So many questions!

The point was for her parents to earn money and virtue signaling points when having an autistic daughter wasn't enough and she wasn't a boy so they couldn't force them to go trans.

For others, it was the opportunity to use a child to further their agenda. They exploited her youth and innocence for their own innate desires and politics.

They're ideological pedophiles. Now that she's aging out, they don't much have a use for her and this is wringing the last bit of influence out before they move on to the next sucker activist.

That was the sound of her handlers realizing the 15 minutes are almost up, and they have to stoke some fresh outrage while the spotlight is still on them, because no way does she understand half of those words that were just put in her mouth.

It's this. They realize the well has gone dry and that she's gone the way of every child activist that had gone before: the world pretends to give a shit and then stops pretending.

This indicates she is basically done and this is the last attempt to wring anything out of her. You don't even say that 'it isn't just about the climate' because it's so divisive you basically destroy whatever argument you are peddling.

I mean if you were mentally competent and trying to unite people there is absolutely no fucking way you'd EVER utter those words. Greta is autistic and just feeds whatever speech is out in front of her to the press. She has no idea this the equivalent of sticking a shotgun barrel in your mouth and pulling the trigger with your feet. Others never really much gave a shit, so now that they've blown her head off, they'll parade the corpse around until it gets old and then dump it in the street for someone else to clean up.

These people have no scruples and could honestly give a shit what happens to her as a result of her being an even more polarized figure. They just know the 15 minutes are at 14:45 and it's time to blow it all up while they still have some time left.

 

[Turanist Shitposter]

Mentioning these things basically obliterates any semblance of anyone helping you. Nobody in reality is going to be swayed by whatever gibberish this is.

She also finally was forced to answer the nuclear question and it basically ended her.

So you are saying she is basically my avatar right now

 

[Wendy Carter]

We achieved nothing and don't want to continue: Greta Thunberg DISAVOWS school strike for climate change?

After more than a year of school strikes, climate marches and high-profile speeches, Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg told supporters that her movement hasn’t achieved any actual change and she doesn’t want to continue.

www.rt.com

Archive

Looks like this whole shebang might be coming to a close in near future.

 

[Syaoran Li]

We achieved nothing and don't want to continue: Greta Thunberg DISAVOWS school strike for climate change?

After more than a year of school strikes, climate marches and high-profile speeches, Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg told supporters that her movement hasn’t achieved any actual change and she doesn’t want to continue.

www.rt.com

Archive

Looks like this whole shebang might be coming to a close in near future.

I still think we're going to hear a lot more uproar over the issue of climate change, but Greta Thunberg herself is nearing the end of her fifteen minutes of fame.

 

[Wallace]

What? Throwing a tantrum didn't make the wealthy and powerful of the world submit to their own destruction? I am shocked! Shocked!

"I cannot be mentally well until things are made the way I want them" is a ridiculous sentiment that is echoed by pretty much everyone in SocJus. How many people do you think suffered from anxiety over nuclear armageddon during the Cold War? Do you think Stalin or Yeltsin could be emotionally blackmailed into dismantling their arsenals? Saying that your anxiety/depression is caused by some outside force is a very appealing statement, because it shifts the blame for your suffering away from yourself. But all this does is put that locus of control on an outside force, so you never get better; all you can do is make impotent demands of that outside force.

The environment is the subject of her autistic obsession. Even if everything were the way she wanted it, she still would not be happy. It is not the world that is doing this to her, it's her own damaged mind. This is why nothing will ever be enough. Same thing goes for every gender and political sperg. Wave a magic wand and re-make the world as you like it, they would still find something to be anxious and depressed about. No matter where you go, there you are.

 

[Absolutego]

I still think we're going to hear a lot more uproar over the issue of climate change, but Greta Thunberg herself is nearing the end of her fifteen minutes of fame.

I get she's intensely unlikeable, but this is what irritates me the most about her brief dalliance with fame. WTF does Greta do besides slide into increasingly embarrassing obscurity going forward?
What was done to her by her parents/handlers was incredibly unfair and she's going to have tons of mental health issues stemming both from the apocalyptic rhetoric fed to her and her parents using her as a vehicle to live vicariously through. It's really not fair to her as a little girl to have a lifetime of public infamy saddled upon her.
Her late teens and 20s are going to be rough as fuck and I can only hope she manages to permanently escape the spotlight and grow up a bit/get some distance from her parents in order to grow up.

 

[AnOminous]

We achieved nothing and don't want to continue: Greta Thunberg DISAVOWS school strike for climate change?

After more than a year of school strikes, climate marches and high-profile speeches, Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg told supporters that her movement hasn’t achieved any actual change and she doesn’t want to continue.

www.rt.com

Archive

Looks like this whole shebang might be coming to a close in near future.

Way to boost morale. I'm sure that will get the activists enthusiastic for more work, call them a bunch of losers who have accomplished nothing. How the fuck do you pick a goblin looking Debbie Downer like this as a spokesthing?

 

[Spiteful Crow]

I get she's intensely unlikeable, but this is what irritates me the most about her brief dalliance with fame. WTF does Greta do besides slide into increasingly embarrassing obscurity going forward?
What was done to her by her parents/handlers was incredibly unfair and she's going to have tons of mental health issues stemming both from the apocalyptic rhetoric fed to her and her parents using her as a vehicle to live vicariously through. It's really not fair to her as a little girl to have a lifetime of public infamy saddled upon her.
Her late teens and 20s are going to be rough as fuck and I can only hope she manages to permanently escape the spotlight and grow up a bit/get some distance from her parents in order to grow up.

That was it. A year of "fame" that by her own admission accomplished nothing. Her own parents mentally abused her until she had a mental breakdown so that they could use her for a single year. I couldn't imagine doing that to my own child, but they're seeing dollars.

 

[TowinKarz]

I kinda feel bad for her because that disillusionment she's feeling as her "movement" collapses is real, she's too young to recognize she was a professional pawn in all of this. Even if everyone around her is an insincere self-serving snake who can walk away without a care or a moment's sorrow weighing on their conscious, I don't think she is.

You used a kid and left her holding the fallout you never warned her about...... after a half-year of inflating her ego and telling her how important and special she was, you just threw her in the trash and said "Sorry kid, you couldn't pull the numbers, you're canceled"

Nice job, you moral and caring progressives.

 

[thx1138]

She also finally was forced to answer the nuclear question and it basically ended her.

What was the programmed response she gave?

 

[Matthew216]

I for one strongly oppose the steam smokestacks that are put up when the air in the sewers is warmer than the air at street level(which is almost all the time); it obscures drivers' vision, they're eyesores, it's steaming up the atmosphere and steam is usually hot, so that kills. We don't have steampunk-era technology anymore to properly process all the evil steam into work or energy, so fuck it. STEAM BAD
View attachment 1017006

I object to that notion my good man!

We achieved nothing and don't want to continue: Greta Thunberg DISAVOWS school strike for climate change?

After more than a year of school strikes, climate marches and high-profile speeches, Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg told supporters that her movement hasn’t achieved any actual change and she doesn’t want to continue.

www.rt.com

Archive

Looks like this whole shebang might be coming to a close in near future.

Greta, real change takes time. Look at the Hippies, they protested for over a decade, and weren’t really responsible for ending Vietnam. If you’re bowing out already, then this was never what you were meant to do anyway.

 

[Secret Asshole]

What was the programmed response she gave?

Nuclear energy wasn't enough to end climate change, they had to end the patriarchy and colonialism. Not even joking.

 

[TowinKarz]

yeah, she shifted gears so rapidly from "climate change" to "It's not even ABOUT the climate, it's about what allowed it to get so bad, PATRIARCHY! " when people proposed low-carbon nuclear.

A shift so ill-advised and sudden, I think she ground up a synchro.

 

[AnOminous]

yeah, she shifted gears so rapidly from "climate change" to "It's not even ABOUT the climate, it's about what allowed it to get so bad, PATRIARCHY! " when people proposed low-carbon nuclear.

A shift so ill-advised and sudden, I think she ground up a synchro.

She's the climate "activism" equivalent of this.

 

[Matthew216]

I’ve thought this for awhile now, but in recent years, the rise of the angry activist, and there seemingly uncaring stance on whether the problems they rage about are ever cured, just confirms it.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ps...1508/angers-allure-are-you-addicted-anger?amp

Spoiler

Jean Kim M.D.
Culture Shrink
Anger's Allure: Are You Addicted to Anger?
Reasons why anger can be a hard habit to break
Posted Aug 25, 2015
Anger is a public epidemic in America; it contaminates everything from media controversy to road rage to wars to mass shootings. But aside from the larger toxic scale of this basic human emotion and its connection to violence, anger affects us in our day-to-day personal lives as well, on an intimate scale. Everything from workplace frustration to family discord can erupt and contribute to overall stress, anxiety, and depression.

Given how destructive and painful anger can be, why are we all awash in its wake? Why do we continue to bask in rage despite all the dangerous consequences: legal, social, financial, physical, medical ramifications and more?
1. Human neurobiology rewards anger.
Part of the issue is that in the moment anger feels good, feels like the thing to do. It overrides all other moral and rational brakes in the brain because it originates from our primordial, original limbic system: the brain center of our most automatic emotions like fear and desire. The limbic system has the most direct links to our fight-or-flight response system, and that includes control over adrenaline rushes, alertness, and other instincts that prime you for battle or rapid escape.

2. Anger is similar to other addictions.


What happens is that anger can lead to similar “rushes” as thrill-seeking activities where danger triggers dopamine reward receptors in the brain, or like other forms of addiction such as gambling, extreme sports, even drugs like cocaine and methamphetamines. Anger can become its own reward, but like other addictions, the final consequences are dangerous and real, and people follow impulses in the moment without regard to the big picture.

3. Anger boosts ego fragility.

There is also the psychological aspect of ego fragility and injury, often seen in narcissisticpersonalities; the rush behind anger can be triggered by underlying feelings of weakness or insecurity, a way to feel powerful in the moment and overcome those feelings. It also helps people feel briefly in control of things they typically have no control over. Unfortunately, the aftermath reinforces negative consequences that hurt you in the eyes of others, and continues the cycle of insecurity. It becomes a vicious cycle of tantrums and punishment that ultimately hurt the angry individual.


4. Anger may be familiar/comfortable and also a method of emotional avoidance.
Unfortunately for some people who are raised in continuously chaotic environments, the uncertainty and volatility of anger might become perversely comfortable, might help distract from or escape underlying uncomfortable feelings of emptiness or fear. The rush of drama and conflict feels familiar and produces a destructive intimacy that some might prefer than to confront other darker emotions like loss or grief or more. Aside from traumaticfamily environments, combat veterans are also at risk of similar addiction, as they remain in high-threat situations for long and repeated periods of time.

So it may be worth asking yourself, are you addicted to anger? If so, there are plenty of strategies for getting help, such as:

-- psychotherapy (sometimes targeted cognitive-behavioral therapy for anger management, and also therapy to confront/observe underlying interpersonal dynamics and past issues that might trigger anger)


-- treating any comorbid underlying conditions such as depression, anxiety, and PTSD that can show anger as a symptom
-- positive stress coping strategies like humor/exercise/yoga/meditation/vacation
-- learning alternative behaviors like how to problem-solve constructively and rely less on impulsive outbursts, talking out anger triggers with others ahead of time before they build up, mindfulness training/acceptance, and more


-- discussing your tendencies honestly with family members and friends.
But as with any addiction, the first step is admitting there is a problem; and for many, this is the hardest step until unfortunately something happens that you can’t take back. It takes maturity and guts to admit your anger has become a problem, and sadly, many people have not yet stepped back to look and see how they affect everyone around them, let alone themselves. Awareness is the first step to recovery.

 

[Stoneheart]

I’ve thought this for awhile now, but in recent years, the rise of the angry activist, and there seemingly uncaring stance on whether the problems they rage about are ever cured, just confirms it.

There is nothing wrong with beeing always angry all the time, faggot.

 

[Silence of the Troons]

A quite uncanny photo from Dagens Nyheter.

According to a recent interview in Aftonbladet, she claims that she wants to go to China and India. Though whether she wants to go there for climate change activism or just for sight seeing is unclear. https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/...a-thunberg-jag-vill-resa-till-kina-och-indien

What's your dream travel destination?

China, all you have to do is take the Trans-Siberian railway. It only takes six days from Moscow. [And] India, though it's difficult to go there without traveling by plane. Perhaps also Russia and Japan.

 

[George Floyd Sneed]

I still think we're going to hear a lot more uproar over the issue of climate change, but Greta Thunberg herself is nearing the end of her fifteen minutes of fame.

I’d argue her 15 minutes ended in mid-October. Everything since then has been her fading into irrelevance. I guess Bill Gates, George Soros, etc. were displeased their climate loli didn’t do shit except set environmentalism back further and some lulz when Trump ignored her glaring at him. That was fucking hilarious.

 

[Iwasamwillbe]

Climate change will be the next biggest leftist front for 2020, after all this intersection social justice shit goes away, I guarantee it.

 

[Absolutego]

Climate change will be the next biggest leftist front for 2020, after all this intersection social justice shit goes away, I guarantee it.

I doubt the intersectional social justice trend goes away without a defeat in 2020, and they've already incorporated climate change into it by claiming the global south is the most affected by it and we need to import as many "climate refugees" as possible.