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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CWCissey said:
Not yet. I think she turns 18 next year.
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I mean it doesn't matter anyway, I'm just highlighting that her role as a mouthpiece for her narcissistic and abusive parents (who exploit her brain defects via mommy's alcoholism) will not matter given the sheer amount of other things people care about right now.
 
Sometimes I wonder if Gretard is actually a real person or, alternatively, some weird method acting LARP troll to see how far people are willing to believe bullshit.
 
Turnip_Head said:
Don't even get me started on solar.
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The funniest part about solar is that if it could theoretically power the entire country it would save the government millions upon millions of dollars. Like an absurd amount of money. Outside of maintenance solar takes care of itself considering its fuel is literally the sun.

I fully believe government is in the pocket of big oil, but if some nerd came up to the president and said "hey bro...listen bro....we can build you a giant solar panel bro seriously bro....it'll save you billions man...i get this big solar panel bro it's the size of a city it'll power everything....you just need electricians to fix it if it breaks down bro..." global warming would end tomorrow.

The truth is solar can't even power a fucking house by itself consistently unless it's aided by other means of generating electricity. Literally just look at how many volts a solar farm produces in comparison to a normal power plant.
 
Pepsi-Cola said:
The funniest part about solar is that if it could theoretically power the entire country it would save the government millions upon millions of dollars. Like an absurd amount of money. Outside of maintenance solar takes care of itself considering its fuel is literally the sun.

I fully believe government is in the pocket of big oil, but if some nerd came up to the president and said "hey bro...listen bro....we can build you a giant solar panel bro seriously bro....it'll save you billions man...i get this big solar panel bro it's the size of a city it'll power everything....you just need electricians to fix it if it breaks down bro..." global warming would end tomorrow.

The truth is solar can't even power a fucking house by itself consistently unless it's aided by other means of generating electricity. Literally just look at how many volts a solar farm produces in comparison to a normal power plant.
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The problem with solar is we currently lack the means to store all the hay made while the sun is shining. If you could store enough power during intermittent periods to keep your house running then it doesn't really matter if the solar panel can produce power at all times. Solid state batteries promise to resolve this issue though so we'll see what comes of it over the next decade.
 
Super Hans said:
And I'm upset that the vegan doesn't know how to properly construct a fucking burger. Two mini patties doesn't replace one big one, you fucking mongoloids. It just makes uneven distribution and mess potential.
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Doesn't that make it even more appropriate? Retarded burger named for a retarded gal.
 
Super Hans said:
And I'm upset that the vegan doesn't know how to properly construct a fucking burger. Two mini patties doesn't replace one big one, you fucking mongoloids. It just makes uneven distribution and mess potential.
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It's not a burger, it's falafel, and that's what size they are. Whoever wrote that ad copy is obviously not a vegan either.
 
I thought this one had succumbed to the murky waters of meaningless has-beens.
Can never see her face without thinking, young Elizabeth Warren.
 
There are few things more sad and pathetic than a washout trying to stay relevant. Especially when it is someone who is as young as Greta.

Her parents, and their allies in the leftist elite, crippled her far more than any amount of autism ever could.
 
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