Greta Thunberg

I'm in two minds - I think she's a remarkable young woman and terrific role model but that the amount of attention and pressure not to mention vitriol she's getting can't be easy for her. She must be the most famous young person on the planet right now, possibly ever. The campaign is by its nature urgent so it's not easy to make the case for her to take time to recoup and rest at times, but that's what we all need to do maintain sanity. I hope the people around her are looking after her.

I agree with stumbledin. I have reservations about GT, and I don't like what is happening.

When I first saw her, I was struck by her presentation. I've taught secondary in schools across Europe and the Middle East, and I've never seen a 16 year old appear so incredibly young. She looks like a 9 year old, if that. And it's not just her physicality, but her grooming - - the plaits, the clothing. All in all, I am very suspicious and I fear her image is an intentional ploy to create a certain kind of impact.

For, to be blunt, no one is going to pay much attention to an average, hormone ridden 16 year old giving them a subpar sixth form lecture. Otherwise, model UN would change the world every year.

Indeed, the activist needs to look younger, because then you get the "from the mouths of babes" effect. But said individual can't actually be young, because then there's issues of duty of care, consent and parental coercion.

So this is how we end up with the strange mash up of GT. It sets off so many alarms in my head that can't quite see how others are so blasé about it.

Add to this the fact that the message is terribly anodyne in content. I hesitate to think that people would accept such a bland and unthinking message from a 16 year old that actually looked like a 16 year old; you would be more likely to notice it for the bizzare, childish perspective it conveys.

But her primary school appearance tricks you into thinking she is a passionate, brave child and you make allowances that normally you wouldn't make for a 16 year old.

But what bothers me most is that GT is female. I may be being paranoid but it strikes me that the two most controversial figures in Britain at the moment, both individuals that are figureheads for highly complex social, cultural and political issues, have a lot of similarities.

They are both female, both quite obviously utilised for their looks, both subject to horrific abuse, and both without any real discernable expertise. And these two females are GT and Gina Millar.

However, neither wind nor solar is predictable enough to act as a full replacement for fossil fuels.

I'm working for one of the large electricity providers and we are working on attaching battery storage to renewables (i.e. wind, solar and tidal) to allow the energy to be stored and used when required in order that we can reduce reliance on fossil fuels. Furthermore battery technology is emerging that is non polluting (no heavy metals or rare earths) and in abundant supply. The last 30 years has seen research directed at small high power battery storage for mobile devices and other technologies were ignored as being too bulky. All that is changing now and research is being done into sodium based (and other) storage. Who cares if it is the size of a fridge if it sitting under a windmill (or in a house). A revolution is happening and the grid will be transformed over the next 10 years. It isn't all gloomy.

I am also very wary about GT and how she is being used. And I think she seems like a lovely girl, and climate change is an existential crises for us.

But the business about adults doing this to children is nor true and not helpful. None of us chose to be born into the particular sort of world we live in in terms of economic structures, power, and technological advances. And quite frankly I don't think any of us really know how to turn that all around. I also do not see young people as any more likely to live in a way congruent with a sustainable lifestyle than older people.

The fact that GT isn't really able to evaluate even possible ways forward is a problem. Yes, she is telling people to listen to scientists, but not really understanding the problem means she can't easily understand how she is being used herself, or what kind of motivation people need. And while scientists are able to give one kind of help with this problem I don't know that they are really going to be able to give us the way forward. That requires a new kind of thinking, new kinds of values.

However, neither wind nor solar is predictable enough to act as a full replacement for fossil fuels.

This is part of the problem. We are not going to be able to carry on with the level of energy consumption and consumerism we have now. Even if we could get enough no-strings energy, it is unsustainable in many other ways. A system predicated on infinite growth is an impossible system doomed to failure.

There used to be articles and such that would show what kind of lifestyle a person who was living at a sustainable level would live. You don't see those often now and maybe there is a reason why - people don't want to hear it.

I admire her greatly. I just hope she is ok in terms of stress/anxiety about the world, and the terrible bullying she recieves, she is obviously aware of it as she tweets about it.

Just a thought, brought on by a few facebook memes. I remina puzzled about how we, wider society, see climate change and our part in making our world safer, healthier!

I don't understand, sorry.

Of course the establishment's first move is to try to absorb Greta, make her one of them....

You've put the cart before the horse there, I'm afraid.

"It should not need to resort to ad hominem arguments, or use a child as its figurehead"

I've campaigned using reasoned justification for many years and at the end of the day you have to realise that people need symbols, spokespeople and things they can hold in their hand. David Attenborough's focus on plastic doesn't come from his concluding that that's the most important thing, it comes from his knowledge that that's what people can understand.

"But I do not think Greta can possibly be the messiah of climate change action when she is promoted and supported by the very status quo she purports to be challenging."
But that's the first move they always make. Am I the only one who's endured watching the second Hunger Games film?

"Yes - climate consensus has the full backing of the establishment"
No it doesn't. It has lip service. Capitalism and growth has the full backing of the establishment.

I think we need to differentiate between an individual's desire to think a problem through (including finding exceptions to the rule/doubts) on the one hand, and falling for the oldest trick in the book on the other hand. Of course the establishment's first move is to try to absorb Greta, make her one of them.....

Yes - climate consensus has the full backing of the establishment. It should not need to resort to ad hominem arguments, or use a child as its figurehead. And yet here we are.

Reminds me of the TRAs using 'trans kids' as a human shield for their autogynephilia

Or claiming to be the underdog fighting "the power" when in fact given full-blooded support by the entire political establishment and corporate world.

I like Greta. I think climate change is an urgent priority.

But I do not think Greta can possibly be the messiah of climate change action when she is promoted and supported by the very status quo she purports to be challenging. Just as it's obvious that extremist transactivism and its corporate and political support, is not coming from a place of oppression.

leave Greta alone

Greta has waded into a debate about issues that she can't possibly understand, with a very simplistic view about a very complex area of science which is not well understood, but highly politicised. This isn't a criticism of her, but about the adults who are using this 16 year old child and portraying her as some sort of prophet.

Reminds me of the TRAs using 'trans kids' as a human shield for their autogynephilia.

well Jilly just leave Greta alone and read and listen to the people you respect and act on the findings you accept then.

Each to their own. It's not you that Greta is talking to.

Incidentally Skeptical Science (which at least one poster has referred me to) was one of the first websites I turned to when I started trying to look into this for myself. I looked up a climate scientist on the sceptical side of the argument and the first article I found consisted largely of references to his political affiliations. I stopped reading and I haven't been back. I wasn't interested in how this scientist voted, I wanted the writer to explain how they thought he was wrong. I thought it was a really poor approach from a source that claims to promote critical thinking. It reminded me of the TRA line that we're all in the pockets of the far right.

I didn’t want to annoy you somebrightmorning but really just to point out that if people are to be persuaded on the climate change front, comments about “99% of scientists agree” - are just a total turnoff because they’re so clearly just wild exaggerations. Personally I shut down when I hear that kind of stuff and I feel the same way about Greta - I just don’t want to be shouted at by a teenager who does not understand the massive complexities of these incredibly difficult problems. And I’m actually fairly moderate in this debate - I’m interested in science, I read a lot around this subject, i want to understand different perspectives and I’m happy to believe that humans have some impact on the environment - or course they do - but I’m not willing to follow the anti-humanist ideology espoused by Greta and XR. And I’ll go out of my way to make sure that my kids are largely protected from the panic by showing them that there are other important scientific perspectives. Dr Murray, mentioned above, is one of them.

I don't think Meghan Murphy's piece is being fair to Ms. Thunberg. Writers frequently write about issues they're not experts on or don't have direct experience with. My appreciation for Murphy's writings on the sex industry aren't tainted by her lack of personal experience in prostitution, and her theories on social movement leadership are as un-expert and subjectively opinionated as other criticisms by writers who haven't spent a lot of time reading political science books on leadership.

And that's okay. Sometimes it takes a non-expert to translate what experts say into useful explanations for readers and listeners. Very often, leaders in feminist writing or climate change aren't the most directly knowledgeable people so much as they are the most passionately outspoken people with a particular way of putting words that inspires others to action.

I think the risk of the governments of the UN listening to Greta and deciding to abandon capitalism is zero so you can rest easy on that one.

But even in a humble way (from being on the sidelines in the tech sector) I know of three less energy-intensive/less polluting technologies that have been suppressed in a who-killed-the-electric-car type manner by the incumbent industries. So there is a lot you could do to tinker with capitalism without dismantling it.

I'm also somewhat on the fence when it comes to climate change predictions. All we really know is that we don't know what is going to happen, and how much of climate change is actually down to human activity.

Once you start looking, there are other views out there. Judith Curry is a climatologist who started writing about what is happening in climate research after 'Climategate' 10 years ago.

She talks about 'Climate Tribalism'
Climate tribalism. Tribalism is defined here as a strong identity that separates one’s group from members of another group, characterized by strong in-group loyalty and regarding other groups differing from the tribe’s defining characteristics as inferior.

After becoming more knowledgeable about the politics of climate change (both the external politics and the internal politics within the climate field), I became concerned about some of the tribes pointing their guns inward at other climate researchers who question their research or don’t pass various loyalty tests.

Climate science is very politicised.

My biggest contention is Ms Thunberg’s snuck premise. She says climate change represents a major threat to human life (supportable), and evil capitalism is responsible. Sneaking rampant bullshittery in and just placing it truth adjacent is intellectually dishonest.

When we attack capitalism we must ask the question “compared to what?”. If we were to compare and contrast capitalist governments to socialist/communist ones in the 20th Century we would discover that central planning strategies are notoriously inefficient and wasteful and particularly bad ecologically.

If we were to all to tear down the filthy capitalist systems and adopt socialist/communist governments the world over we’d be hastening our demise, not saving ourselves. So how very dare she advocate for the very thing that could kill us all.

That’s not to say that some sensible legislation couldn’t be passed or activism could not make a positive difference. The world’s collective military industrial complexes produce more than half of the problem, so tackling it in the vein of the reduction of nuclear arsenals would seem a fruitful avenue. If we all campaigned in the west to put pressure on our governments to stop making quite so many weapons, and seek to use diplomacy to sign non-proliferation treaties with our competitors we could actually turn around quite a lot.

Also the French government recently banned the incineration of products retail chains fail to sell (they do so to prevent the flooding of the market with named designer items that could compete with next years new stuff).

I’d actually say encouraging people to expend large amounts of labour and energy (and it should be lost on none of you that this often falls upon women!) with their recycling and green living actually takes energy away from actually spending time considering far more important and efficient ways to tackle the problem at scale.

But it’s a free world if people want to listen to a 16 year old girl and follow her into actually a worsening of the problem have at it!

NASA undoubtedly are more worthy of consideration than the Guardian, however I would always put caveats on any predications.

Modelling is far more advanced today than it was back in the early 90s when I was studying, mostly because computing power is far greater but it still comes with certain limitations. We mostly studied it in terms of river catchment systems for flood prediction. These are far simpler systems than climatic ones but the same principles apply. There are basically two approaches.

1 You try and account for every possible variable, but each variable comes with a margin of error and the more variables there are the greater the overall error is likely to be.

2 You assume only a limited number of variables are really significant and ignore the rest. Less errors, but runs the risk that you've missed something that is significant.

The thing that bothers me most about climate predications is the law of unintended consequences. At the beginning of the industrial revolution mankind started pumping exponentially more CO2 into the atmosphere which has a warming effect. But to start with we were pumping exponentially more particulates into the atmosphere as well, which have a cooling effect leading (relatively) to balance.

During the 20th century it was recognised that those particulates were hugely detrimental to human health and clean air acts were passed. This is undoubtedly good for human health, but means changes the balance in terms of warming/cooling effects of human activity. This is an unintended consequence.

Over the years many have suggested technological fixes involving entering some kind of particulates into the atmosphere to counter the warming impact (but higher up so not to impact human health). In theory this is an attractive idea but, what if the year after you do so there is a major eruption? You may have heard of the Year Without a Summer, 1816, where the cooling impact of the 1815 Tambora eruption led to food shortages in the northern hemisphere. What about the Laki fissure eruption of 1783/4 in Iceland which led to famines in Egypt, India, Japan and has been linked by some to the French revolution?

Volcanoes are just one, unpredictable happening that we have no control over, that can render even our best models obsolete, that cannot be factored into them. This is not to say we shouldn't cut down on consumption, or shouldn't plant trees, or shouldn't consider the amount and quality of meat we eat. These are all good things for other reasons but we should not be sweepingly stating 'the world is doomed if we don't do X by year Y' because in reality we don't know what might happen and it isn't healthy to go through life crying 'doom' or encouraging others to do so.

point taken Floisme, I posted before noticing that I had used that horrible counter-productive phrase for the first time ever ...... I was just annoyed with JillyHilly and it bubbled up.

Trust me, I know this one from campaigning on the streets.... it doesn't work.

Please see my post about labelling anyone who questions the narrative as a 'climate change denier'. I think this is part of the problem.

bonus points to jillyhilly for use of "hysteria" on a feminist board by the way.

It's entirely reasonable for you to want to start from first principles and figure it out for yourself Floisme.

It's not reasonable for those of us who've gone through the process at some length to be told that we have to keep starting again as well by the likes of Jillyhilly. Once you've taken reasonable steps to satisfy yourself, it's OK to trust David Attenborough ahead of climate change deniers. It really is. It's the oil industry who want to make us keep going back to square 1.