AIBU Greta Thunberg?

[onalongsabbatical]

AIBU to ask everyone who can to get behind Greta Thunberg, even if only online, as she's now getting a lot a lot a lot of hate. She clearly threatens people - especially her polar opposites, men, rich old men, powerful men (did I mention men?). Let's all give her the lurve and support she needs.
So on FB I challenged one just now - Why are you attacking a young woman? - and he disappeared. Funny, that.

I suppose you can tick off being part of the 70 making it worse

You could be right, Marshall ... or then again maybe you're mistaken, and I'm actually just one of the boring majority, doing our best on a day-to-day basis and largely unmoved by the silly noise and fury of passing fads

If you care about the environment and understand the emergency facing us you would welcome any way it’s put on the agenda except obviously violent action. You are not going to change the world by reducing your gin bottles.

Recycling not reducing

Puzzled you might not get Greta but teens do. You could use it as a conversation starter to make changes.

But the people against her, ie, big business, big coal/fossil fuel

Just an ordinary person who doesn’t want to sacrifice her standard of living (wouldn’t need to if we got behind nuclear) and wants the developing world to have access to cheap energy, ideally nuclear but fossil fuels if need be.

You could use it as a conversation starter to make changes

I have, Marshall - I really have, and genuinely to try to understand what the attraction is rather than to make some silly point

But I've honestly rarely heard a word of sense spoken about her by anyone under 18; it's all "Oooo she's LOVELY", "she's my idol", and once, memorably, "she's told us we don't need to go to school" without anything of substance to back it up

I'd say maybe I'm meeting the wrong sort of teens, but many have been outwardly intelligent young people - though regrettably swept up in the fashionable frenzy

That’s a shame I have the opposite someone who doesn’t go on the strike and is making us all make changes

She's just been on TV live giving her address to the UN Climate Action Summit. I only caught the tail end but it was impassioned and clear. Maybe some of you saying she's being manipulated or whatever should go find it and watch/listen. She's the real deal and she's having an impact.

All the rest is whataboutery.

I'm actually just one of the boring majority, doing our best on a day-to-day basis and largely unmoved by the silly noise and fury of passing fads

Good for you, puzzled. I’m very encouraged that the reaction of most ordinary people is ignore all the screeching and get on with life.

Fucking hell

Jilly how stubborn are you it’s incredible.

Just an ordinary person who doesn’t want to sacrifice her standard of living (wouldn’t need to if we got behind nuclear) and wants the developing world to have access to cheap energy, ideally nuclear but fossil fuels if need be.

In total agreement with this. People need access to cheap efficient sources of energy. There is massive ignorance about the have no idea of the huge debt we all owe to fossil fuels because fossil fuels have been so demonised in recent years.

The developing world has every right to the kind of luxurious lifestyle we have enjoyed for decades but the climate protestors don’t seem remotely interested in this.

No-one has a "right" to a luxurious lifestyle, particularly at the expense of future generations.

Dont be so disingenuous Jilly. Developing countries are being hardest hit by global warming, and if we cut our carbon footprint at the same time others increased theirs then there would be no net increase in carbon and things would be fairer all round.

onalongsabbatical
That's 32% of 729 - that's 233 people who think it's ok to attack a young woman on social media. On mumsnet, 233 people defending grown men attacking a young woman.
Think about it.

Unless you have also counted those that said YABU for just being against men attacking her on the internet. that is not what it means at all.

Or are you saying From your numbers, over 500 people believe that its ok for women to attack a young woman on the internet.

We need more people like Greta who are prepared to stand up for their principles and not be cowed by those in power.

If anyone deserves a Nobel Prize, it's her.

No-one has a "right" to a luxurious lifestyle, particularly at the expense of future generations.

In the West are all living unbelievably luxurious lifestyles by historical and global standards. That is what I am talking about. How much of it are you willing to give up?

Life for the vast majority of us is not a daily struggle to survive. We have light, heat,
entertainment at the touch of a button. We have safe and efficient private and public transport, we can cook and keep food refrigerated, our roads are safe and well lit, we have access to well-functioning schools and hospitals, we have access to medicines and food is delivered to us from around the world on a daily basis.

It’s all an absolute miracle of ingenuity and it’s worth remembering that none of it would be possible without fossil fuels and how incredibly ingenious humans are when it comes to resolving problems. That is completely lost in the endlessly negative, gloom-and-doom, anti-humanist modern environmental movement and it’s one of the things that turns people off.

She's just been on TV live giving her address to the UN Climate Action Summit. I only caught the tail end but it was impassioned and clear. Maybe some of you saying she's being manipulated or whatever should go find it and watch/listen. She's the real deal and she's having an impact.

As I said before, she is a fantastic public speaker. She doesn't have a scientific education, so while she can repeat things that she has read, she wouldn't stand up to academic scrutiny or be able to publish papers to thorough peer reviewed academic standards. Her rhetoric is low on content, its style over substance, but that suits many of her followers, as they wouldn't be able to understand anything more complex than an easily remembered headline grabbing rounded off figure, such as we have 8 (exactly 8) years to act. But she is wonderful as a figurehead, to raise awareness.

I sometimes wonder if you could pick almost any cause of choice and put up Greta as its public promoter, and it would swing. She is impassioned, she is clear and she makes sense.

But I'm not a cult follower. I'm highly educated. I live a very green lifestyle (e.g. I cycle whenever I can, eat mainly vegetarian and minimise plastic use, I also, somewhat irritatingly, have a litter obsession and organise local litter picks!). But I squirm at this type of sheep type follower, mass public demonstrations which people drive to, carrying single use plastic bottles. Its so sheep like. I prefer to steer my own path.

All the rest is whataboutery.

That's the bit that scares me. Any scrutiny is "whataboutery". Its meaningless and designed to quell questioning. Its the usual retort to anyone who follows a cult type leader. I suspect the supporters of Hitler in the past would be psychologically evaluated as having the same attitudes, or those of Trotsky, or Lenin, or whatever. Thankfully, this is only Greta Thunberg with her climate change agenda, but its a dangerous type of attitude to support. People must be encouraged to question, to critically evaluate, and the way to do that is through education. Not be encouraging people to take time off school and think the UN will be interesting in seeing other people without degrees.

Because such people are very vulnerable to the next messiah who comes along selling snake oil as the solution to environmental damage, or suggesting they boycott someone or something. And of course, anyone who criticises is demonised. Very dangerous.

I think she amazing and an inspiration. I’m not on twitter but still on FB and I’ll support where I can.

She brings me to tears every time.

Hitler what’s that law on any thread when he’s mentioned?

It obviously doesn’t work for you Qual as you’re too unsheep like but how can you not welcome something that might work for others?

No one is being ‘demonised’ for not going on a strike. It’s not dangerous. That’s just so dramatic.

It obviously doesn’t work for you Qual as you’re too unsheep like but how can you not welcome something that might work for others?

Do you mean that I don't welcome caring for the environment? I explained that in my post.

Or do you mean my explanation about education being a better solution than one messiah like follower with lots of soundbite obsessed followers?

In fact, can you just say what you mean? I think you really have reached the holy grail of nuanced here!

Some of these posts take the biscuit but that one might pip the post.

If you care about the environment then why don’t you welcome help from any angle even one that doesn’t work for you personally?

If you care about the environment then why don’t you welcome help from any angle even one that doesn’t work for you personally?

Good question. I don't actually see mass demonstrations and virtue signalling as that helpful. I'm cynical about it. I suspect the type of people who do this might contain rather a lot of people who are so as I say, not as I do types.

There are so many more clever ways we can tackle environmental damage. I'm not suggesting we all join in with my litter pick but tbh if even half the people demonstrating got involved in a mass series of national litter picks as well, that would be really beneficial.

We need to stop building new build housing estates and encourage people to live in smaller houses and renovate them. We can give tax incentives to encourage this. We need to build proper cycle paths and safe cycle parking provision, because the number of short journeys made in this country by car is ridiculous. We need to make sure that everywhere with a minimum population number has a footpath connecting it to the nearest town. We need to make rail travel less expensive. All of these things are done much better in many other European countries. Its not just a matter of recycling your waste and demonstrating, and showing off about your knowledge of Greta at dinner parties.

I worry that mass demonstrations actually deflect concern the wrong way, that they generalise it too much, when a specific, local approach would be better. i.e. people already think they have done enough if they demonstrate and talk about it and especially show off to other people how much more devoted to Greta they are.