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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU Greta Thunberg?

999 replies

onalongsabbatical · 22/09/2019 10:34

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.

OP posts:
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MarshaBradyo · 24/09/2019 07:48

Twisted it is a bit isn’t it? To post that stuff

Thick - well there’s been a lot of claims that strikers are unthinking sheep

I’ll stop on the thick if others stop on the disablism

Jillyhilly · 24/09/2019 07:49

Do you think hysterical people make good decisions?

Trewser · 24/09/2019 07:51

How do you know that calling a poster 'thick' isn't itself disablist?

grumiosmum · 24/09/2019 07:51

Oh dear @Teacher22 I do hope you are not a teacher in real life polluting our kids' brains with claptrap.

I've never heard a climate change campaigner advocate that we should be stopping Keeping clean by bathing or showering or many of the other things on your list (some of which I already do).

We want change from governments, such as today's proposals announced for taxing frequent fliers & reducing airport expansion; better support for renewable energy (our government pulled the plug on onshore wind & solar, the cheapest forms of renewables, 4 years ago); and for individuals to be encouraged to reduce their consumption of meat and dairy, which is better for your health anyway. And plant more trees.

Why do people try to portray environmentalists as extremists? If most people made a few small changes it would have a massive impact - much more than just a few people making big changes.

MarshaBradyo · 24/09/2019 07:53

Good I’m glad you accept and will stop.

MarshaBradyo · 24/09/2019 07:54

This extremist stuff has been around for years. It’s another way to do nothing.

Trewser · 24/09/2019 07:55

Why do people try to portray environmentalists as extremists?

I don't think they did, at least a few years ago. Enviromentalism has been studied in school for years, we have a national recycling programme, save water campaigns, lots of wildlife campaigners.

GT is the very definition of an extremist, who knows whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. Time will tell I suppose.

Fresta · 24/09/2019 07:56

Her speech yesterday well rehearsed and although she appeared emotional on the surface it was an acted response, not genuine raw emotion. There were no tears as the newspapers are reporting. Her image is being carefully manipulated to support the 'innocent children' against the big men campaign. She's 16- a young woman. I know no other 16 year olds that dress like young children. I still think her parents are indulging themselves and her.

Oliversmumsarmy · 24/09/2019 07:57

Just seen the footage of some of her speech.

A little too over dramatic for me personally "Stolen my dreams".
What does that even mean.

Given the tears as well I think the message, whatever it was, was lost on me.

It came across as a self indulgent tantrum

There are so many children who are going through so much and won't make it to 16.

That is having your dreams stolen

As for the glare at Trump I think someone needs to lay off the Paddington Bear films.

If you are going to.put yourself on the world stage for a cause you need to be able to mask your hatred for someone otherwise all you are doing is surrounding yourself with people who agree with you so you end up being closed off to other people's opinions

.

Trewser · 24/09/2019 07:58

I did think poor kid, going all that way and then breaking down at the moment she was giving her speech, but it seems that was what a lot of people wanted from her.

MarshaBradyo · 24/09/2019 08:02

I don’t think it’s acting

I also don’t think people want anything from her other than to turn up and ideal that is

If she gets emotional that’s just who she is

MarshaBradyo · 24/09/2019 08:02

And speak that is

Kanga83 · 24/09/2019 08:03

I can't warm to her. I believe she's being manipulated by others, but also that she's a bit of an actress herself. Really not sure how much is genuine and how much is narcissism. I say this as someone who sees deeply about the environment and carbon footprint- I don't fly, I walk everywhere, am vegan, have taken part in many animal rights protests, refuse to speak to a family member who works in an animal lab. Despite this, i love the message she's trying to deliver, but I cannot and do not find anything about her genuine and it makes me turn the news off everything she's on it.

JMoore · 24/09/2019 08:24

It is good that she has made many people more aware of environmental issues, especially young people.

However, it's all just talk in the end. In what way is that different from what all the politicians are doing? Does it really change anything if Greta sails across the Atlantic (not to mention the issue of having to fly boat crews in and out) and delivers an emotional speech in front of some politicians? Not really. She has made her point, but what is she going to do now? Sail back to Europe and talk some more?

I much prefer the young scientists, who try to find practical ways to actually change something - small things maybe, but actual change. Or the teachers, who run school gardens and teach kids how to grow vegetables and make their own compost. Nobody talks about them, though.

I wish Greta Thunberg all the best. She might make a great politician one day.

MarshaBradyo · 24/09/2019 08:28

The thing is topics grow and more issues are highlighted. So who knows someone might be putting together an article on great young scientists because they now know it’s a hot topic generally.

Original poster
onalongsabbatical · 24/09/2019 08:34

She's not strange, ffs. She's honest. That's strange only because we are not used to such raw honesty in public life, particularly politics. She's expressing the way I've felt for fifty years (since I was younger than her) but felt too scared to express. This I partly why I want to defend and protect her. Don't underestimate people of her age please, I was extremely angry with the world at that age but felt I couldn't show it so went down a different path - much more self-destructive. The idea that at her age she couldn't be genuinely thinking and feeling these things is patronising in the extreme.

OP posts:
Trewser · 24/09/2019 08:36

I don't know any other 17 year olds like her and with her global platform. Do you?

Tensixtysix · 24/09/2019 08:40

This guy says it straight...
Look at their faces when he tells them what they have to give up...

Loveyou3000 · 24/09/2019 08:45

@Fresta I had to go and look through photos of her to see what you mean and sorry, I don't. She dresses perfectly normally for a teenager, tshirts under a flannel shirt, or a jumper with leggings or jeans? That's what I still wear most days. I thought she'd be in bright red dungarees and an applique top from the way you insisted she dressed like a child. Perhaps you surround yourself with too many teens who dress in revealing and inappropriate clothes...

which1 · 24/09/2019 08:50

I watched a bit of her speech last night.
I found it a bit overly dramatic when she started accusing everyone of stealing her childhood and something else she said.
I would have found her speech a bit more hard hitting had she spoken calmly and without any kind of theatricals.
She is undoubtedly very brave to stand up and speak at such an event but whoecer advised her on the style of her speech, unless it was her decision, didn't get it right IMO.

Guavaf1sh · 24/09/2019 09:02

I am also worried that CO2 is being held up as the only cause when this is far from certain. The causes are complex and need more understanding before important decisions are made

Userzzzzz · 24/09/2019 09:05

She has done a huge amount but I do worry for her wellbeing. She is still very young and has been attacked in the press and put under enormous pressure. I hope she has the resilience to cope with it but from what others have said she sounds quite vulnerable. If she were my daughter I’d want to protect her from scrutiny and avoid her being seen as an icon to rally around. It’s hard though as no-one really knows what goes on in the background but I would be amazed if she wasn’t being pushed hard by the adults in her life.

Sleepin · 24/09/2019 09:19

I agree which1, it comes across as every bit as empty as the kind of rhetoric politicians feed us every day. Words and nothing more.

Jillyhilly · 24/09/2019 09:23

Why do people try to portray environmentalists as extremists?

Because they glue themselves to roads.

Because Gail Babcock, one of the founders of Extinction Rebellion, has said that "This is not the time to be realistic, this is the time for humanity to completely change course”.

Because according to Zero Carbon Britain’s research, to reach zero carbon emissions by 2030 would require changing all boilers in the country to electric and a massive increase in the number wind turbines, which would take up an area twice the size of Wales.

Because to get there any sooner (by 2025, which is what the XR want) would, according to the BBC, be “akin to a wartime situation” in the UK.

I suspect most ordinary people would consider these positions, and the potential restrictions on their daily lives and freedoms, extreme.

Oliversmumsarmy · 24/09/2019 09:25

If you take out the dramatics and the ridiculous statements of stealing childhoods and dreams and everything to do with climate change which we already know.

What exactly did she say?