Greta Thunberg

[Gingerkittykat]

twitter.com/GretaThunberg/status/1176930548146692096

*Here we go again...
As you may have noticed, the haters are as active as ever - going after me, my looks, my clothes, my behaviour and my differences.8

It looks like she faces the normal misogynistic bullshit most women face when men want to shut them down. Can't argue with her message so just attack her looks to try and discredit her.

Thankfully she seems strong and with her head switched on, I hope this doesn't put her off having her voice heard.

coat brilliant posts, thank you. I'd never considered the impact of our love for the digital world/4 and 5g and I'm guessing many are the same.

And that video. I'm aware this sounds over dramatic but I could cry after watching it. It just feels like we're fucked and in reality nothing will be done to stop it.

At the risk of being sucked into another Greta thread she is clearly focussed, writes extremely well (someone linked that letter) and may well be able to deal digs against her better than others.

And I’d be delighted if she wins the Nobel Peace Prize.

Many of the people who will be most affected do not have a comfortable, throw away lifestyle though. Some of them don't have electricity. But they may have coal reserves. What do we say to them because I don't think throwing them Half a Crown to start a wind farm is going to cut it?

Hi marsha, what did you think of her describing herself as 'strange'

Hey Trewser how’s it going I missed that but she will have heard it a lot so good on her for dealing with it well. Which why I don’t think she’s as vulnerable as people say.

It made me smile to myself as I described her as 'a strange little person' on the other thread, it was actually meant with affection. It was funny to hear her use the word to describe herself.

Some of them don't have electricity

There are still people, and by people I mostly mean women, dying from lung disease because they cook over open fires due to lack of connected utilities.

Any solution has to include providing these people with electricity. If that doesn't come from fossil fuel the only viable, reliable alternative right now is nuclear. But environmentalists are often (not all) against that too.

Yes I am inching my way towards a nuclear power conclusion too, which is a very weird position for me to be in and makes me very grateful there was no social media when I was young and gobby.

me too floisme, for both nuclear and lack of social media in the 80s!

I worry for her. The recent speech where she was angry and crying, made me concerned about how this will all end. I've been involved in campaigns around climate change for years. There have always been young activists. Where GT differs is the generational blame argument; the lack of nuance in the response and tbh a lack of understanding of global issues and international development.
I wonder if she's being set up as some kind of false prophet so she can be knocked down.

Has nuclear improved since back then? Waste iirc was the issue

Also the people with the least will be most affected as it gets hotter

Don't get me wrong, nuclear is not ideal. Apart from safety questions and the issue of weapons as opposed to power making people understandably wary, it is ultimately a finite resource.

However, neither wind nor solar is predictable enough to act as a full replacement for fossil fuels. The only thing I can think of the might, potentially be in the long run is tidal power and right now we are nowhere near having large scale tidal energy production. Even if we do figure that one out I'm not sure if it would be enough.

Exactly. They look screwed either way but I wouldn't blame them if they decided rather be screwed with electricity than without.
I don't know enough about nuclear to decide yet - it's unpalatable for me even to be reading up on it but there you go!

Wealth is a better indicator of contribution to greenhouse emissions than age. Rich people fly more, drive larger cars, have larger houses to heat, etc.

But I don't think Greta and her generation are the first teenagers to blame adults for their woes. When I was a young'un, the big threat was the Cold War and nuclear annihilation, and I remember being quite angry at the old people who had placed this threat over our heads.

dread thanks for pointing that out, I’m very glad she wasn’t travelling alone.
I also think renewables could be used a lot more and tidal needs more investment as it could provide reliable and predictable power. Offshore wind farms are also amazingly effective at producing energy to cover domestic requirements and I would like to see more of them.
My main concern re nuclear is the risk of it going wrong like after the Japanese tsunami. And with extreme weather becoming more commonplace the risks to nuclear power stations may increase eg hurricane/flooding/ storm damage etc.
Better solar renewables could potentially help in 3rd world countries lacking in infrastructure esp in areas where they have a lot of sun
There is definitely more that Governments could be doing now eg subsidies for home renewables have been reduced - we previously were going to get solar panels but then payments for producing energy were cut by 90% and it would have taken more than 20 years to recoup the cost so we ended up not doing it. Schemes like that do cost money in short term but on a bigger scale reducing our use of fossil fuels will perhaps help slow down global warming and all the problems it is causing so would seem like a good investment for governments to be making. Perhaps the movement currently being galvanised by Greta will encourage governments to make these schemes more of a focus

Great post stumbledin

I like GT and think she speaks well but I also think fostering an intergenerational rift is misguided and unfair. Previous generations were incredibly 'make do and mend' compared to now. Consumerism has been driven by profiteering corporations and still is. GT is right though that politicians have to stop chasing GDP as the holy grail which is why they want us to consume, consume, consume. It is utterly incompatible with care of the environment and resources. Yet every news story about the economy shrinking is still received with horror.

The child of a friend of mine attended one of the strikes. Her mum gave her a lift in the car...Prior to that they had jetted off on a long haul flight somewhere. It's not exactly be the change you want to see. I told my kids they could go to a strike with my blessing if they managed to turn their bedroom lights off every morning between then and the next strike. Epic fail.

I'm not against nuclear power either. I think solar is the perfect limitless renewable resource but I guess the technology for storage and transfer isn't there yet.

This ageist rhetoric is a preamble to letting an increasingly ageing population suffer and die as the resources will be lacking for their care. Not Greta herself per se, but that’s why the powers that be are amplifying her message.

She is a pawn.

RadicalStitch Thu 26-Sep-19 14:48:28

I'm not convinced it's a great idea having a young girl in the spotlight this much.
I worry for her mental health.
I worry that she is being used as a political pawn.
I'm not very keen on all our children being taught how to be activists instead of being at school and really learning about the science about the destruction of the planet.
I'm not that keen on kids leaving school to protest but not actually making any inconvenient changes to their own lives which would be environmentally beneficial.

I agree with this, am very uncomfortable with poster children

I am also torn between admiration and worrying about her.

But I think that when you have that awful burning feeling in you, then you find a way to take it outside you, and acting, it can be very calming.

I think also for a young autistic person being taught to stop thinking about something that's true (like the NT's seem to manage so easily) is intensely stressful.

@somebrightmorning but not everything she says is necessarily truth.

She is mainly asking people to listen to the scientists and science, not to her as such.

Greta herself seems lovely - passionate, articulated and committed. I believe in her cause.

However, I'm cynical enough to note that nobody but nobody gets this amount of establishment attention and support unless it somehow suits powerful global corporate interests. If we haven't learned that lesson via transactivism, I don't know when we will.

It's garnered a great deal of criticism. Even so, worth reading the perspective of a non-establishment environmentalist:

www.theartofannihilation.com/the-manufacturing-of-greta-thunberg-for-consent-the-political-economy-of-the-non-profit-industrial-complex/

but nobody gets this amount of establishment attention and support unless it somehow suits powerful global corporate interests.

That was a really interesting link. Thanks LangCleg.

Also thought the point made upthread about the differences between the UK and Swedish education systems was important in understanding Greta. Cory Morningstar, who wrote the blog Langcleg posted, reports she stood outside the Swedish Parliament for 3 weeks. Don’t think any school students have tried that here!!!