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.

Well, that MM piece said much of what I have been thinking and trying to articulate!

And CC in general is something I am very much on the fence over.

Humans wrecking the planet? Yes, we are, bloody obviously so on many areas! We need to do a lot more to reduce the harm we do.

But irreversible, end of times?

MM's article is very good.

I can’t help but see progressives’ fetishization of youth and ‘youth activism’ as self-serving. It not only elicits an emotional reaction from people, rather than a rational one, but it is used by adults as a means to virtue signal. Children are viewed as inherently moral and good, and therefore those who ‘listen to children’ and ‘support our youth’ are also positioned as inherently moral and good.

This strikes a chord with me. I feel as if this movement is trying to manipulate. I am also struck by her thoughts on the denigration of older women. I studied climatology and computer modelling of environmental systems as part of my degree a decade before Thunberg was born. I have spent decades considering methods of countering environmental degradation while also lifting people in the developing world out of poverty.

I mostly want to shout 'stop teaching your grandmother to suck eggs' at 'Extinction Rebellion'.

She is a very talented and charismatic young woman but I do worry what will happen when the media move on. I have never felt that about Malala who comes across as much more resilient and also having a very sophisticated understanding of how to create change.

This, a thousand times.
The Meghan Murphy article summarises my doubts about Greta absolutely, especially when she moves on to the trans debate and says this:

We live in a world that tells young people anything they feel or believe must be validated. That all opinions are made equal, and that, therefore, their 16-year-old opinions have as much value and worth as those of a person who has been on the planet for three times as long. I’ve had the incredibly pleasant experience of being screamed at by teenagers who insist my fight for women’s rights is wrong and old-fashioned, because they have learned all they know from their peers, and believe there is nothing to be learned from older generations of women. Young people are not taught the history of the women’s movement, yet denigrate first and second wave feminists with aplomb. A culture that lacks respect for its elders is a toxic culture.

It's absolutely this. Of course we all want a cleaner world for our children. Of course we want a healthy planet. But many of us have been silently living such a life for decades, trying to make an individual effort to that end, before these kids came along with their "how dare you!" attitude (Yes, I know that was addressed at world leaders and not at you, older woman, and me).
How many of these kids will actually walk the walk when they go home? I know that while I was very strict with myself when I first became aware of the ecological impact I make as an individual, invariably, one lapses over the years: but I did and do try and always have done. Not wasting water, not throwing out food that is still good, avoiding car travel when I could walk or cycle etc.

If these kids had given up their leisure time to go and plant trees, instead of skipping school, I'd have been more impressed. A demo where you can be angry with adults is fun. Cleaning up your own life, especially when nobody sees it, not so much. Some of us have been doing it for years, decades.

And I don't want to generalise, or judge unfairly, but self-discipline, which we older ones learnt along with our mother's milk, is not a characteristic the younger generation is noted for. It's more "you can have whatever you want", an attitude hard to overcome without, well, self-discipline.

There's a hint of arrogance in the whole thing which I don't take kindly to. And of course she is being manipulated, and of course she cannot recognise it. She's a kid.

When I was 16, one of my heroes, along with Malcolm X and Stokely Carmichael, was Vance Packard, whose books I devoured. He was reall one of the first to speak out about the ills of over-consumption, and he did it brilliantly in the book The Waste Makers:
www.amazon.com/Waste-Makers-Vance-Packard/dp/1935439375?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

The Waste Makers was the first book to probe the increasing commercialization of American life—the development of consumption for consumption's sake. Packard outlines the ways manufacturers and advertisers persuade consumers to buy things they don't need and didn't know they wanted, including the two-of-a-kind of everything syndrome—"two refrigerators in every home"—and appeals to purchase something because it is more expensive, or because it is painted in a new color. The book also brought attention to the concept of planned obsolescence, in which a "death date" is built into products so that they wear out quickly and need to be replaced. By manipulating the public into mindless consumerism, Packard believed that business was making us "more wasteful, imprudent, and carefree in our consuming habits," which was using up our natural resources at an alarming rate.

Anothet brilliant book by him was The Hidden Persuaders, about the power of the advertising and marketing industries to influence our behaviour.

Again: I was 16 at the time. And I read and agreed with these books out of my own reasoning, not because of the threat of a climate catastrophe. You could even say my innet conviction was more genuine, as it did not come from fear but from simple common sense, not because I thought my life was being ruined.

Either 99% of the world's scientists are wrong or Greta's statements are pretty moderate and her actions entirely appropriate.

It’s incredible how this statistic has been manipulated. I urge you to spend 20 minutes looking at the origins of this data and the methodology of the study. The original study by John Cook looked at abstracts of papers published by climate scientists (77 of them, I believe) and found that 97% of these abstracts mentioned climate change related to human activity. That’s it. Cook’s study did not look at any quantifiable evidence (data indicating the extent to which the researcher attributed climate change to human activity - 1%? 50%?) or even whether the researcher considered this it be positive or negative in terms of impact on the planet (eg more CO2 = more plant growth and a greener planet). A number of the researchers whose work he looked at spoke up against their research being used in this way because they were very concerned that it wasn’t an accurate or fair portrayal of the work they were doing.

And yet somehow this study has formed the basis for grown ups actually believing that “99% of the world’s scientists agree” (so now it’s all scientists from every discipline right across the world?) - agree what, exactly? That entire ecosystems are collapsing? That in 2030 our civilisation will screech to a halt? That we’re all dooooomed?

This is not the language of science and it’s not the way research should work. This is the language of a people who have lost any sense of reason and nuance. And my concern is that this makes people vulnerable to anyone or any movement that comes along offering a “solution”.

It’s also not the way we should be behaving as adults in this situation. I’m very encouraged by the Meghan Murphy article because part of my issue with Greta Thunberg is the way in which adults seem to be acting around her - encouraging her behaviour, applauding her for it, and seemingly not countering it with the wisdom and understanding that comes with experience. That’s not good for her and it’s not good for the rest of us. Our job is to use our perspective and experience to calm our children down - which means, in part, finding alternative ways to view the situation. To not take stories like “99% of scientists” at face value. People do not make sensible decisions when they are panicking. They go into flight, fright or freeze mode, and that doesn’t bode well for the longer term.

And besides, despite all the XR marches and Greta speeches and people gluing themselves to roads, my local Primark is as packed as ever with 16 year olds buying themselves crap. Our university campus is still full of students queuing for coffee in disposable cups. Families still seem to be buying package holidays in their thousands. Whatever we think of Greta, in the broader population something really doesn’t appear to be hitting home with this message. I suspect that some of the hysteria makes some people just shrug, roll their eyes an carry on as normal.

Greta herself has stressed "listen to the scientists" and is teaming up with older activists like George Monbiot and Naomi Klein. I think the link at the end of Megan Murphy's article says a lot: skepticalscience.com/greta-reminder-decades-climate-failures.html

It should be noted that climate change is about as controversial in scientific circles as the fact that smoking causes lung cancer. There may be disagreement about exactly how bad it will be and what can be done about it, but the fact that the earth is warming and that the main cause is fossil fuels is not scientifically controversial in the least.

That doesn't mean we can't talk about the balance between economic growth (which does after all pull people out of dire poverty) and environmental protection. Or that we must assume that the most catastrophic predictions are the most accurate. Or that we can't worry about the implications of positioning a vulnerable teenage girl as some kind of Messiah.

Right now I'm more interested in what scientists say than I am in Monbiot or Klein.

Right now I'm more interested in what scientists say than I am in Monbiot or Klein.

Scientists have been warning about this problem for more than 40 years. See the skepticalscience link above. Or reports by the IPCC, NASA, WHO, ExxonMobil, etc.

I know that. I have also learnt that there is far more disagreement among scientists than I had realised on the causes of it. And yes I guess it's possible that those questioning the accepted narrative are either wrong or have questionable motives but I am trying to figure it out for myself. Put it this way, I no longer trust everything I read in the Guardian or on the BBC. Guess why.

Put it this way, I no longer trust everything I read in the Guardian or on the BBC.

Me neither! But I have somewhat more confidence in the predictions of NASA.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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!

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.

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 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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.