What's your take on Greta Thunberg?

[Zak33]

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-cl...-idUKKBN1WC0ED

Is this person helping?

Can they make a difference to the world?
And..... are they being manipulated by adults, out of camera shot?

[Smudger]

Yes, yes, no.

There's an awful lot of grown men who seem to be threatened by her, and think she must be someone's pawn, or she's mentally ill, and attacking her, rather than argue about what she's saying.

[AGTDenton]

I've yet seen her mention any solutions, just a load of rambling and shouting.
Nor have they come at us with any scientific evidence.

"Change is coming" - yeah but what change, how do you propose to solve the issue which to me isn't solely man made.
Schooling has forgotten the Industrial revolution created massive amounts of acid rain, earth & it's inhabitants survived, London was in smog most of the time but we still survived. So man made isn't that bad imho...
They wouldn't survive those eras at all today.

The real problem that no one dares tackle, except China for a brief period is population. That's the killer, never mind anything else.

It's hilarious they think they're all going to die soon.
I remember thinking I'd die from eating brussels sprouts, but I was only 8 and didn't know any better.

For me it's all a good chuckle.

[peterb]

I've yet seen her mention any solutions, just a load of rambling and shouting.
Nor have they come at us with any scientific evidence.

"Change is coming" - yeah but what change, how do you propose to solve the issue which to me isn't solely man made.
Schooling has forgotten the Industrial revolution created massive amounts of acid rain, earth & it's inhabitants survived, London was in smog most of the time but we still survived. So man made isn't that bad imho...
They wouldn't survive those eras at all today.

The real problem that no one dares tackle, except China for a brief period is population. That's the killer, never mind anything else.

It's hilarious they think they're all going to die soon.
I remember thinking I'd die from eating brussels sprouts, but I was only 8 and didn't know any better.

For me it's all a good chuckle.

This - the solution to reducing energy consumption and emissions is a drastic reduction in human population. At some point there will be some natural disaster that will take care of the problem for us.

Not some shouty schoolgirl with little real world experience feeding back the problem without any credible solution.

[DanceswithUnix]

Schooling has forgotten the Industrial revolution created massive amounts of acid rain, earth & it's inhabitants survived,

Acid rain badly scarred the buildings though, damaging historic landmarks. I don't think you can dismiss it that out of hand.

Stuff like switching to renewable energy sources is good in terms of energy diversity and security, we should be doing it anyway.

As for Greta, one more shouty person in an era of shouting isn't making an impression here. I don't expect her to change anything, and from what I have seen of my kids I think her generation largely believe the science and watch their carbon footprint anyway. Well, apart from the one kid I heard talking to their friend who said that thanks to climate change they had better get their flights in and visit places across the world asap before they couldn't go any more

[TeePee]

Probably should be in school.

[AGTDenton]

Acid rain badly scarred the buildings though, damaging historic landmarks. I don't think you can dismiss it that out of hand.

Stuff like switching to renewable energy sources is good in terms of energy diversity and security, we should be doing it anyway.

Agreed the Acid rain didn't do our buildings any good, my point was that we as humans survived, the black plague was a bigger threat vs. the pollution of our air, food or water, and not to mention we've also survived Chernobyl, we haven't turned into humans with ears as arms and feet as eyes. I still wouldn't want to consume any of it of course.

I completely agree we need to be utilising more renewable energy. What annoys me is we're happy for the likes of Facebook to take up tonnes of computing resources around the globe for storing some messages you sent to your great aunt, yet that level of computing power could be better prioritised for A.I. to develop some 80-100% efficient solar panels for example, as humans have failed to come up with a decent solution. Our homes could be powering the grid! If Elon Musks A.I. is so powerful then I challenge him to turn it into something useful off grid.
Human priorities for social media is complete madness.

Sorry I've taken this off topic

[TooNice]

how do you propose to solve the issue which to me isn't solely man made.

1. Not being -solely- man made implies that it is at least partly man made, so you can certainly propose a solution.. as you've done in the same post. Though in the abscence of massive culling, the less drastic solution of reducing carbon footprint *is* pretty sensible.

2. Mankind has, for better or worse often look for solutions to problems so while there is a will, there *might* be a solution that can be found.. but you don't try then there will be nothing.

[Spud1]

No, I don't think she's really helping - in fact I think the reaction to her (well meaning!) work has caused plenty of problems.

I don't think that "extinction rebellion" would have got anywhere near the attention, coverage and disruption that they have without Greta's press coverage, and they have caused mass disruption, fear and "terror" around the world. To be clear, I personally view Extinction Rebellion as a terrorist group given their approach to spread fear and disruption around the world. I have zero respect for their approach to this problem.

Climate change is real, it is an issue, and we do need a *sensible* approach to reducing the impact we have on the environment. We don't need to spread panic to the population, completely stop flying or driving cars, eating meat and so on.

I think we've seen bigger impacts in the real world from government led policies - e.g. the huge success in the smoking ban, the charges for carrier bags, sugar tax etc - they all have huge impacts. Same goes for the large corporations who are making changes e.g. encouraging use of re-usable water bottles & coffee cups. Crucially all of these changes were implemented before anyone knew who she was.

I'll now go and hide with my sustainable flameproof blanket given that I've just called ER a terrorist organisation on the internet

[Ferral]

I get the whole thing with her with raising awareness and the fact that what we are doing now and many generations before us doing in industry etc which has contributed to global warming needs addressing.

However, after a speech she made a few days ago you can tell she didn't write it and the way she was conducting herself with body language and facial expression it felt like the whole thing was scripted and she was coached which says that whoever is behind her has a possible agenda.

[[GSV]Trig]

We should live greener better lives, but let us not pretend that ANYTHING we do will actually stop the world from becoming inhospitable for humans.
My question is who is bankrolling her, and what is their angle/agenda...
We always see tax increases, be it sugar tax, green tax, tax on fuel, alchol, tobacco etc, but do we actully see things changing? People think they are doing something because they're being taxed, but where does the money go and what actually changes?
Yes shes making points, and no, people shouldnt be picking on her disabilities or age but actually arguing her points, which they seem to be missing...

[Galant]

I was thinking about this, briefly, the other day. It occurred to me that perhaps what causes the frustration and/or backlash is a perceived notion that what this girl/woman has to say is especially important because she's young. There's a sort of "listen to the young people" vibe that goes along with these sort of things and it's supposed to have value in and of itself. It's the sort of thing that can frustrate because you can't argue against it. It's not a point of fact and generally flies against the notion that it is truth/fact/accuracy that matters in these issues, not who is saying it. I suppose it would fit into some sort of identity politics category.

Where does it come from? Maybe the idea that young people are supposedly pure, not yet corrupted, and tell the truth simply and plainly - a la the child in The Emperor's New Clothes. Sometimes it is like that, but ultimately, even what that child had to say was only significant because it was accurate, the truth, and not because this was a child. I think that the idea is that children are unafraid to say what adults have learned to avoid. Nevertheless, just because a child is speaking doesn't mean it is the truth. And that's the problem, it's seen as using something beautiful, like youth, as an unspoken argument in a debate, and there is no come back (because who wants to be seen as 'anti-youth'?). Instead, the only thing to do is to look at the data and focus attention there.

I think that's a big part of the backlash here, maybe.

[badass]

The real problem that no one dares tackle, except China for a brief period is population. That's the killer, never mind anything else.

This - the solution to reducing energy consumption and emissions is a drastic reduction in human population.

Totally agree with the above. No one dares talk about the real causes of much of our environmental problems.

1. Not being -solely- man made implies that it is at least partly man made, so you can certainly propose a solution.. as you've done in the same post. Though in the abscence of massive culling, the less drastic solution of reducing carbon footprint *is* pretty sensible.

Agree with the above with a qualification. I'm not having a go as I'm sure you essentially mean the same things as me just have been a little less wordy.

I hate all of this total utter nonsense around carbon footprint. Instead of trying to excessively simplify everything so mouth breathers can understand it and thus perverse incentives are created, lets actually talk about whats needed for real.
Lets talk about energy footprint and pollution. Lets separate the pollution that causes global warming and that which causes health problems. Lets separate the pollution that is locally harmless but in large enough volumes is globally significant.

The problem with massively simplifying all of that into "carbon footprint" is that you need to be careful how you measure something. People will focus on what is measured, completely ignoring why it's being measured resulting in at best other problems being created and at worst, people being encouraged to do the opposite of the intended. Such as redirecting food crops to fuel because it's "carbon neutral"
Such as burning wood being argued as carbon neutral. Such as the total BS that is buying carbon offset for your flights. Such as idiot filled governments massively pushing diesel as the solution to their carbon footprint problems when they pump out orders of magnitude more harmful localised pollution than the petrol powered cars of the time (appreciate modern diesels are nowhere near as bad)

[chaoticbeliever]

And then, after her speech, all of the people cheering in the UN audience and on the panel went and had a nice meal with delicious canapes and cocktails...and talked some more... and then went to bed on cotton sheets in luxury, air conditioned New York hotels. And tomorrow, after a nice sleep and big breakfast, they'll do some more talking and maybe fart out a communique. And then all get on planes to the next meeting/cocktail party/circle jerk

[Saracen999]

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-cl...-idUKKBN1WC0ED

Is this person helping?

Can they make a difference to the world?u
And..... are they being manipulated by adults, out of camera shot?

Doubt it, very much doubt it, and very likely.

Apart from a few hardliners, I doubt many people are unaware of the issues, but I doubt that a sanctimonous, hectoring, shouty girl is going to make much difference.


I'm not convinced China is the problem, though it's certainly part of it.

The bigger probklem, in my opinion, is that while virtually everybody knows the issues, few or nobody has any idea how to solve it without giving up a massive part of their lifestyle. Like flying on cheap foreign holidays .... which is largely a rich, western activity and while, yes, China has growing numbers of affluent people, there's still a hell of a large number living barely more than subsistence lifestyles and foreign holidays might as well be in a different galaxy, never mind country.

Solving this problem requires drastic action if consumers are expected to do it, and you might convince them to recycle rubbish, fit smart meters, buy EV cars instead of ICE, but ask them to give up holidays or increasinlgly non-repairable tech, and .... well, take cover.

Which brings me to the next issue, and perhaps the biggest. Most politicians have a broad understanding of what needs doing, but they've no clue how to get re-elected if they try doing it, or even probably propose doing it. Our political system is inherently short-termist .... and party partisan.

It's a bit like hiking tax levels - everybody is wildly in favour of doing it .... provided somebidy else pays for it. Mankind is inherently, probably genetically, selfish. And that's the crux of the problem.

[Xlucine]

What surprised me recently is that china emits more emissions per person than the UK does (7.5 tonnes per year, compared to 6.5)