* I like her cultured accent. It sounds like she's been in training to marry into royalty.
* More seriously: if you asked me before she got onto the world stage if I would think it a good idea that a young person with autism/Aspergers become a global spokesperson for the environment, I would have said "no". But let's face it, ageing, ignorant denialists and conservatives generally dismiss all "progressive" concerns by attacking any articulate spokesperson no matter whether they appear "normal" or not. Look at the treatment of David Hogg and other students who survived the Florida school shooting. A very large part of modern conversativism wallows in its own stupidity and is nasty to boot.
* So, I have no particular concerns about Greta. She has taken on the role with, I think, a large degree of dignity. Does she exaggerate the situation re climate change? To be honest, I haven't analysed much of what she has said, but in a broad brush sense at least, I think most mainstream scientists feel she is on point.
* As expected, the attacks on her by conservatives are extreme, completely uncharitable, and (of course) based on complete denial of mainstream science and culture war positioning (which is all conservatives have now days).
* There is an uprise in environmental activism that is wildly exaggerating: parts of the Extinction Rebellion movement for one. But people who follow mainstream climate scientists know that the worst exaggerations made by that group are actively disputed by the big guns. It's a bit of a puzzle to know how to respond to them - I find street disruptions that they have been conducting to be counterproductive - but they are fighting against idiots and the politically self interested, and I think the problem is no one knows how to effectively counter idiots. As I have suggested before, people who seriously think that current political inaction is going to kill billions in the future should probably be planning on physically attacking infrastructure that allows the burning of fossil fuels, not inconveniencing someone who needs to get to a hospital. If they become environmental terrorists (who take care not to kill people), I would think more highly of them.
Update: a very reasonable (if too kind to malign conservatives) take on Greta appears here in The Atlantic.
Update 2: dear ageing morons of Catallaxy - why so surprised that she is angry?:
Update 3:. Oh look, a young American conservative who believes in climate change (what a lonely life he must lead) weighs in:
Update 4: Oh look, another example of Greta being "histrionic":
'Dignified'??
ReplyDeletehave you seen her recent performance?
the girl is either a certifiable lunatic or the hammiest actor ever
So, you make no allowances for autism/Aspergers?
ReplyDeleteRight.
By the way, I have read the speech now: when it gets to facts and figures, I would think it likely is pretty accurate and careful. Not much hyperbole in there, generally speaking. Angry and emotional in parts - yeah, but like I said, it's not as if anything else is working.
ReplyDeleteThis section in fact shows a generosity that is not reflected in her more numbskull critics:
"For more than 30 years, the science has been crystal clear. How dare you continue to look away, and come here saying that you’re doing enough, when the politics and solutions needed are still nowhere in sight? You say you hear us and that you understand the urgency. But no matter how sad and angry I am, I do not want to believe that. Because if you really understood the situation and still kept on failing to act, then you would be evil. And that I refuse to believe."
Link to full speech:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/climate-change/climate-activist-greta-thunbergs-un-climate-action-summit-speech-in-full/news-story/4719429f22de432249b0a962493b812f
what are the reasons for your assertions Soony
ReplyDeletejust watch the video!
ReplyDeleteand no I don't want someone who can't even pass high school advocating for me on climate change.
you do know she probably didn't write that stupid speech right steve? she's a vehicle and not even a very good one except for people who are awayed by histrionics
Soony,
ReplyDeletehistrionics??
She merely got emotional and I do not blame her. Very interesting given she has Aspergers.
"no I don't want someone who can't even pass high school advocating for me on climate change"
ReplyDelete1. she doesn't "advocate for you" - you're a lukewarmer, which is about as practically useless as being a denier.
2. a Bloomberg opinion piece says this about her academic results:
"Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish climate activist who started the Friday school strikes, has graduated from secondary education with 14 As and three Bs.
She got these excellent grades despite being absent from class far more than most of her followers: As the leader of a movement, an international celebrity, and a Nobel Peace Prize nominee, she traveled extensively during her last school year."
Link: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-06-18/greta-thunberg-s-other-lesson-is-about-compulsory-school
Sounds to me like she's got plenty enough smarts to understand the science of climate change - probably has a better grip on it than you, actually.
3. I don't know the whole story about her - it may turn out that parents exert some unwise pressure for ill advised reasons. I see she has been aligned with Extinction Rebellion which (as I said) is prone to exaggeration and may be criticised for inducing paralysing pessimism in some children/adults.
But I maintain that her behaviour has been dignified, and her advocacy not unreasonable, as far as it goes.
You can criticise this type of advocacy as being too light on specifics - but as a political movement per se, I see nothing wrong with it.
the only histrionics here is from Soony and as Steve said she aiont advocating for you.
ReplyDeleteTrampis? You must be the one I've been looking for for 14 years. You must be the one with the evidence for catastrophic CO2-caused-warming. Give it up.
ReplyDeleteRead about her background. Taking on this role - something she insists is primarily her idea, and which her parents did not initially encourage - has helped her cope with the (somewhat obsessive, but no doubt Aspergers aided) dismay she felt when researching climate change and the response to it.
ReplyDelete(I have read up more about her since I made my comments above.)
It appears there is no evidence at all that it is a case of "child abuse" - she says she educated her parents about climate change more than vice versa.
But hey, don't let that stop getting in the way of you imagining you understand everything from watching her in one video, just like conservative drongos, and Jason.
Interesting article at Vox about how autism relates to her reaction to climate change.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.vox.com/first-person/2019/5/6/18531551/greta-thunberg-autism-aspergers
good points. Steve has been estranged from Logos for a very long time
ReplyDeletespiked hits nail on head https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/09/24/save-greta/?fbclid=IwAR1fS7pJ0vsFBQt33J6-kalu4Bpo0VXTYTHrLHaellwWAz0nydK0gOjsWgQ#.XYoIhovQ3yA.facebook
ReplyDeleteYeah, sure, Jason: always whining O'Neill's professional shtick is to be perpetually angry at everything he doesn't like about the modern world (which is, virtually, everything) so he's a real plausible one to be moaning about Greta being angry.
ReplyDeleteAnd, like you, he makes assumptions:
"Greta Thunberg is admirable in many ways. She is driven and articulate. But it is patently clear now that she is being exploited."
She is adamant, in her articulate way, that she is not.
But you and Brendan would know better, obviously. Because you saw her on a video once.
She doesn't even align herself to particular solutions - she doesn't talk carbon tax or nuclear or whatever - she just insists the solution is to rapidly stop producing CO2 and for politicians to listen to scientists.
Hardly a radical message.
I would judge her campaigning not likely to be politically effective in the short term, but it may have effects when the teenagers involved reach voting age.
She is on the right side of history, has an appropriate message, and the evidence of her family is that this role has helped her come out of worse periods of anxiety. Yeah, but you and Graeme would know better.
People who have met her have kind words for her.
But you know better. You saw a video.
Leave her alone.
Graeme, you know what word combination caused your last comment to be deleted.
ReplyDeleteJust don't do it.
I can't edit comments, Graeme. Just delete them.
ReplyDeleteas to the claim that every word Greta is saying is scientific - really? People are dying right now from climate change? You will be hard pressed to definitively link the rise in average global temps that may have been established to whatever increases in frequency of extreme weather there may have been down to claiming that there have been X victims of a heatwave or typhoon when these phenomenon have multifactorial causes. Not to mention if you are making a claim of net deaths - which would need to take account of so many other things including benefits in places which have warmed. You are really stretching it with this 'everyone is dying now' nonsense.
ReplyDeleteas I said, this is histrionics
https://fee.org/articles/climate-related-deaths-are-at-historic-lows-data-show/
ReplyDeleteYour first mistake, Jason, is in your opening words. I don't think you read much with care anymore - it's all Mark Latham-like angry spray.
ReplyDeleteMy comment "when it gets to facts and figures, I would think it likely is pretty accurate and careful. Not much hyperbole in there, generally speaking" shows clear qualification that I'm not here to defend her every utterance. That said, most mainstream scientists support her as being broadly correct remain true.
Your second mistake is referring me to the crap advocacy of a libertarian think tank that devotes itself to lukewarmism, in an article heavily reliant on the likes of Lomborg and Christy, who have lost all credibility in advocacy on climate change many, many years ago.
I don't have the time right now to point to the criticisms of the type of argument made in that article - and besides, I think you're a lost cause on the topic who made your mind up and will not be persuaded.
Oddly enough, you're a fan of nutty Taleb who, if he could stop his obsession with squid ink lunches and venting his spleen on everyone who doesn't agree with him, would probably be able to critique those arguments pretty well from a risk point of view. Maybe one day he will come back to the topic.
Third mistake - this is a technical one about rhetoric - if a weather event that scientists attribute having been made clearly worse by climate change (a heatwave duration, a flood) kills people, for the purposes of rhetoric you can say that climate change is "already killing people". Even if you pop up and say "but overall, climate change is resulting in less deaths from weather events", both statements can technically be true. (The latter point I am not conceding - I haven't looked up number of deaths from warmer winters versus number of deaths from heatwaves, for example; and the material in that article you linked to is completely unconvincing and, I fully expect, deceptive.)
The more important point in any event, which she mostly dwells on, are the effect of future increases on everything, given there is no effective action happening to prevent the potential for 2 to 3 times more warming.
ReplyDeleteBut hey, she said something about deaths and got emotional, so it's all crazy talk, hey.
Who was the most in-your-face polemicist on the ADD-Austism spectrum on Ozblogistan 14 years ago. That was me.
ReplyDeleteHow do you know you are on the spectrum? Formal diagnosis? Specific behaviors?