Greta Thunberg - brave campaigner or deeply disturbed?

[theprestige]

I'm having some trouble sorting through your meaning here. Are you suggesting that there cannot possibly be any actual virtue in environmental activism?

I mean, if you substitute a different field of endeavor...

"I doubt it would do serious particle physicists any favors to be associated with a similar physics-specific prize. Except as a merit badge in the eyes of people who are already on board with particle physics and convinced of its value."

I'm distinguishing between political prizes and science prizes. The whole idea is to not devalue science prizes by politicizing them. It doesn't do scientists any favors to be associated with a political prize rather than a science prize.

If you substitute a scientific field of endeavor, with a scientific prize for that field, then the comparison simply highlights how bankrupt the political prize is. If you substitute a scientific field, but give it a political prize, then you just work to bankrupt the scientific recognition as well. Because it's no longer scientific. Which is my point. Save the political prizes for politicians. They don't do scientists any favors.

 

[Myriad]

I owe you an apology. I knew what you meant. Sorry.

So perhaps you have in mind something like these?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyler_Prize_for_Environmental_Achievement
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Environmental_Citizen_Award
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldman_Environmental_Prize
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroes_of_the_Environment
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_science_and_technology_awards#Environment
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_500_Roll_of_Honour

Something like, but on a different scale comparable to Nobel or Pulitzer prizes. I'm sure you've noticed that almost none of the items listed in the second to last link receive any significant media attention, because there are hundreds of different ones listed. (And yet, relatively few in the environmental category.)

I know that's a tall order; the Nobels and Pulitzers have the cachet they do largely because they've been around a long time, which you can't just imitate at will. Forming an appropriate international foundation (independent of e.g. the U.N.) to administer and judge the prize would also be quite a challenge.

The purpose, of course, isn't just to recognize the winners. It's to acknowledge the worldwide importance, across all nations and classes, of environmental issues, which now rival if not exceed the social scope of modern medicine.

 

[Myriad]

I'm distinguishing between political prizes and science prizes. The whole idea is to not devalue science prizes by politicizing them. It doesn't do scientists any favors to be associated with a political prize rather than a science prize.

If you substitute a scientific field of endeavor, with a scientific prize for that field, then the comparison simply highlights how bankrupt the political prize is. If you substitute a scientific field, but give it a political prize, then you just work to bankrupt the scientific recognition as well. Because it's no longer scientific. Which is my point. Save the political prizes for politicians. They don't do scientists any favors.

Ah, okay. Thanks for explaining.

I think where we see differently is the likely relative importance of science in addressing the global ecological crises and transitioning to a sustainable civilization. Politics, economics, and engineering are likely to predominate. If we're lucky, science will survive.

(For now, Greta is saying "listen to the scientists," which is fine for the time being. Science lays out the framework of the problem, and the possibilities of solutions. But it doesn't create the solutions themselves. There's no vaccine for unsustainability. People have to change what they do, and governments have to stop supporting systems that require people to do unsustainable things in order to have decent lives. Anything that engineering, economics, and politics can do to make those inevitable changes slightly less bloody is worth encouraging with prizes.)

 

[Darat]

Perhaps award the prize as air miles?

 

[Childlike Empress]

Came across an article series that is huge enough to fill a book, and even has a second volume.

Called "The Manufacturing of Greta Thunberg"

Only did a bit of skimming and it has a lot about the usual networks in it.

We remember that Al Gore is the only person who won both the Nobel Peace Prize and an Oscar, right?

 

[Checkmite]

Thunberg's UN speech was amazing and on point. Grown men on social media are absolutely frothing with rage at her, and it is hilarious to watch them melt down, while trying to pretend they're not melting down. One prominent Trumper pundit has claimed that the fact Thunberg's hair is braided proves she is a Nazi. I genuinely haven't had this much fun reading conservative opinions since Obama was re-elected.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

... Anything that engineering, economics, and politics can do to make those inevitable changes slightly less bloody is worth encouraging with prizes.

Prizes will never match the funding for the R&D to produce the toys that consumers demand, unless the Zuckerbergs, Gates' Cooks & etc star handing out $B prizes to just stop making stuff..

 

[luchog]

Thunberg's UN speech was amazing and on point. Grown men on social media are absolutely frothing with rage at her, and it is hilarious to watch them melt down, while trying to pretend they're not melting down. One prominent Trumper pundit has claimed that the fact Thunberg's hair is braided proves she is a Nazi. I genuinely haven't had this much fun reading conservative opinions since Obama was re-elected.

When it was older men doing it, they were generally either ignored, laughed at, or handwaved with a bit of bought-and-paid for junk science.

Now that a young woman is doing it, they're positively apoplectic; engaging in the basest character assassination, or being crudely insulting. One can see a good deal of thinly veiled misogyny in their responses. They're not even trying to hide their contempt for women, the "lower" classes, or the scientific establishment anymore.

 

[Traveler Steve]

Her speech was correct and right. What's sad is that absolutely nothing will be done, and we're going down the ****hole. And she's smart enough to know it.

 

[Stout]

Came across an article series that is huge enough to fill a book, and even has a second volume.

Called "The Manufacturing of Greta Thunberg"

Only did a bit of skimming and it has a lot about the usual networks in it.

We remember that Al Gore is the only person who won both the Nobel Peace Prize and an Oscar, right?

Don't pee on the parade...PUH LEEZE !

The sheeple need a hero. A hero to tell them that it's not their fault. It's not their fault that they take these flights, that they live in these big energy intensive houses, that the commute for miles and miles to work in SUVs that they consume and discard plastics at an alarming rate.

It's not their fault

It's the fault of government and the corporations. It's someone else's fault.

Want to actually do something ? Here's what you can do. Go plant a few trees. A few trees that will soak up all that carbon and help save the world. . No matter that the carbon that's coming out of your tailpipe has been sequestered underground for 10s of millions of years. No matter that it's. effectively, manufactured, new carbon the point is, those trees will sequester carbon until they die.

So bung a few sapplings in your back yard then fire up those propane patio heaters. After all, it's not your fault that you bought one. If those corporations hadn't made it available to you and those fossil fuel companies hadn't supplied you with propane then you wouldn't have one now would you ?

Scumbag corporations and government, they've given us 11 more years then Waterworld gets boosted to documentary status.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

^ Well said..

I think a Waterworld would be cool..

 

[angrysoba]

Thunberg's UN speech was amazing and on point. Grown men on social media are absolutely frothing with rage at her, and it is hilarious to watch them melt down, while trying to pretend they're not melting down. One prominent Trumper pundit has claimed that the fact Thunberg's hair is braided proves she is a Nazi. I genuinely haven't had this much fun reading conservative opinions since Obama was re-elected.

Yeah, I noticed that Dinesh D’Souza was making some ridiculous parallel with Nazi propaganda and plaited hair. See the left and the Nazis are the same!

 

[angrysoba]

Don't pee on the parade...PUH LEEZE !

The sheeple need a hero. A hero to tell them that it's not their fault. It's not their fault that they take these flights, that they live in these big energy intensive houses, that the commute for miles and miles to work in SUVs that they consume and discard plastics at an alarming rate.

It's not their fault

It's the fault of government and the corporations. It's someone else's fault.

Want to actually do something ? Here's what you can do. Go plant a few trees. A few trees that will soak up all that carbon and help save the world. . No matter that the carbon that's coming out of your tailpipe has been sequestered underground for 10s of millions of years. No matter that it's. effectively, manufactured, new carbon the point is, those trees will sequester carbon until they die.

So bung a few sapplings in your back yard then fire up those propane patio heaters. After all, it's not your fault that you bought one. If those corporations hadn't made it available to you and those fossil fuel companies hadn't supplied you with propane then you wouldn't have one now would you ?

Scumbag corporations and government, they've given us 11 more years then Waterworld gets boosted to documentary status.

It needn’t be a choice between top down and bottom up action. Consumers can definitely make choices about whether or not to buy SUVs, but they can’t always make choices about whether or not to improve public transport options, subsidizing technology that leaves a lower carbon footprint or regulations on packaging, food waste and how electricity is produced.

 

[angrysoba]

A fine speech but the UN is probably not the right target.

If I were the UN, here would be my reply.

"We exist as a body because the 30 years leading up to our formation we just straight murdered 10s of millions. like five percent of the people were killed. Global warming is a problem because we succeed in solving the first problem. You're welcome."


Not endorsing that the UN fixed anything, but they probably think they did.

I don’t think the UN are going to make any such claims about how their prevention of war has created too many people and thus made global warming more likely.

They did, after all, formulate the Sustainable Development Goals in 2015 which are meant to deal with a growing population being able to live within the means of the planet. Besides, making people’s lives better is pretty much as close to a guarantee of stabilizing the population as anything, not constant warfare or poverty which actually does the opposite.

 

[theprestige]

It needn’t be a choice between top down and bottom up action. Consumers can definitely make choices about whether or not to buy SUVs, but they can’t always make choices about whether or not to improve public transport options, subsidizing technology that leaves a lower carbon footprint or regulations on packaging, food waste and how electricity is produced.

They can't? Democracy doesn't work, then. Man of Destiny when? Fuhrerprinzip when?

Maybe Thunberg is our Person of Destiny. She better step it up, then. We're running out of time.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

This was my favorite thing on Democracy Now this morning:
Bill McKibben: Youth Who Led Global Climate Strike Are Bringing a New “Spirit” to Climate Fight

BILL McKIBBEN: So, a few minutes later, this was my favorite moment. You know, as usual, the congressmen can’t help themselves, are just gassing on for minute after minute, unable to take a cue from Greta’s concise eloquence. One Republican, just on and on and on, “China this, China that,” “Why should we do anything? China’s not doing anything,” yadda yadda yadda. It goes on like this for five minutes.

And Greta looks up at him and says — she said, “I come from a small country called Sweden. In Sweden, sometimes people say, 'Why should we do anything, because the United States is so big and wastes so much?' Just so you know.” It was my favorite moment of congressional testimony in a long time.

 

[angrysoba]

They can't? Democracy doesn't work, then. Man of Destiny when? Fuhrerprinzip when?

Maybe Thunberg is our Person of Destiny. She better step it up, then. We're running out of time.

I said they “can’t always”. Sometimes they get to make decisions about what government will do based on who they vote for. Did you get your Godwin-Esque arguments from Dinesh D’Souza?

 

[Skeptical Greg]

This was my favorite thing on Democracy Now this morning:
Bill McKibben: Youth Who Led Global Climate Strike Are Bringing a New “Spirit” to Climate Fight

A new spirit.. That should fix everything..

OH wow!.. She really pawned that one..

I wonder how much time BILL McKIBBEN spends listening to congressional testimony?

That should rank right up there with listening to the UN general assembly..

 

[EHocking]

^ Well said..

I think a Waterworld would be cool..

... except the water would be warm


... and acidic


... and probably anoxic

 

[Ziggurat]

We remember that Al Gore is the only person who won both the Nobel Peace Prize and an Oscar, right?

Gore did not win an Oscar. The director won, and had Gore come up on stage while receiving the award, thus leaving many people with the wrong impression that Gore was a recipient, but the award was not to Gore.