Roger. I can appreciate and applaud your efforts to live an energy frugal lifestyle it's really not enough to get anywhere near the "real zero" Thungerg and her fans are demanding. Thunberg may claim her autism as some sort of superpower that puts her ability to see things more clearly than us mere mortals
She's in good company.
And yes, autism
is a 'superpower'.
Is Autism the Next Stage of Human Evolution?
Spend a bit of time around the sorts of autistic individuals who run blogs or work in Fortune 500 companies, and you might eventually hear a comment, repeated in many forms, sometimes quietly, usually smiling, perhaps in a moment of exasperation, which sounds something like ‘autism is the next stage in human evolution’...This characterisation is most likely to come from the sorts of autistic individuals who are highly intelligent, highly productive and hyper-rational. Not only do they notice their own high ability in certain domains, they also see those very domains as the quintessential components of a modern human.
This deliberately controversial stance is accompanied by a more common claim in the public sphere, that autistic individuals played important roles in moving humanity forward...
the majority of the autism spectrum is made up of individuals whose conditions can be better explained as evolutionary specialisations in cognition. This affects their behaviour and social abilities. We have been seeing those differences as negative, detrimental, and in some sense they are; but they also come with positives. The most obvious of these are in memory, and obsessions which lead to nigh-on superhuman expertise
however she still fails to predict the riots that would inevitably result in any meaningful attempt to avert 1.5C warming.
We're talking riots that would make the French Yellow Vest ones look like preschool. Maybe that's what she and her supporters want, a total destruction of the developed world.
Interesting 'prediction'. On what basis do you make it?
List of riots
1947 – Partition riots, India and modern-day Pakistan and Bangladesh, the hardest hit region was the densely populated state of Punjab (today divided between India and Pakistan), death toll estimates between 500,000 and 2,000,000, the deadliest riots known to humankind.
And the cause? Not failed economic policies, not the jackboot of authoritarianism, just simple cultural intolerence. While there have been riots over economic issues (eg.
Luddites), cultural differences have been the trigger for far more.
Global warming is likely to be the cause of many more riots, as people become displaced and suffer economic hardships due to crop failures etc. But rich westerners don't (or shouldn't) face that future because we have the technology and resources to prevent it.
So who in the West is going to be rioting over reducing fossil fuel emissions? Only the lunatic fringe. It certainly won't be those who potentially have the most to lose - oil company execs. They will simply invest in more profitable areas. And there is plenty of profit to be made in mitigating global warming.
Achieving zero emissions rapidly is quite possible without 'total destruction of the developed world'. We have faced and overcome huge challenges in the past without the general population rioting, and we will do it again.
But I see where you are coming from. The vast majority of us will pull together to do what needs to be done, but there is still that lunatic fringe. Hopefully the FBI is reading this thread right now, keeping an eye on those who are 'predicting' massive rioting.
Which would of course lead to countries like Tuvalu reverting back to a pre-contact lifestyle as their landbases won't support a developing lifestyle and the foreign aid they rely on will dry up.
Tuvalu won't be 'reverting back' to anything. Their land is becoming uninhabitable due to global warming. If we manage to keep it below ~1.5°C they might save some of their country, otherwise they're screwed.
Of course if the developed nations do take a stab at massive emission reductions then naturally the developing nations, the ones that are still allowed to emit whatever they please a few of them, like China, will see their economies tank in response to reduced western buying power. Maybe other developing nations will take up the slack if China lowers their prices, I don't know.
China is already in trouble due to their botched Covid response and other economic and social issues that are catching up with them. But they are also committed to massive emissions reductions. We need to support them in that effort. Hopefully the old guard in the Chinese government will soon be pushed out by those who have a positive vision for the future.
China doesn't have to worry about 'reduced western buying power'. The previous US government was discouraging the purchase of technology that we need to combat global warming. Simply permitting free trade will go a long way towards improving the economies of both countries, and help us meet our emissions goals.
Germany, the greenest country in the world...
You're kidding, right?
Instead of trying to slip though lies like this to support your arguments, why don't you tell us
why you oppose doing what needs to be done? I know why. The reason you are using irrational arguments is that your opposition is not rational, it's emotional. And the worst thing is you don't even realize it. That's where autism has an advantage.
