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Greta Thunberg - brave campaigner or deeply disturbed? Part II.

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In the case of Greta's activism? Prompt action by world leaders to make the immediate and drastic emissions reductions she called upon them to make. Widespread public support for those emissions cuts as necessary.
Okay, cool, thanks for that.

Followup: Do you think that this response is in any way achievable, by any one person? Second followup: Do you think that anybody thinks that it is?

You have taken oratory and rhetoric, reinterpreted it as a deeply unrealistic target that would be impossible to achieve, even in principle, and labelled it as an abject failure. And you can't see why I have a problem with that?
 
Since Greta's world tour by boat, there's been a Greta Effect. Now there's flight shaming reducing air travel, especially travel taken by millennials and Gen Z.

https://thenewdaily.com.au/life/2022/10/21/flight-shame-planes-travel-climate/

"To counter flight shaming, the aviation industry invests in new “greener” aircraft and engines, carbon offsetting, sourcing and developing sustainable aviation fuel, and electrification."

Airlines like Qantas are developing green aviation fuel.

https://www.qantas.com/agencyconnec...tified,compared with traditional jet kerosene.
 
Since Greta's world tour by boat, there's been a Greta Effect. Now there's flight shaming reducing air travel, especially travel taken by millennials and Gen Z.

https://thenewdaily.com.au/life/2022/10/21/flight-shame-planes-travel-climate/

"To counter flight shaming, the aviation industry invests in new “greener” aircraft and engines, carbon offsetting, sourcing and developing sustainable aviation fuel, and electrification."

Airlines like Qantas are developing green aviation fuel.

https://www.qantas.com/agencyconnec...tified,compared with traditional jet kerosene.

Flight shaming? I reject this whole idea. I have family in Asia, I live in USA. What other means to visit family when you have an international family. Am I never to visit in-laws or must feel guilty when doing so? Anyone who even attempts to make me and my family feel guilty for making a trip to visit family can straight shut up.
 
Flight shaming? I reject this whole idea. I have family in Asia, I live in USA. What other means to visit family when you have an international family. Am I never to visit in-laws or must feel guilty when doing so? Anyone who even attempts to make me and my family feel guilty for making a trip to visit family can straight shut up.
Fair point, but you're also not of the Greta Generation. I have nephews who will not fly, largely because of their concern for the environment.

And though no judgement is intended, if it weren't for flying, your family (and others) would not be as spread across the world as they are. You fly home only because you flew to where you are now. If you hadn't done that in the first place, you wouldn't need to do it now.

Anyway, the idea of "flight shaming" isn't about people like you who do have legitimate reasons to fly. It's more about getting people to consider holidaying closer to home, rather than jetsetting across the globe because they heard that the skiing in Switzerland is good this year.
 
Fair point, but you're also not of the Greta Generation. I have nephews who will not fly, largely because of their concern for the environment.

And though no judgement is intended, if it weren't for flying, your family (and others) would not be as spread across the world as they are. You fly home only because you flew to where you are now. If you hadn't done that in the first place, you wouldn't need to do it now.

Anyway, the idea of "flight shaming" isn't about people like you who do have legitimate reasons to fly. It's more about getting people to consider holidaying closer to home, rather than jetsetting across the globe because they heard that the skiing in Switzerland is good this year.

There are rich folks in India who fly to Dubai or Amsterdam just for shopping. There are guys who use private jets for no other reason than to flaunt the fact that they have private jets to use.
 
Flight shaming? I reject this whole idea. I have family in Asia, I live in USA. What other means to visit family when you have an international family. Am I never to visit in-laws or must feel guilty when doing so? Anyone who even attempts to make me and my family feel guilty for making a trip to visit family can straight shut up.

No one can make you feel guilty.
 
Fair point, but you're also not of the Greta Generation. I have nephews who will not fly, largely because of their concern for the environment.

And though no judgement is intended, if it weren't for flying, your family (and others) would not be as spread across the world as they are. You fly home only because you flew to where you are now. If you hadn't done that in the first place, you wouldn't need to do it now.

Anyway, the idea of "flight shaming" isn't about people like you who do have legitimate reasons to fly. It's more about getting people to consider holidaying closer to home, rather than jetsetting across the globe because they heard that the skiing in Switzerland is good this year.

Or bussiness people to stop flying from, say, Dublin to London every Friday to attend meetings they could as easily hop into via Zoom. Or worse yet, those who would fly from Lyon to Paris, for example, when there's a just as quick, just as affordable and far more environmentally friendly alternative in the TGV.
 
Anyway, the idea of "flight shaming" isn't about people like you who do have legitimate reasons to fly. It's more about getting people to consider holidaying closer to home, rather than jetsetting across the globe because they heard that the skiing in Switzerland is good this year.

Mrs Don and I were leafing through a holiday brochure that came through the post the other day and we both suddenly realised that long-haul holidays weren't so desirable any more. Instead of looking at trips to The Seychelles or Nepal or New Zealand, we're considering holidays in the Mediterranean or even here in the UK.

We decided not to take our usual skiing trip to the Alps this year to avoid the air miles and out typical spring European citybreak will now be a trip to Belfast. These are marginal changes but they all add up.

As an aside, Mrs Don is following a vegan diet in January (I'm just being veggie :o) for both animal welfare and to reduce our carbon footprint. It's unlikely that this will be a permanent change but it's very likely that we'll be vegan/vegetarian for two or three days each week.

Again, we won't be solely responsible for attempting to halt climate change, but every bit helps.
 
I'm never flying again - well not willingly so I'm not counting when us dissidents are deported to Rwanda - started to make this decision during the lockdown. There are still places in the world I'd love to see but that's tough titty. I've already done the biggest thing an individual can do to reduce their environmental impact but it just doesn't seem right to me to continue to take advantage of the future in such a way. For me this is a big thing, I've been flying since I was a babe-in-arms, I'd flown the equivalent of around the world before I'd made my first train journey. For business I would think nothing of flying out to NY or even LA or Seattle for a 2 hour meeting and flying back the next day, flying out and back the same day for a meeting at a European company, I even once flew to Australia for one meeting simply to sign a contract, I was in Australia for just a day. Went away most New Years to some far-off place to celebrate the new year. Would do a few city breaks a year.

There are still plenty of places for me to explore in the UK or even near Europe via trains if I want to wander a bit further.

I'm not the only person in my general cohort who are thinking like this, a couple usually take their 3 grandkids on a fortnight break to somewhere in the sun, they have booked somewhere in the UK for this year. Interestingly it's been more expensive and harder to find somewhere in the UK during school holidays then taking them off to Lanzarote!

BUT I don't want people to stop flying, I want youngsters to be able to explore their world like I did, it's a fantastic world full of interesting stuff that they shouldn't be excluded from just because the likes of me were so profligate. (Excluding the business stuff - for two reasons one that remote meeting technology is now at such a point it works and is fine for most meetings and two because I grew to think that a lot of business travel - at the exec level - was ego building and being seen to be important).

If technology progresses enough before I die that flying stops being such an impact on the environment, I'll reconsider my stance.
 
I agree that we oldsters have had our go and it's the youngsters' time to explore the world.

Like Darat, I think they can fly but maybe youngsters could find a more eco-friendly way to travel the globe. If time is less of a factor then perhaps travelling by rail is an option. I'm not sure about the relative environmental impact of passenger travel by sea vs. travel by air but a friend from university used to sail across to the Caribbean and back every summer first crewing and eventually skippering sailing yachts.

Like Darat, I've done more than my fair share of unnecessary business travel including a transatlantic round trip where I never left the destination airport and spend less than three hours in the US. :o

I hope that the Covid pandemic and lockdowns mean that businesses have learned that it isn't necessary to drag people all around the world to sit together in an office.
 
I hope that the Covid pandemic and lockdowns mean that businesses have learned that it isn't necessary to drag people all around the world to sit together in an office.

I don’t think so, and the level of business travel in Australia now supports this belief. Many business owners I know recognise that Zoom is a way to catch up over routine, transactional matters, but that face-to-face is essential to establish and maintain business relationships. It’s well established that communication degrades the more remote it is.
 
I know it's been a theme that personal efforts to reduce one's impact pale in comparison to the need to change how our industrial sector impacts the ecosystem. It became an issue, for example, when growing public concern about pollution damage was largely co-opted by corporate-sponsored awareness movements like "Earth Day" promoting individual recycling and not littering. These are admirable things, but it took the heat off the more significant changes that were needed in the industrial sector.

It seems like a case of being pennywise and poundfoolish, which is why arguments about this activist or another "oh no, they took a plane, they use a car" don't really score with me.
 
I don’t think so, and the level of business travel in Australia now supports this belief. Many business owners I know recognise that Zoom is a way to catch up over routine, transactional matters, but that face-to-face is essential to establish and maintain business relationships. It’s well established that communication degrades the more remote it is.

That's a real shame, so much of business travel always seemed to be a ****-waving competition where the important person ensured that less important people had to waste time, effort and money to come and pay homage. I've experienced it from both ends and have wasted a lot of my, and other people's time in the process.

I used to have to visit my largest client regularly. At first it was monthly visits combined with quarterly planning sessions which would involve 50 people for an entire week at their global HQ. Over the years this reduced to maybe 2-3 weeks a year until the pandemic. Since then I haven't had to visit them once.

Part of the reluctance to do away with face to face business meetings may be the fact that I'm a dinosaur. Back when I started work in the 1980s, video conferences were expensive, requiring expensive equipment and telecoms. As a result face to face meetings were the norm. Young professionals these days are used to video conferencing and don't crave the face to face contact it seems.
 
Flight shaming? I reject this whole idea. I have family in Asia, I live in USA. What other means to visit family when you have an international family. Am I never to visit in-laws or must feel guilty when doing so? Anyone who even attempts to make me and my family feel guilty for making a trip to visit family can straight shut up.


See these:


Mrs Don and I were leafing through a holiday brochure that came through the post the other day and we both suddenly realised that long-haul holidays weren't so desirable any more. Instead of looking at trips to The Seychelles or Nepal or New Zealand, we're considering holidays in the Mediterranean or even here in the UK.

We decided not to take our usual skiing trip to the Alps this year to avoid the air miles and out typical spring European citybreak will now be a trip to Belfast. These are marginal changes but they all add up. (...) Again, we won't be solely responsible for attempting to halt climate change, but every bit helps.


I'm never flying again - well not willingly so I'm not counting when us dissidents are deported to Rwanda - started to make this decision during the lockdown. There are still places in the world I'd love to see but that's tough titty. I've already done the biggest thing an individual can do to reduce their environmental impact but it just doesn't seem right to me to continue to take advantage of the future in such a way. For me this is a big thing, I've been flying since I was a babe-in-arms, I'd flown the equivalent of around the world before I'd made my first train journey. For business I would think nothing of flying out to NY or even LA or Seattle for a 2 hour meeting and flying back the next day, flying out and back the same day for a meeting at a European company, I even once flew to Australia for one meeting simply to sign a contract, I was in Australia for just a day. Went away most New Years to some far-off place to celebrate the new year. Would do a few city breaks a year. ...



In other words, it's a matter of recognizing that flying isn't cool.

Doesn't mean one doesn't do them, ever. Doesn't mean one does them only when it's life and death. But recognizing the harm they cause, would definitely end up reducing how often we fly, and cumulatively for everyone might well make a real difference.

I mean, the same might be said for practically any and every kind of convenience that one might be needed to give up or at least to reduce, that for some might be more necessary than for others. I think it's simply a question of factoring that in into one's decision-making, is all. Not a question of never ever flying. (Although that's an option too, I guess, if like Greta herself someone wants and is able to go that route; but I agree, for most it's impracticable to completely cut it out.)
 
Lets start here, and if you follow up with the other three posts you are concerned with I will respond as best I can.

I didn't follow up on that exchange, because I did not see the merit..

Roger ( not me ) compared Thunberg's activism to MLK's, which I found a bit insulting to the civil rights movement, but that may be left for another discussion.

The problem seemed to be that I pointed out that Greta demanded " action now " to mitigate the problem of AGW, and that there has been no measurable results from her activism. No results to address the problem. Not that there haven't been results of her activism, which is little more than more activism..

So, Roger throws out MLK's comment of " fierce urgency ", as if it somehow makes Greta's demands more meaningful.

As it happens, after the " I Have a Dream " speech in 1963, we have the " Civil Rights act of !964 "..

After Greta's 2018 speech at COP24 we have nothing..


I'm not going to make the mistake of calling people names again, that's totally not done, but I might just quote Skeptic Ginger here where she says:

:rolleyes:

Perhaps you might one day in this thread attempt an actual discussion.


I'm not really up to full speed on my MLK, but I doubt very much his "I have a dream" thing was the first bit of activism he ever attempted. What you argue here would make sense --- not full sense, but some sense --- only if MLK essentially debuted out his activism with that speech. I think it's more likely --- I say this without knowing, and also without checking, and am willing to be corrected on this if I'm wrong --- that he'd been working on the race thing for years before he made that speech.

So that what we have here is a clear example of an activist --- a very successful one, as everyone will agree I hope --- who urgently called for very drastic changes, like immediately, and yet ended up achieving far less immediately, and probably even in his lifetime far less than he'd hoped for and asked for.

How is this not entirely obvious, even after that quote? After all people here have been saying those who celebrate Greta are mistaken because she hasn't already achieved what she's asked for. As have you, as well, here, when you say, "The argument that it takes time for activism to get results, is irrelevant in her case, because she demanded immediate action." (And nor is that the only time you've said it. And others have said it far more often than you.)


-----

if you follow up with the other three posts you are concerned with I will respond as best I can


Not really necessary. I mean I could post those three posts all over again if you like, or you could go back to them yourself. But really, others have made far more substantial posts here than the very commonplace things I've said here, so I'll not press on for specifically my posts. But just take this, where you'd said to me, apropos of nothing at all as far as I am concerned: "Of course we should celebrate her; because she is a celebrity. ... That's how fandom works.."


Whereupon I'd tried to show you how wildly you're strawmanning away here by setting up that strawman of mine own (and clearly describing my construct as a strawman, not implying that this creature answered to your description or to the description of anyone either here or IRL).

Is it possible that there are those who go weak in the knees simply at the thought of Greta, in the fan sense? I suppose it's possible. Likewise, it's possible that there are those that are driven to insane fury every time they see her image or hear of her. And I'll be fair, chances are there are more of the former weirdos --- actual weirdos! --- than the latter. Nevertheless, all this is strawmanning and wellpoisoning, and to what purpose I cannot imagine, if one's purpose in discussing this is honest.

And again, my observations were only partly, and very minimally, about you. There's lots more, lots lots lots more, when it comes to the other example I had in mind. But I'm not going to go into that again, after having first committed that totally uncalled for faux pas of childishly calling people names (although there are others here that indulge in that kind of thing, or its equivalent, freely enough, but I suppose that part of it is their lookout not mine).
 
I agree that we oldsters have had our go and it's the youngsters' time to explore the world.

Like Darat, I think they can fly but maybe youngsters could find a more eco-friendly way to travel the globe. If time is less of a factor then perhaps travelling by rail is an option. I'm not sure about the relative environmental impact of passenger travel by sea vs. travel by air but a friend from university used to sail across to the Caribbean and back every summer first crewing and eventually skippering sailing yachts.

Like Darat, I've done more than my fair share of unnecessary business travel including a transatlantic round trip where I never left the destination airport and spend less than three hours in the US. :o

I hope that the Covid pandemic and lockdowns mean that businesses have learned that it isn't necessary to drag people all around the world to sit together in an office.

At the moment boats other than sail boats are more polluting than planes because they use bunker fuel, barely refined oil.
 
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