Awareness
conservatives made a whole smear campaign against her to try and silence her and demoralize her, and she’s only stood up even more for it. Can’t say she’s done nothing if they’re trying so hard to discredit her
She’s gotten the issue of climate change to be a major issue with young voters
It’s really not her fault that the people in power have a vested interest in ignoring climate change.
Also she got Andrew Tate arrested so there’s that.
How to you figure the people in power have a vested interest in ignoring climate change? Seems like everyone has a vested interest in acknowledging any risk to our civilization.
Because they get a lot of money from fossil fuel companies.
And the others are just ignoring climate change to “own the libs”.
Not if they believe it won’t affect them, and if they can turn their power into connections with rich people willing to part with their wealth in exchange for the promise their civilisational-risk-increasing industries can press on unabated.
They haven’t shown much interest in practice.
Actions, not words.
Speaking from a German perspective I feel like the Fridays for future movement has significantly affected (parts of) her generation. I have many colleagues whose kids are focusing on a diet with less environmental impact and also asking their parents to change.
It is impressive that it has been such a long running and wide spreading movement and I am sure that there will be many politicians, activists and entrepreneurs coming out of this movement in the future.
It is hard to expect anything more from a child who has been belittled constantly. I wish I would be standing up for my believes as strongly as she does.
Thunberg’s style is her best asset. She keeps making a simple point, without trying to complexify it. When people try to complexify it, she brings them back to the simple point:
- this is a major problem
- it will lead to death and destruction if not addressed
- we have a tendency to ignore it that needs to be counteracted
She uses the simplest possible language and stays on point. Which for some odd reason nobody else seems to be capable of.
Some will say she’s just a “cheerleader” but that’s kind of what we need if we’re going to address this. Political will is the constraining factor in our climate change response.
If your parents were multimillionaires and hired publicists and boat crews and built a brand around those beliefs, I’m sure you would have too.
A lot of rich kids just become spoiled and rich. What Greta did was special.
Both can be true.
Yeah, I would have but I’m not rich or have the time so I couldn’t. Good thing she’s doing it.
Meanwhile I’m not rich, but I haven’t commuted by car in almost 15 years. I also haven’t flown a sailing crew to New York to sail a boat built by a Rothschild back across the Atlantic ocean after I finished my instagram post. So I’d say I’ve done less damage to the environment then she has.
@PowerCrazy @Jumi if she and her family have the money to enact change, good for them, and from my perspective and the other commenter’s, she has done quite an impact. I don’t understand why your comments attempt to bring a young and brave speaker of the cause down. Nobody’s perfect, and this particular issue is so difficult that we should focus on collective action rather than trying to nitpick.
Agreed. Collective action is the only solution but becoming a figurehead so that you can fly around the world going to climate conferences and taking selfies is unhelpful.
But tell me what movement did you help to gain traction? Or who listens to what you have to say?
Ah good point. I should have been born to millionaire parents who hired a publicist for me that would tell everyone I was going to take a gap year when I was 16 and fly around the world going to climate conferences. You win this one, congrats.
So everything someone says because they’re wealthier than you is invalid or what? Just stfu.
Hey, wonderful! This guy over here has done less gamage to the environment than a child climate activist with money! He has single handedly averted the climate apocalypse in doing so!
See, it isn’t a fucking competition about who’s fucking the world less, it’s about all of us not fucking the world up to extinction. We don’t get there by being good little green boys while nothing is done about the affluent, the powerful, and the conglomerates. And guess what, nobody is doing anything about them, and I’m not about to get angry at a child for desperately calling that out even if she can’t do anything else about it.
The affluent, powerful and conglomerates all support her, yet there has been negative action on climate change, I wonder why that is?
IMO her argument is that we need to rework the system, providing more people with better access to public transport so everyone can reduce their damage without needing to sacrifice their day to day function, so it’s really irrelevant whether our damage is more or less in comparison to hers.
So you’re just envious that nobody is applauding for you?
Yep. People that criticize charlatans are just jealous, you figured it out.
I think if my parents were multimillionaires I would be even more busy enjoying my life than fighting a fight with uneven odds.
Of course coming from a stable background makes it easier to be an activist, but it is still far from easy to devote your life to one cause.
She’s caused every conservative to despise a teenager so much that they send her death threats. Seeing tiny brains be threatened by a young girl is pretty impressive IMO.
“Clean water? Cheap power from solar? No thanks, environmental activists.” - tiny 🧠
“What if climate change is a lie and we accidentally make the world a better place for nothing?”
We’ll just have to suffer through the clean air and stable climate until we can build up enough smog and CO2 to get things back to how they are currently, hopefully worse.
What she (and other climate activists) have done and do is spread awareness about this issue. As you can imagine, it’s important to keep important topics (arguably even the most important topic humanity faces, yes even more important than soccer (lol)) present in media and in people’s heads for them to not be forgotten soon after again. People need to be constantly reminded that our current way of life currently destroys our planet, especially considering that not much happened to steer against this problem within the last couple of years after the Paris agreement. And we don’t even know many of the tipping points that could accelerate disaster even further. When some ecosystems stop existing and food chains become disrupted, for example.
In a way, she’s like a PR person for the most important topic in science currently. And she (and other climate actrivists) is successful at it, considering it’s so often in the news and so many of the polluters hate her and try to discredit her and others.
Always remember though: it’s about the problem, not specific people. Of course we like talking about people, and the media does it as well, but as the saying goes, “small minds discuss people, great minds discuss ideas”. It’s about the problem at hand, irrelevant of Greta or other activists. She’s just trying to bring the point across to a mass audience, that’s all. We (as in: the whole humanity, no exceptions) need to take action against the problem, not talk about Greta. This “ad hominem” strategy is sometimes deliberately used as a distraction away from the issue at hand. When articles talk about Greta or try to discredit her or whatever, then the debate is shifted away from the actual problem at hand. Even articles about her in a positive light are, in the end, irrelevant. It’s not about her, or other climate activists. She even says that herself. If the activists didn’t exist, we’d still face the exact same problem.
OK now ask what word leaders and companies that hold power have actually achieved so far in the same period.
It’s been five whole years and this teenager hasn’t defeated all of global capitalism, what’s she even doing?
Five years later this is a relevant question. So her awareness campaign is at least as effective as Susan G. Komen.
You need to think more long term, next generation level. Because of her and others, kids will be born and raised with the mindset that the planet needs saving.
Hopefully Greta’s legacy is more then just a non-profit that steals from desperate cancer patients but given the genesis of her brand, I doubt it.
Main things is that Gen Z is ashamed of travelling by plane
They do it anyway though.
A full plane is still greener than a car with 1-2 passengers.
I was thinking about doing the math awhile ago, because a full A320 Neon only uses 1,5l per passenger for 100 km. They just don’t burn the same fuel and at different altitudes.
A full plane is still greener than a car with 1-2 passengers.
That may be true if you’re going the same distance, but planes go a lot farther. A lot of plane trips are unnecessary, and wouldn’t be made at all if the plane wasn’t an option. Many car trips are also unnecessary, but given modern infrastructure, they tend to be more necessary than plane trips.
Per kg-km flying is higher carbon impact than driving, no matter how full the plane is.
It just isn’t. A car would need at least 2 passengers to beat a plane, maybe 3-4 depending on the car. Jet engines are incredibly efficient and planes carry a lot of people. If they all hopped in cars, the planet would turn into a smog hellscape.
If you care about personal emissions so much, take a train.
What have you achieved in try e past 5 years?
She opened my eyes to something that should have been obvious.
Eternal economic growth is a fairy tale that’s killing us.
What did you achieve since 2018?
There’s been a bunch of decent memes.
She has achieved nothing because we’re so far past words on these issues.
Most humans must die.
Are you going to volunteer?
I’m doing my part to ensure I die at a respectably young age by my own hand, yes.
Edgy. And stupid.
Keep going, I’m almost there
Holy fuck im so sick of these comments. How about you volunteer instead?
Why should I volunteer to die for someone elses ideas? Do you support conscription or something? Or are you just angry for no reason and lashing out?
holy fuck I’m so sick of being told to die when I tell other people they should die HUURURRRRR
Grow up before you post another word online. Seriously.
I think its true that we must reduce the population before earth does it for us. But theres no way anyone (in a significant amount) would agree to do it by willingly die (or having people they know die) for it.
So we’re left with birth control. Which we never gonna be able to do globally because so many think of birth rate as a way to win a culture war.
