I’m unsure what ‘source’ you are taking as my sole source for information (I assume it was a video I linked to from Real Engineering that was discussing the over production of solar, but I’m not sure…and that’s hardly even a major source for me, it’s just an interesting, IMHO, channel), as it wasn’t really talking about price of solar as a major factor, at least as I recall the article. It was talking about how politics have driven solar to be deployed even when it’s not optimal, while politics have equally shut down other technologies that COULD have provided the strong base load that solar needs to flatten out the use model. Regardless, this is neither here nor there wrt Time’s person of the year, as I don’t think she has put ANY sort of concrete plans forward, just inspired the strike with no real end goals that I can see. I don’t see how that makes one person of the year, but then Time often makes odd choices for this ‘honor’, so she is in good company.
The point was that since the calculation for costs and other factors was way off, the point that it should not be looked at as a good example of what can not be done stands.
The goals are still the same, basically to stop treating the atmosphere as a sewer.
On a slightly different note: posters that concentrated on ‘how extremists and subversives are using her’ should remember that many are the same here and elsewhere dumped on Al Gore when his point was that civilization can continue as long as we become carbon neutral and make sure that progress is sustainable.
No need to remember how he was treated then and now, the sad reality is that as part of the contrarian and denier efforts from powerful interests, even moderated ideas or positions and proponents of change have been demonized relentlessly. Greta is pointing out an issue here: that not making a concerted effort like the more moderates proposed yesterday does lead to now stronger demands than before when very little is being done on many fronts or countries when it can.
That point is a strawman though, as neither the video nor, specifically I have said that ‘it’ (presumably solar) shouldn’t be looked at. No idea where you are even going with this to be honest.
And big picture I think most of us can agree on. It’s the details that matter and where differences appear. Greta doesn’t give those, so, again, we are talking feel good fodder for the faithful.
Whether they are using her or she is doing it herself (given her issues I’d go with the former, but who knows?), she has a decided left wing agenda that is fairly obvious. To me, that sort of thing detracts from any sort of message, even if I was into just feel good stuff like that. Like I said, I’d be more sympathetic if she called out China, but she seems focused (self or otherwise) on western politicians and corporations.
Anyway, I said all of this in the Greta thread so no sense rehashing it. I think her focus is wrong, her message is unhelpful, and the results will be basically nothing substantial. YMMV of course. To me, there are others more deserving of being a person of the year, and I suspect that one of the actual reasons is Time doesn’t want to piss off the CCP. Basically, it’s the NBA all over again, though I tried to be more charitable in my first post and ascribed it to the faceless nature of the current protest movement.
Then she isn’t doing anything of substance. QED.
It was clear on context, that the costs of that effort were foolish, as the MIT report showed, a lot was missed by the source you pointed out.
Then you miss the other point, that demonizing the moderate and more doable solution proposed does lead to more radicalism, specially when the current rulers are even denying the issue.
That does ignore a lot of the history on how the right wing agenda was a big reason on how we arrived to the current situationand how treaties like the Paris one do depend on compromises that have also mechanisms to ramp up changes if emissions are not eventually reduced.
Since ramping up efforts to curtail emissions also do piss China, (the USA embassies also did piss off China with their reporting of the real air conditions, but eventually forced the CCP to stop bullshitting with the contamination and emission numbers) I do think having Greta as person of the year is part of the effort to let China know that they need to meet or surpass in its commitments.
Missing the point spectacularly, Greta is also a big reminder of how demonization worked for people like Gore that wanted moderate change. It is a reminder to not fall for the current demonization of her.
No, it wasn’t clear on context, and I think you were reading more into it than was said. That whole demonetization of anything you don’t agree with completely thing, ironically.
It’s a strawman, as I’m not demonizing moderates. Be kind of stupid of me, considering I am a moderate. At any rate, Greta isn’t a moderate, and isn’t proposing any solutions, doable or not, so it’s kind of a randomly moot point as far as I can tell. Certainly I’m having trouble even following whatever point you are trying to make with most of this.
But whatabout!! Which, again, has nothing to do with the point I’m making. She clearly DOES FUCKING HAVE A LEFT WING AGENDA. Whether the right wing whataboutismed whatever has zero to do with that. You seem to be wanting to score some sort of points or something in this thread and not really addressing anything I’m actually saying.
Horseshit. If she wanted to call out China she would call out, specifically, China. Even what she has done has fallen flat with the Chinese, but if she specifically called them out that WOULD piss them and the CCP off. Which she patently hasn’t done.
Well I agree…you spectacularly missed the point. You seem to want to talk about Gore and score some points or something, however, so I’m going to leave you too it. I’ve said why I think others are more deserving of recognition, and why she specifically is not, and it has fucking ZERO to do with the right demonizing whatever and whataboutism crap, or whatever you are on about. To me, I CRITICIZE her for actual, tangible reasons. I don’t give a flying fuck why the right or conservatives or Republicans or fucking aardvarks might criticize her for.
Wanting the Earth to continue to be able to support human life is a left wing agenda? If so, then what is the corresponding right wing agenda? Kill us all?
Yes. Isn’t it obvious?
Again, just saying what you miss.
Please read about or see the Frontline documentary, it looks like a left wing agenda because it was made so thanks to the efforts the right wing in the USA and others like in Australia did to make the rejection of climate change to be the agenda of the right.
I was referring to the intentions of TIME magazine, not Greta, but still I will give her the benefit of the doubt, simply because China is bound by the Paris treaty while the USA is the only nation that left the treaty.
Uh, I do think it is important to notice how right wingers in the USA, in this thread too, are doing to Greta; and they are the same that did so with Al Gore in the past. You will have to notice that extremists using her is not something that Thunberg has endorsed. Just like thinking that ‘she is not criticizing China directly’ as if that is a real thing.
Just that it is important to realize that since very little was done before, more efforts are needed now.
Time has named “groups” of people before.
“The climate and ecological crisis is beyond party politics. And our main enemy right now is not our political opponents. Our main enemy now is physics. And we can not make ‘deals’ with physics.” - Greta Thunberg
We cannot get there with conservation unless we get pretty draconian. Iceland gets 100% of its electricity generation from renewables and their carbon emissions is 12.1 tons per capita. That’s with 100% renewable energy in electricity production.
The United States generates 16.1 tons of carbon per capita. So just getting rid of all the gas and coal powered power plants won’t be enough. The changes we are talking about are drastic and will throw the world into a depression that would make the great depression seem mild.
And how do you get industrializing countries like China and India to buy into that sort of program?
A 2 degree increase in temperatures will create displacement and economic disruption, not extinction. And the economic issues created by the draconian policies that Greta Thunberg may think we need are not demonstrably less problematic, particularly for industrialized and industrializing economies.
Cheap clean energy is really the only way we get out of this mess. If we could somehow figure out how to turn scientists into billionaires instead of the Kardashian kids, it would be a huge step towards solving the crisis. When some of the smartest kids at all the best schools go to Consulting, Wall Street and Social Media, etc rather than science because so little of the value created by science goes back to the scientist, you get geniuses working at Goldman Sachs instead of JPL and NASA.
The same as it is with that hope, IMO.
There’s no point to being here; just try and enjoy yourself without adversely affecting too many other entities.
The Hong Kong protests are an important issue sure, but IMO not as important as the future of our entire planet. Seeing the effects of man-made climate change already on the planet, it’s beyond time to prevent it from happening, but we can certainly try to mitigate the damage as much as possible. This requires mass action in order to force our governments to finally address the problem and put real resources into a green economy, and Greta is a great spokesperson for this cause.
The quote and link I posted on #47clearly demonstrates a far left wing agenda.
Uh, well, should we forget to notice here that colonialism, racism and patriarchal systems of oppression are not approved by moderates and even many conservatives claim that they nowadays are against those too? IOW, it really looks silly to declare those items as something that only far left wingers would have an issue with.
Those things are bad. Know what else is bad? Authoritarian states that pollute without ANY sort of check on them. Wonder why she didn’t mention that (or other bad things that lead, more than these, to rampant global warming…that IS the problem we are trying to fix here, right, not social engineering of specific perceived problems in the West??)? Well, notice that she didn’t include communist authoritarian states, or other states that have pushed it to it’s limits? IOW, she focused almost solely, again, on the West…Europe and the US. YOU might not have noticed how her message is crafted to a certain viewpoint, but then seemingly a lot of folks haven’t either as they seem genuinely perplexed how anyone could see it that way.
You are focused on how those things are, rightfully, bad (they are…though I’m unsure how racism or patriarchal systems cause global warming), while not seeing the fact that her list is suspiciously crafted to have a suspiciously narrow target(s)…
How does appealing to the public affect Authoritarian states that do not respond to their citizens. Of course a public appeal is for countries that actually respond to their public. This is a nonsense criticism because you are misunderstanding the fundamental point of the awareness campaign. Awareness campaigns don’t work on dictatorships directly. However if citizens of those authoritarian countries see people rising up in western countries to have their voices heard, maybe they will be inspired to rise up for their own freedom.
The point of this criticism is just justification for us to do nothing, which is what those that push this line want anyway. It comes from motivated reasoning.
Yep, colonialism and racism are still bad and no, it remains wishful thinking and a defamation effort from other sources to still insist that she is just following an extremist position.
There is really very little going from sources that intending to defame Thumberg, for allegedly being in cahoots with countries like China, forgetting that her speech at the UN was not only directed at the West.
As others reported, China does see Thumberg’s efforts as a poke in their eye.
As it has been pointed before, that article points too to even the Chinese policymakers complaining about the schizoid way regarding how China is progressing, but it is now recently lagging in their efforts, (So, as mentioned before: no, proponents of change are not giving China a break) they deserve more that just an eye poke than what Greta is doing to them.
And Trump’s administrators at the EPA deserve an eye gouging.
You are so funny. Because you seem to get all your talking points from others you seem to assume I do as well. As I’ve said repeatedly, I don’t give a flying fuck what Trump et al say. If they are saying similar things to me then that’s coincidence. I think…I think…that what she says has a left leaning feel to it. I see her focus on the West as part of this. I see her lack of focus on, oh, say China as indicative of it as well. The fact that the Chinese aren’t happy with her message is beside the point…the fact that she didn’t say it IS the point. Had she gone after China and others in her speeches I’d have been more sympathetic. She chose not too…and crafted her message TOO focus on what she focused on and not on what she didn’t.
As for Airbeck’s assertion that she focused on non-authoritarian citizens because they can be reached or whatever I call bullshit. If she is REALLY trying to cause a global change she should have gone after the largest offenders, not on just who she thought she could both shape AND who she perceived as having input into their governments. You both think I’m seeing things she isn’t saying or doesn’t mean that way, and I think you are blinding yourselves to how her message is crafted. To me, she is being deliberately manipulative and focused on specific countries and specific people who she wants to blame AND make feel guilty in order to have folks do the vaguely defined stuff she hasn’t really given the details on…just rebel against authority and the system and do something good.
At any rate, I think we’ve beaten this dead horse as much as I’m willing. I don’t think she is a good candidate for Person of the Year. I gave my own choice. YMMV. C’est la vie.
She’s a teenage girl doing what she thinks will help save the environment. You have lost perspective here talking about her crafted message and manipulations. Do you know any 16 year old girls? Doesn’t seem like it. You are criticizing a child because she isn’t unilaterally somehow forcing China to change using her will? I think your political opinions are shaping the way you are viewing her and what she is trying to do. She’s trying to raise global awareness of a very important issue. She has succeeded wildly in that aim. You seem to be expecting her to solve all of this herself though, which is specifically not her aim, she is trying to raise awareness that will cause governments and politicians to have to move on these things.
View her as a 16 year old girl, not as whatever you’ve built her up to be in your head, and you’ll maybe see things more clearly.
I in fact have a 17 year old daughter. 
Know what my daughter doesn’t do? She doesn’t speak to the EU or the US Senate or the UN. Know what my daughter is? Very smart. And manipulative. Granted, my daughter doesn’t have the issues Greta does, but then my daughter hasn’t been pushed forward by her folks to do this cause either, nor helped crafting her message. So, I’m not going to treat Greta just like any 16 year old girl, nor am I going to automatically think that 16 year old girls aren’t smart, and intelligent, and able to craft messages to causes they believe in, especially with help.
Also, it’s not that she is or isn’t trying to ‘unilaterally somehow forcing China to change’ IT’S THAT SHE DIDN’T MENTION THEM AT ALL EVEN WHEN THEY ARE A HUGE PART OF THE PROBLEM. She didn’t mention others, but she SPECIFICALLY avoided anything that is a direct mention of China. Why? She doesn’t know that China is a big part of the problem? Doesn’t know about China’s not only horrible environmental record in and of themselves but that China is busily building coal fired power plants across the globe in many other countries? :dubious: To me, it’s part of a systematic narrative that I see not only in Greta and her message, but in AOC’s New Green Deal, and in the media…and on this fucking board.