What this shows is that you know neither what climate change is nor the weather.
Hard to measure overall “newsworthiness,” but did Greta *really *get that much attention? It seemed, from the media that I was watching, at least, that her flame burned bright for a few days in the world media after that speech but then she more or less dropped off the headlines, only re-appearing here and there briefly with some tweet in response to Trump, etc. She was quickly a non-story.
Nancy Pelosi was in the news much more, Xi Jinping had a much stronger case to be TIME person of the year, etc. etc.
The Conservative government of Saskatchewan has announced that its ‘climate change’ plan will be to accelerate a move to nuclear power. Specifically, small modular reactors.
The Conservative government of Alberta had plans to install a nuclear reactor to generate the steam needed for mining the oil sands, lowering their carbon footprint dramatically. That was opposed by the socialist NDP.
The Liberal government in Ontario just about broke the province by borrowing tens of billions of dollars to build out solar and wind, while implementing a plan to shut down Ontario’s nuclear reactors. When those go offline, the tens of thousands of jobs Ontario has lost in manufacturing due to high energy prices and their largest non-national debt in the world will have been for nothing as mothballing the nukes will more than undo the meagre CO2 savings they gained from all that pain. Hopefully, the Conservative Ford government will undo fhat.
NIMBYism is not political. Local protests of nuclear power can come from the left or right, because people on both sides have been gaslit and propagandized by the anti-nuclear movement into believing that nuclear power is incredibly dangerous, when in fact it’s by far the safest, cleanest energy source available to is, both in terms of risk to the environment and risk to humans.
But organized global anti-nuclear movements and anti-nuclear organizations are almost all coming from the left. And its those groups that have fear-mongered nuclear power for decades, creating the NIMBYism. They have successfully demonized nuclear power with lies and exaggerations, help up billions in capital with frivolous lawsuits and injunctions, and their protests and lawfare programs have dramatically driven up the cost of nuclear in the west. Then they use those high costs to claim that nuclear isn’t competitive.
The right isn’t the problem here. If you are on the left and you believe in nuclear power, the best thing you can do for climate change is start convincing people on your side. Because they won’t listen to anyone else.
I assume you are aware that Hitler was Time’s Man of the Year for 1938; that Stalin was MOTY 1939 and 1942?
Krushchev, 1957; Nixon 1970 and 1971. Trump…well; let’s not go there. LOL.
I appreciate your sentiment that it might somehow be detrimental to society to glorify with cover stories those with principles or behaviors adverse to your personal beliefs, but your notion that this is a new phenomenon, or that “lunatics used to be removed” reflects a naive and incorrect view of history.
I might also reiterate that Time’s MOTY designation is not (historically, at least; and they have not changed this to my knowledge) meant to be an honorific.
At the risk of hijacking the OP in service of replying to a post in-thread:
I’ve been taking a break from my SDMB addiction, but I’m wondering if, while I’ve been away, we’ve elevated the Climate Change prediction consensus to annihilation of our species and/or collapse of society?
As a species, we humans have been reasonably successful navigating our way to reproduction without much planning for the future despite an assortment of potential setbacks. From the perspective of the planet’s non-human natural order, this hasn’t been very good for the planet, even excepting our effect on climate. We’ve kind of butted in everywhere and are busy taking over the planet to support our 7 billion selves…so it’s never been clear to me why the greatest good should be to promote the successes of the human species. Certainly nature is unconcerned with which species wins the battle of reproduction, comfort and diminished suffering.
In a separate thread, would you consider addressing:
- The time frame for this “annihilation” outcome, and
- Whether or not annihilation of humans is a net good for the planet as a whole given our invasiveness of the (non-human) natural order to date–even without consideration of Climate Change?
(As an aside, from what I’ve observed, the “right wing plan” is to mostly figure out stuff as we go with an eye to longer-term predictions; the “left wing plan” is to effect change now under the assumption longer-term predictions are accurate…but there may be other threads on Climate Change more appropriate for that topic.)
In related news, there’s been a tie in polling for Most Admired Man of the Year, according to Gallup.
The co-winners are Barack Obama and Donald Trump. I kid you not.
“The remainder of the top 10 for men this year includes former President Jimmy Carter, businessman Elon Musk, philanthropist and Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Pope Francis, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, California Rep. Adam Schiff, the Dalai Lama, and investor Warren Buffett.”
The most admired woman is Michelle Obama, followed by Melania Trump. Greta Thunberg did crack the top five.
As a famous green person once said, Oh, what a world.
Allowing the public to participate in polls without screening them for the ability to form a cogent and educated opinion yields nothing but a pooling of ignorance.
The public is easily swayed by orange-haired slow-witted bullies, or earnest teenagers glomming onto Great Causes.
This is, of course, the fundamental flaw in democratic systems where anyone is allowed to vote and where we hope to improve the world by giving equal weight to input from both sides of the bell curves for intelligence and altruism.
Time magazine had long ago found a way to generate free publicity to get people to talk about the magazine. That’s nothing new. If they wanted to use it to promote a greener/cleaner world then they can claim a moral carbon credit to offset the trees cut down to sell the message.
I think it’s great that a teenager wants to make a positive difference. But the rallies themselves remind me of the e-check system we use to have in my area. People use to make an extra trip in their car to wait in line with the motor running in order to prove the car’s computer was making continuous adjustments to the engine to maintain performance. The pollution created by the extra trip offset any gains from finding a car that failed. So unless all the people attending her rallies are walking or riding bikes then she is creating an event that generates the greenhouse gases she’s fighting against.
If only there was a way that millions of people around the world could see her speak without leaving their homes. Maybe some kind of system where viewership was kept track of so it was possible to see if the message was getting out.
Someday.
I look forward to a Climate Change icon who persuades today’s teenagers to demand extra days of school in service of the movement to reduce atmospheric CO2.
Surely one key approach to the thorny issues facing us is a crop of children more educated than the adults who created the pickle? A school strike rally seems like a protest initiative thought up by Cheech and Chong to legalize weed; not a promotion for something requiring very complex solutions.
Or a school strike specifically in favor of nuclear power. If they could bring that off, it might be a harbinger of the ability to do more than talk. Unfortunately, such an idea would never get any support from the Greens, and so would die away almost at once.
Regards,
Shodan
Many deniers must really hate their grandchildren. I can think of no other excuse. Except fat bribes now.
One could argue that anyone with children hates their grandchildren. We have way too many people already for the earth to support without impacting it–C02 production aside.
Anyone who accepts government largesse hates their grandchildren. We have spent money that needs to be repaid by them.
Anyone who is responsible for living a lifestyle that creates the production of more CO2 than a Tanzanian hates their grandchildren. We have a responsibility to be the change we want to see in the world.
Applying over-simpified labels and spouting pithy little unsupported accusatory conclusions is the main reason Ms. Thunberg does not move the influence needle. Such an approach is not helpful. Mobilize the Alarmist base; perhaps. Influence Deniers; no. Effect actual change in behavior of anyone; unlikely.
I sorta think all Alarmists owe all Deniers a debt of gratitude. Alarmists can feel good about themselves because the existence of Deniers lets Alarmists feel they are on the (rhetorical) side of Right even while they participate in lifestyles that produce huge amounts of CO2–far in excess of what is required to effect change now.
May I suggest you change your rhetoric to Resource Hoggers and Resource Protectors? And maybe dial down the hate speech to “ignore the needs of their” grandchildren? Then we can better do a Tragedy of the Commons calculus for whether *La Vagabonde *is an appropriate icon from which to demonstrate how important it is not to ignore the needs of future generations.
Full disclosure:
(I am personally inclined to think wealthy people who consume huge amounts of resources–including the CO2 production required to manufacture a million-dollar hobby yacht for personal pleasure–fall into Hoggers, but then I tend to stand on the sidelines of Climate Change rhetoric and just enjoy kibbutzing the exchanges…)