Climate change

[Eamonnca1]

Why isn't the right, including Trump, all over this, instead of his futile "attempt" to save the coal industry.

It's not like they give a shit about the environmental constituency, never mind the more hysterical side that won't countenance even a discussion of nuclear energy production, but I'm sure there are a lot of people out there of all stripes who are nervous about nuclear but also ignorant about the advances and open to education and persuasion.

You refer to centrist voters. The US voting system is often about rallying the base and pressing the emotional buttons, not appealing to reason. Trump would be wiser to push ahead with nuclear out of an "owning the libs" strategy. The Fox News crowd loves nuclear not because of its potential for CO2 mitigation, but because liberals are afraid of it.

[Angelo]

That young girl is hysterical.

[Minder]

That young girl is hysterical.

Yeah she looks like she is going to have a breakdown, whoever is pulling the strings, her parents I assume, should call an end to it.

[Solo_run]

Can we put Trump in a sealed off room and pump carbon emissions into the room to see if it changes his mind?

[Eamonnca1]

That young girl is hysterical.

Yeah she looks like she is going to have a breakdown, whoever is pulling the strings, her parents I assume, should call an end to it.

You two sound hysterical. Whoever is pulling the strings, your parents I assume, should call an end to it.

[Minder]

That young girl is hysterical.

Yeah she looks like she is going to have a breakdown, whoever is pulling the strings, her parents I assume, should call an end to it.

You two sound hysterical. Whoever is pulling the strings, your parents I assume, should call an end to it.

Very good

[trailer]

That young girl is hysterical.

Yeah she looks like she is going to have a breakdown, whoever is pulling the strings, her parents I assume, should call an end to it.

They always attack her, never the argument. That's because she's right.

[Orior]

I cannot believe the hate directed towards Greta.

And those coming out with the snide remarks about her on Twitter are showing traits of bullies.

[Eamonnca1]

The last time I saw this much vitriol directed at a kid by adults was during the Holy Cross School blockade. These people should be ashamed of themselves. Shower of child-abusing thugs, the whole bloody lot of them.

[Solo_run]

People will listen to science when it benefits them but ignore it when it doesn't.

I find it odd that people need a 16 year old to tell them what is happening to the world. I don't mean that as an attack on Greta - people need to listen to the bloody science.

[Eamonnca1]

The hounding of Greta Thunberg is proof that the right has run out of ideas
Aditya Chakrabortty

With scientists backing her cause, opponents of the young environmental activist have resorted to ugly personal attacks

Over the past few days, something extraordinary has happened in our politics. A bunch of grown men have begun bullying a schoolgirl. Perhaps you already know who I mean: Greta Thunberg, she of the pigtails and school strikes, who came to Westminster last week and slammed adoring MPs for posturing rather than taking action on climate breakdown, then hoofed it over to St Pancras for the 36-hour train ride back to Stockholm.

Which left the eco-denialists back here with a stonking great headache: how to bash this 16-year-old celeb? Not by dismantling her arguments, not when the scientists and Sir David of Blue Planet back her up. Nor by sniffing around her record, since by definition a teenager hasn't much of a past to rake over. The standard methods of political warfare off-limits to them, they are trying something new and unusual. They are sinking their teeth into her.

She was "chilling", declared Brendan O'Neill, editor of the hard-right website Spiked, after picking on her "monotone voice" and "look of apocalyptic dread in her eyes". Given Thunberg's openness about her Asperger's, this was a dog whistle if he knew about it, but it was at best crass if he didn't: the kid's on the spectrum! Bringing up the rear were the bloggers at Guido Fawkes, trying to eke a three-course meal out of the morsel that Thunberg's mum performed in the Eurovision song contest 10 years ago – cast-iron proof of "an incredibly privileged background". This finding has been gurningly spread on social media by none other than that vomiting dustbin of opinions Toby Young. You don't need to be much sharper than him to observe that he is the son of a baron who rang Oxford University to get his boy a place.

This is sad and it is desperate, but one thing it is not is insignificant. Both O'Neill and the Guido Fawkes site form part of the wider ecology of rightwing thinking. O'Neill is a regular on the rolling-news channels, with their unquenchable demands for just-add-water controversy; Guido Fawkes supplies both gossip and personnel to the rest of the British media.

Sure enough, by last weekend the Spectator and the Sunday Times were hosting attacks on this schoolgirl revolutionary, with her authoritarian demands about not destroying the environment, with Rod Liddle in the Sunday paper devoting almost half a page to "that weird Swedish kid" and her "imbecilic" supporters. The Spectator apparently can't get enough of this story, even running a piece by Helen Dale, who posted a tweet calling for "this Greta Thunberg character" to "have a meltdown on national telly". This was a "gag", Dale says now, deploying the excuse of bullies down the ages: can't you take a joke?

Amid this virtuoso vulgarity and sheer crass panic lies a political strategy that has rarely been used in Britain. It can be defined as denying your opponent the legitimacy to speak, not because of what they are saying or what they've done, but simply on account of who they are. Almost three years after the Brexit referendum, both politicians and pundits constantly fret about the UK sinking into an US-style culture war, where politics is merely shorthand for morality, and where what you say is always less important than where you come from and what you look like. Well, the past few days have been a case study in how a British culture war might escalate.

By no means is it the first example. Let us not forget how the Brexit press decried inconvenient judges as Enemies of the People or urged their then heroine Theresa May to Crush the Saboteurs, nor how Nigel Farage hailed the referendum victory as a revolution "without a shot being fired", just days after the murder of Jo Cox. But you could, if sufficiently generous of spirit, put those earlier displays down to an excess of tabloid spirits and the commercial need to stoke some controversy. This episode is different: it is about trying to demolish a 16-year-old merely for saying what she believes.

The ironies are manifold. In this culture war being prosecuted by the right, the cut-price controversialists – whose sourdough bread and butter is bashing out 800 words about the thought police – are trying to police other people's thoughts. The career bleaters about the PC brigade want to adjudicate on who is politically correct. They bang on about Twitter stormtroopers and the online mob, then gang up on the web and social media to try to crush a teenager. How they cheered when Adam Boulton, majordomo of Sky News, trashed a student representative of Extinction Rebellion live on TV as being "incompetent, middle class, self-indulgent"!

Of course it is right to debate the solutions suggested by Thunberg and Extinction Rebellion or whoever else. I welcome the BBC cross-examining earnest Labour politicians on exactly what they mean by declaring a climate emergency. Indeed, I might point out that their proposals for a "green industrial revolution" (Jeremy Corbyn) or "environmental growth" (Welsh first minister Mark Drakeford) will do little to deal with the problems they now identify.

But such debates are not what the keyboard warriors of the right want. They couldn't give a flying fund manager about policy. They are not playing the ball but the woman – and they're doing so deliberately.

The most telling part of O'Neill's attack on Thunberg is towards the end of his 800 or so curdled words, when he exclaims that the Swede is "a patsy for scared and elitist adults". This stricture comes from the editor of a website whose organisation, as my colleague George Monbiot reported recently, has taken hundreds of thousands of dollars from the network operated by the billionaire Koch brothers, who made their money running oil pipelines and refineries: in other words, the sort of fossil-fuel industry most threatened by the politics expressed by environmental activists, and which poses one of the greatest dangers to our climate.

In this respect, the right is doing the same as it always has: chummily putting its arm around your shoulder while slipping the other hand into your pocket, all the better to rob you with. Only this time, it's being nastier, more abusive and more personal – it wants a culture war to cover up for its paucity of evidence and arguments.

You can expect more such attempts every time people try to build alternatives to our broken economic and political model. On one side, you have the establishment's licensed outriders, now out of puff and out of ideas. On the other are people far removed from power by dint or age or location or ethnicity or class. They are the genuine insurgents, not the pretend rebels of the right. This is what it looks like when one side knows the jig is almost up.

• Aditya Chakrabortty is a Guardian columnist

[omaghjoe]

Governments can have a huge impact on what industry builds. It took government to take the lead out of petrol and CFCs out of aerosol propellants. They're well able to regulate the fuel that burns in jet engines.

Are you proposing they take the carbon out of aviation fuel?

https://theicct.org/publications/long-term-aviation-fuel-decarbonization-progress-roadblocks-and-policy-opportunities

Could go with cryoplanes (hydrogen) - but then that releases water vapour at high altitude which is not good either...

I know a guy who works in the handling of aviation of fuel on planes frightfully dangerous stuff when you consider the pressure changes, movement of the fuel and the evaporation rate and the fact that one spark could be 300 corpses, and has a number of times.
Considering how volatile a relatively stable fuel like aviation fuel can become in a plane I would not like to be on a plane using something as unstable as hydrogen especially cryogenicaly which looks like the only feasible way to use it.
There would be so many deaths with this before they got it to an acceptable level that it would never get of the ground.... in a democracy at least .

[BennyCake]

People will listen to science when it benefits them but ignore it when it doesn't.

I find it odd that people need a 16 year old to tell them what is happening to the world. I don't mean that as an attack on Greta - people need to listen to the bloody science.

People know what is happening to the world. People are just trying to run around chasing pound notes to feed and clothe themselves and their family. If that means burning heating oil to warm them, driving a car to make a living, then so be it.

The world is easily fixed through the eyes of a naive teenager, who maybe doesn't grasp that the world is run by evil corporations, psychopathic businessmen and corrupt politicians.

[omaghjoe]

I can see why people would be opposed to fission considering the risk of meltdown and the problem with radioactive waste. However all this needs to be squared with the risk level which is reducing all the time.. I think I read that fission is safer than solar in terms of deaths but of course it's hard to quantify. But the debate around fission needs to be much more objective and informed because at the minute its not

But folks are drawing absolute safety cases from technology designed in the 60s.

Compare a car from the 1960s to now and you'll quickly come to the conclusion the 60s car is a death trap! Its no different in reactor design - all modern designs are fail-safe - fukushima could not happen a modern reactor:

1. All modern reactors require a feedback loop of (a small amount of) power to keep the reaction ongoing (electromagnetics for the control rods). Withdraw that loop and the reaction safely shuts down as gravity pulls the control rods down.
2. All modern reactors can be cooled by passive means alone - so failure of the coolant pumps does not lead to an overheat scenario.

Spot on.... tho in discussions it will inevitability turn to the probs of radioactive waste. I would always point to France as an example for nuclear but poor old Chernobyl always gets a run out.

[Eamonnca1]

For the "she's being paid / manipulated by her parents" crowd:

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=773676963000126&id=732846497083173

As the rumours, lies and constant leaving out of well established facts continue, please share this newly updated clarification about me and my school strike.
Please help me communicate this to the grown ups who lie about me and family so that I can focus on school instead:

Recently I've seen many rumors circulating about me and enormous amounts of hate. This is no surprise to me. I know that since most people are not aware of the full meaning of the climate crisis (which is understandable since it has never been treated as a crisis) a school strike for the climate would seem very strange to people in general.
So let me make some things clear about my school strike.

In may 2018 I was one of the winners in a writing competition about the environment held by Svenska Dagbladet, a Swedish newspaper. I got my article published and some people contacted me, among others was Bo Thorén from Fossil Free Dalsland. He had some kind of group with people, especially youth, who wanted to do something about the climate crisis.
I had a few phone meetings with other activists. The purpose was to come up with ideas of new projects that would bring attention to the climate crisis. Bo had a few ideas of things we could do. Everything from marches to a loose idea of some kind of a school strike (that school children would do something on the schoolyards or in the classrooms). That idea was inspired by the Parkland Students, who had refused to go to school after the school shootings.
I liked the idea of a school strike. So I developed that idea and tried to get the other young people to join me, but no one was really interested. They thought that a Swedish version of the Zero Hour march was going to have a bigger impact. So I went on planning the school strike all by myself and after that I didn't participate in any more meetings.

When I told my parents about my plans they weren't very fond of it. They did not support the idea of school striking and they said that if I were to do this I would have to do it completely by myself and with no support from them.
On the 20 of august I sat down outside the Swedish Parliament. I handed out fliers with a long list of facts about the climate crisis and explanations on why I was striking. The first thing I did was to post on Twitter and Instagram what I was doing and it soon went viral. Then journalists and newspapers started to come. A Swedish entrepreneur and business man active in the climate movement, Ingmar Rentzhog, was among the first to arrive. He spoke with me and took pictures that he posted on Facebook. That was the first time I had ever met or spoken with him. I had not communicated or encountered with him ever before.

Many people love to spread rumors saying that I have people "behind me" or that I'm being "paid" or "used" to do what I'm doing. But there is no one "behind" me except for  myself. My parents were as far from climate activists as possible before I made them aware of the situation.
I am not part of any organization. I sometimes support and cooperate with several NGOs that work with the climate and environment. But I am absolutely independent and I only represent myself. And I do what I do completely for free, I have not received any money or any promise of future payments in any form at all. And nor has anyone linked to me or my family done so.
And of course it will stay this way. I have not met one single climate activist who is  fighting for the climate for money. That idea is completely absurd.
Furthermore I only travel with permission from my school and my parents pay for tickets and accommodations.

My family has written a book together about our family and how me and my sister Beata have influenced my parents way of thinking and seeing the world, especially when it comes to the climate. And about our diagnoses.
That book was due to be released in May. But since there was a major disagreement with the book company, we ended up changing to a new publisher and so the book was released in august instead.
Before the book was released my parents made it clear that their possible profits from the book "Scener ur hjärtat" will be going to 8 different charities working with environment, children with diagnoses and animal rights.

And yes, I write my own speeches. But since I know that what I say is going to reach many, many people I often ask for input. I also have a few scientists that I frequently ask for help on how to express certain complicated matters. I want everything to be absolutely correct so that I don't spread incorrect facts, or things that can be misunderstood.

Some people mock me for my diagnosis. But Asperger is not a disease, it's a gift. People also say that since I have Asperger I couldn't possibly have put myself in this position. But that's exactly why I did this. Because if I would have been "normal" and social I would have organized myself in an organisation, or started an organisation by myself. But since I am not that good at socializing I did this instead. I was so frustrated that nothing was being done about the climate crisis and I felt like I had to do something, anything. And sometimes NOT doing things - like just sitting down outside the parliament - speaks much louder than doing things. Just like a whisper sometimes is louder than shouting.

Also there is one complaint that I "sound and write like an adult". And to that I can only say; don't you think that a 16-year old can speak for herself? There's also some people who say that I oversimplify things. For example when I say that "the climate crisis is a black and white issue", "we need to stop the emissions of greenhouse gases" and "I want you to panic". But that I only say because it's true. Yes, the climate crisis is the most complex issue that we have ever faced and it's going to take everything from our part to "stop it". But the solution is black and white; we need to stop the emissions of greenhouse gases.
Because either we limit the warming to 1,5 degrees C over pre industrial levels, or we don't. Either we reach a tipping point where we start a chain reaction with events way beyond human control, or we don't. Either we go on as a civilization, or we don't. There are no gray areas when it comes to survival.
And when I say that I want you to panic I mean that we need to treat the crisis as a crisis. When your house is on fire you don't sit down and talk about how nice you can rebuild it once you put out the fire. If your house is on fire you run outside and make sure that everyone is out while you call the fire department. That requires some level of panic.

There is one other argument that I can't do anything about. And that is the fact that I'm "just a child and we shouldn't be listening to children." But that is easily fixed - just start to listen to the rock solid science instead. Because if everyone listened to the scientists and the facts that I constantly refer to - then no one would have to listen to me or any of the other hundreds of thousands of school children on strike for the climate across the world. Then we could all go back to school.
I am just a messenger, and yet I get all this hate. I am not saying anything new, I am just saying what scientists have repeatedly said for decades. And I agree with you, I'm too young to do this. We children shouldn't have to do this. But since almost no one is doing anything, and our very future is at risk, we feel like we have to continue.


And if you have any other concern or doubt about me, then you can listen to my TED talk ( https://www.ted.com/talks/greta_thunberg_the_disarming_case_to_act_right_now_on_climate/up-next ), in which I talk about how my interest for the climate and environment began. 

And thank you everyone for your kind support! It brings me hope.
/Greta

Ps I was briefly a youth advisor for the board of the non profit foundation "We don't have time". It turns out they used my name as part of another branch of their organisation that is a start up business. They have admitted clearly that they did so without the knowledge of me or my family. I no longer have any connection to "We don't have time". Nor does anyone in my family. They have deeply apologised for what has happened and I have accepted their apology.