Why should I care about what this person thinks? What are her credentials?

It seems to me, Greta Thunberg is(was?) in the spotlight because her mothers celebrity status in Sweden, granting her easy access to free PR.

She's young and will feel the full force of some peoples ignorant stupidity.

So is every other kid born the same year, she's famous because she's famous because she's famous. But anyway, there's worse people in the limelight, to worry about her.

Her message and the way she conveyed it is, for the millions that it resonated with, more important than who her mother is or her credentials (what credentials are you expecting of a teenager?)

But that's more like the problem, not an argument.

it tells me people will let you do anything to them, if only you add enough emotions, otherwise they don't care.

Her credentials are her ability to rally support/interest in climate issues. What credentials would satisfy you? Folks with PhDs and political accolades have been speaking the same points for years, and clearly they haven't bread success.

Frankly a question to ask is why you feel a person like her isn't encouraged to speak out on these issues, and isn't worth listening to? Is she saying things that aren't true? If so it seems like the thing to do would be to speak to those misstatements.

Much more likely though, systemic sexism and ageism make it difficult for folks to accept young women in leadership roles, particularly when their message asks for change from the status quo.

So the reasons you should care about what this person is saying are 1) she is speaking truths about climate change 2) the truths are about existential threats to humanity and she is able to communicate the seriousness of those threats 3) she is able to rally groups of like minded people with a common vision of those threats and their seriousness 4) paying attention to her and uplifting her leadership role helps erode systemic sexism and ageism.

All fair points, but what actionable advice is she offering?

Appreciate your engagement.

I think it very much depends on your situation. I personally look to her as a role model who's demonstrated the value of strikes and collective action in influencing climate legislation.

Others might take inspiration in her criticisms of air transportation (something that seems to be growing in popularity these days) but I'm not able to give up seeing my aging parents across the country a few more times so that point hasn't reached me quite yet.

Her wikipedia page is worth 5 minutes if you can spare them and maybe go from there.

Immediately stop using fossil fuels (and let most people die). That seems to be her general advice.

Come on! Reorganization to cut fossil fuel by 5% year on is doable and hits the 2 degrees target, and no one dies. The deaths are on the side of doing nothing to the status quo and letting the world burn.

I'm talking about what Greta has been advising for in speeches. The former part pretty much verbatim, the latter implied as a result of the former.

I also find the aversion to nuclear somewhat problematic as well. Especially in the interior of Europe and the US.

As I said in another part of this post, I still think there are more pressing issues with far more imminent problems and implications for life.

“Listen bub, said the slaveowner - if you’ve got a better system I’d be delighted to hear it!”

idk maybe it’s not the job of literal teenagers to come up with solutioning that meets the arbitrary whims and constrains you’ll doubtlessly impose on them? They live within the system that you have built for them.

There have always been very obvious solutions: heavy taxation on carbon emissions, with economic sanctions and perhaps eventually military action for willful and deliberate violations. The problem is that you as adults don’t consider that feasible for your own arbitrary political reasons, and so you’ll push us down the path of collapsing the climate rather than rock the boat.

Just like those Chinese fishing boats cleaning out fisheries etc: really you are only a 50 pound dumb-bomb from a solution if it came down to it. China can’t project force, they certainly can’t defend every fishing boat spread across every coastline on the globe, and if they rattle back then you retaliate in some other way. They need us too, for now. They would quickly see the light on keeping their boats in check. But you can’t solve the problem within the arbitrary political constraints set up by the current regimes.

We know the status quo doesn’t work and will collapse the climate within decades, and all anyone can do is ask why solutioning can’t be oriented around maintaining and upholding that same status quo. If you don’t change the game we all lose in the long run. But muh stock market will go down if we tax carbon!!!

The laws of the sea say one thing and china obviously won’t sign a new one that removes their right to strip-mine Greenland fisheries or whatever. And no nation will sign a treaty which truly penalizes them for collapsing the climate. And so the question is what next? You assume the answer is “nothing”, but it doesn’t have to be. And it in fact climate change itself is going to have a say too - political and military instability is already identified as a prime outcome from climate change for precisely this reason. You’re whistling past the graveyard.

What happens when some smaller nation (or group) decides drones look like a pretty good way to enforce some of this? We already see them effective with small state sponsors. Can you keep shipping safe around the entire coast of Africa, and every part of the southeast Asian region? Especially when we have absolutely democratized the means of warfare and driven the cost down to zero.

That’s the world she’s growing up and reacting to. You have truly given her and her generation nothing except a world on fire and you laugh at her for even recognizing or acknowledging this let alone attempting to reverse it, and I think that’s not going to work out as “politely” as you think.

But if you’re too shortsighted and intransigent to solve your own maze that you’ve built for yourself… why would you ever expect a literal child to be able to do it? Of course there are solutions, it just can’t be solved within your self-contradictory system. And as with anything - it’s difficult to get someone to acknowledge something when their paycheck (or quality of life, retirement fund, etc) depends on them not acknowledging it.

But ultimately, I think the people who die of climate change aren't just going to go quietly into the good night like you hope. and they get a vote too - they get all of the "boxes of democracy" in fact.

Fortunately, she’s written a lot so you can simply find out with a quick search. For example:

https://beta.ctvnews.ca/national/sci-tech/2019/9/27/1_461325...

> Fly less or not at all, Cut down on meat consumption or go vegan, Join an activist movement, Vote

Two of those are immediately actionable and have significant impact, and the latter two are really important for building political will to overcome the efforts by a rich but minority group who profit from the status quo and whose money will insulate them from many downsides.

https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/davos-2023-keep...

> The 20-year-old Swedish activist stuck to her stance against all new oil, gas and coal developments during the fringe event, that was not part of the official conference agenda.

This letter is stronger but calls for things which could be done immediately with no technological breakthroughs needed like removing subsidies for fossil fuels and not expanding usage:

https://climateemergencydeclaration.org/open-letter-from-gre...

I don't even know her mother or the status of her mother, and read that from your comment for the first time today. I tend to focus on the message, not the ancestors.

And if she would say something completely different about the climate you would also listen to her? Why is her opinion so important?

Because of shaking some people awake. And because of the content of the message. To me personally it could have been anyone delivering the message, but I am glad, that she reached lots of people. Starting this at the age of 12 (iirc) is remarkable, even if it does not change the message. Although one could argue, that it does add a kind of meta message: "Look here, I am a child! I will have to bear the consequences of your (in)actions!"

She points at the Moon and you look at the finger. My dog can do better.

What is your goal with this question? What are you trying to accomplish? Are you confused about the existence or nature of climate collapse or its action-ability? Are you unhappy about Greta’s contribution to the conversation and hoping to discredit her? Could you clarify your intentions?

What I feel from your contribution is simply interference and pulling the conversation in an unproductive direction. There’s enough of that I think.

What I’m more curious about is - what are some leverage points to shift toward solutions. Denialism is not an acceptable solution from where I stand.

Climate always changed. Astrophysics and geologists do not agree with that the cause of climate change are humans and they are systematically put apart in all climate-change-related topics.

I am suspicious there is quite a bit of social engineering behind this.

If someone can explain to me much of what it is here and blame humans for everything... https://climatechange.procon.org/

That's just not true.

Read the Wikipedia article about climate change and not some random climate change denier sources.

It is what I could find here. I have more sources but not in internet and in spanish language mostly though this is strictly an english speaking page.

Why I should believe Wikipedia? I have found plenty of times inaccurate infirmation in it as well.

I will let it go since it is a highly politicized topic but I think that bunch of negatives without further proof is not fair.

Life is not fair though :)

Wikipedia has all primary sources at the bottom linked.

You don't need to trust wikipedia. You should trust the sources linked.

Wikipedia is basically a group collaboration on fact aggregation.

Why should you believe a random blog or a blog from an oil company more than a open collaborative group project which works transparent (site history+talk feature)?

You shouldn't.

There are plenty of ways to create bias.

For example, omitting relevant things, focusing on only some considered more important by some people, using impressive data to impress people with no deep idea sbout a topic without knowing how to interpret data relative to the full phenomena... the list is endless.

What is a fact is that politicians and secret services, according to Pedro Baños, often enter and manipulate in subversive ways information, specifically he mentioned controversial Wikipefia articles. He is a retired military.

So my advice is that we should all doubt by default about every topic that is politicized and gather information from as many sources as we can that we have a reason to trust. An open place where absolutely everyone can add and remove things is not a source I would take as primary. Yes , there are links. But the time it takes to go through all that is unfeasible for most people.

My advice: choose many sources, compare. Specifically, there is nothing as enriching as putting people with different opinions face to face for a live discussion. I fo not like arguments like 80% of "experts" say... that is not an argument... and science has plenty of examples where almost everyone was wrong, from whcih this man is an example: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis

He was beaten to death and enjailed in a madhouse, even their mates ignored him at the time. He was right.

What usually happens in these forums is that they do a lot of cherry-picking, or, at least, that is what I believe. I could be wrong, though.

> climate always changed.

Over much (much much) larger timescales, with much (much much) smoother transitions (due to the timescale).

Relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1732/