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16 Year Old Climate Activist Greta Thunberg to UN: "You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words"
- Thread starter Xaszatm
- Start date
Maybe she was a bit "over the top" for some, but how can you not get angry at what is currently happening?
We have to react now and we have to give our best, so that our kids (and their kids) can enjoy this beautiful planet.
Mankind has the power to change the fate of the planet but everyone has to do a little bit for it.
We have to react now and we have to give our best, so that our kids (and their kids) can enjoy this beautiful planet.
Mankind has the power to change the fate of the planet but everyone has to do a little bit for it.
The single biggest impact to climate change would be for people to change their diet.
Instead, people will praise this girl and shit on governments through mouthfuls of steak.
Most people still don't grasp what is about to happen. It's one thing to say that you worry about climate change. It's another thing entirely to truly understand how things will change for everyone.
I know that it isn't as easy as it seems, but we had a long time to prepare and to change. I can't accept that in the last 100 years companies couldn't find any way to reduce the harm they were causing. I cannot cause a meaningful change, activists cannot cause a meaningful change. There are very few few people with the power to do something meaningful, and i don't trust that they will do anything different than what their predecessors were doing in the last century. We can clean all the beaches we want and never use straws again, but at the end of the day we are at the mercy of people who didn't give a shit until the shit hit the fan.
I understand where you're coming from but i just have no empathy left. We're either headed for an economic collapse or an environmental collapse, and i don't think the world can bounce back when there are no animals left on earth and crops won't grow. We basically waited until the last minute to do our assignment and now we just hope we can pass the class.
If enough people gave up meat, for example, there could be real change. It is absolutely on the individual as well.
But you have to realize that that "if" is big enough that it'd be naive to bet the farm on people voluntarily changing their habits on a scale that would make a difference.
Not to mention the fact that people are caught in a system that requires harmful behavior to function, driving to work for example. Or the fact that meat and dairy is subsidized while alternatives are more expensive.
Or the simple fact that stagnant wages and the erosion of social securities has made simple surviving just about all most people want to and can think about. Which is yet another reason why they won't easily go for the more expensive meat substitutes in the supermarket.
You have to think about the bigger picture and it aint pretty.
And that kind of defeatist attitude is a huge part of the problem.
Alternatives are not expensive. A vegan diet can be built using basic components that are very cheap: vegetables, fruits, grains, pulses... people lack the motivation which is the main problem. It doesn't even take that much extra time.
People don't try, very often, because they think "what's the point?".
We need to drop that attitude, fast.
I don't believe in free will. What people are is a result of their environment when being raised, and our current environment/society is created top down, mostly by the rich and elite. For people to stop eating meat, that change will have to start with the elites, and even then, you are gonna be fighting the nature of people who have already grown up to eat meat, and will therefore be teaching their children to eat meat too. Society changes VERY slowly.
I NEVER liked those who push for all individuals to just "change", and then complain that everyone is immoral when people continue on the way they always were.
We have more than enough free will to make a change ourselves.
Stop making excuses and do it.
Wrong, it's called being realistic.
In case you don't speak Dutch, it says: "Meat consumption up over all despite apparent popularity of meat substitutes."
We need radical policy changes and we need them yesterday.
And everyone in this thread can help that by stopping their meat consumption and putting calls in to their local reps and getting involved in grass movements, etc...
Stop making excuses. Start helping.
I read a lot of stuff fun the longevity expert, Valter Longo. A mostly Mediterranean based vegan diet with occasional oily fish is seemingly the best way to live longer and healthier.
Maybe we'd get more success appealing to people in a way were the benefit is there's since they don't care about the planet.
Indeed. It's so easy to eat less beef. Or meat in general, for that matter. Jesus fucking christ people.
I mean there is only so much one can do. My wife and I cut down on traveling (have not been on an airplane since 2015) we don't own a car and only use public traffic, our flat usually has between 19 and 20 degree celcius during the winter because we don't use the heater, we cut down our meat consumption (and we only eat beef for special occasions)...but than you hear friends talking about flying 3-4 times next year, buying a new huge car that is not a hybrid or electric. like, we are not even a drop in the ocean.
Humans are quite literally nothing more that organic meat robots that believe themselves special because they experience the illusion of consciousness.
You can get a few people to change by yelling about it online and convincing them real life, thus introducing more variables into their life that may result in them choosing veganism, but you are only ever gonna convince people who were already somewhat predisposed to it due to who they are as a person.
For the rest of society, reform of society is a REQUIREMENT, and this takes a LONG time, or it takes a disaster to shake people up very thoroughly, and that disaster will probably be when it's too late.
No, you're shifting blame.
If you think it'd be near impossible for everyone to switch their diet. How hard do you think it would be to implement radical policy changes? Because, if you like it or not, those radical policy changes will end up impacting regular folk a whole lot more than having to switch out meat and dairy.
At the end of the day, both things will have to happen. And both things can happen at the same time. They are not mutually exclusive. But the shifting blame attitude, hoping for someone else to fix the problem (with the hope that that will not massively impact the average person) is just so naive and lazy. If we can't even switch our diet, how the fuck are we going to rework our entire civilization.
(Not a direct attack on you Fallout, but I'm just so tired of this way of thinking I'm seeing an awful lot around here)
by spouting BS like this we will not convince anyone. did you get here from r/atheism and got lost?
You're doing good things. Ever thought about activism of some kind?
And reform starts when people call for it. Like Greta.
If all the people reading this started to involve themselves in activism, you never know which action could spark something.
We need to get our heads out of the sand, stop waiting on changes from above, and start acting. Now.
Yes, I agree. Greta is very important, and activism is very important.
I just don't like how so many people like to blame the individual, because for most individuals may as well be slaves to the upper classes, and the changes they can make are nothing compared to what the upper class can do, and what they are not doing.
You probably misunderstand me in some way.
Of course I do not think policy changes will not have a massive effect on the average person. I'm hoping for the exact opposite in fact.
For the record, I have completely cut meat out of my own diet. But at the same time it's obvious, see the source I cited, it's not happening on a big enough scale. Your justified exasperation and disappointment therefore IS THE EXACT REASON why policy changes are needed.
Hoping for change based on moral convictions in a system that is entirely adverse to such change is futile. Also, just look at some of the threads on veganism and the carbon footprint of meat eating and how receptive people are of that idea right here on ERA, and this is supposed to some kind of bastion for 'the left' for god's sake.
Eh yeah, mostly agreed, but the absolute best case scenario is that this activism will force the 'above' to make the changes that are needed.
Activists will not inspire the masses to eat less meat, not on a scale that will save us anyway. Never mind the fact that meat is just one of the many many things that are contributing to co2.
We are to blame. If we're not taking part in activism and doing our part, we are absolutely part of the problem.
We have more power than you think, we need to start using it.
Cheers, definitely misunderstood you. My bad.
Definitely on board with your ideas there.
If all politicians came together on this issue them the individuals wouldn't have a fucking choice
The global economy is so new It's crazy we're going to allow its machinations to fuck up the planet. It really is a monster with its tentacles across the globe.
Theoretically, if everyone everywhere just got up and did something, then yeah, we would have a lot of power to throw around.
The thing is, this isn't going to happen. To be more specific, it's not gonna happen until we reach a point where the majority of us can no longer afford modern luxuries. (And this point probably won't be reached until the damage done to our world is IMMENSE).
And now is the point where a lot of people would call those in society who don't act bad people. I would say that the kind of people who say that are probably the kind of people who think propaganda has no effect on them.
Uhmm but if everyone would suddenly stop eating red meat and using bikes to get to work then you have already two major branches of industry which would extinct overnight or at least needs to adjust to the new reality. Why do you think vegan is becoming so popular among every restaurant? Because people demand it! Ofc our action and buying behavior influences any big corporation. Just ask Microsoft and their Xbox One announcement. Prime example of how much power consumers can have :D
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Yeah...
I'm probably a bit too fatalistic on climate change to be able to offer any good input honestly.
I just hit that point of complete despair a while back.
People like to think that Autistic people can't think for themselves, and young people also can't think for themselves.
Therefore, she MUST have been groomed to say these things. Having been an Autistic Teen 5 years ago, I can attest to how these people are idiots.
The prevalent attitude in my country's online discourse is that she is yet another stooge, exploited by Western nations and its liberal media to try to stall the improvement of quality of life in developing countries like us.
No, I don't believe it's true. I also believe in the fact of man made climate change. But it raises an interesting question to y'all: how do we, more knowledgeable people, persuade developing countries into reversing or even simply slowing down the catastrophe?
I am defeatist but only because I've seen what others think, and I myself don't have an answer to that.
No, I don't believe it's true. I also believe in the fact of man made climate change. But it raises an interesting question to y'all: how do we, more knowledgeable people, persuade developing countries into reversing or even simply slowing down the catastrophe?
I am defeatist but only because I've seen what others think, and I myself don't have an answer to that.
We start by leading by example.
We continue by getting involved in grass roots movements, activism, and contacting our local reps.
The more people do this, the more chance there is for change.
Or we can sit on message boards and say "what can we do?" over and over.
Otherwise, I suspect many are reading her autistic behaviours - in part because of others framing them - as signs of abuse. Her overly dramatic inflection? Clearly the sign of trauma! And not... uh... the kind of media and references for emoting she's taken in.
Very brave, and she is 100% correct.
I think USA and EUROPE should lead by example and they need to invest to make greener energy systems more economicly attractive to less developed countries, more attractive then china's and Russia fossil feul energy plants.
But unfortunately it comes down to cost, and fossil fuels are cheaper then green energy, no way China and Russia are going to take a route which is better for the environment but puts them in a weaker geopolitical position.
I think USA and EUROPE should lead by example and they need to invest to make greener energy systems more economicly attractive to less developed countries, more attractive then china's and Russia fossil feul energy plants.
But unfortunately it comes down to cost, and fossil fuels are cheaper then green energy, no way China and Russia are going to take a route which is better for the environment but puts them in a weaker geopolitical position.
Another thread were the usual suspects of Western white era do not want to change in the slightest their consumption habits.
You can't go around giving Democrats the benefit of the doubt when it comes to making meaningful changes in this country due to systemic barriers and obstruction, then turn around and blame climate activists for not successfully changing the world. You could maybe argue there isn't enough activism, but fuck trying to pin the blame on people actually trying to do something. It's not their fault human beings were programmed to be selfish assholes.
Let's stop eating meat, and ride bikes to work. We can celebrate our achievements as the world burns anyway because the economic system is still there, but cheers!
I acknowledged the activists don't bear the majority of the blame, but doing the same thing with activism hasn't worked and it seems like they're not changing anything in how to achieve the victory we need. The fact that the movement relies on a 16 year old as a beacon of hope is not a sign it's an advantage, no-one should have shoulder that responsibility by themselves and certainly not a teenager. They didn't save the world, what do you expect me to respond to that? We lost and now climate change is coming for us. It is their fault they didn't find the solution to get the world on track, that's what they signed on for. It's immensely disappointing in the shadow of the movements who managed to achieve large goals, like the civil rights and LGBT + movements. Where are the leaders who are going to us save us?
Trump sarcastically mocking her and simultaneously dismissing this emergency in one tweet. God bless the USA, right? #bebest
That would work. An indirect method like quota on how much land can be used for livestock feed would also work well. Some estimates have around 30% of the planets farmable land being used to grow livestock feed. The vast majority of that going to beef cattle. That's ridiculously inefficient even without looking at it through a climate change lense.