5 ms·
Greta Thunberg
- rudiv 7y agoI mean, she's great and I'm a fan, but I don't get why this is here?
- diggan 7y agoFeel like this section of the guidelines have to be added above the commenting box soon. > What to Submit > On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. From https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html TLDR: it's here because people found it interesting and upvoted it.
- luckylion 7y agoVirtue signalling, mostly.
- jimnotgym 7y agoI think Greta, along with David Attenborough (and the programmes he voices) and Extinction Rebellion have really put climate change back in the news in the UK. Extinction Rebellion ran some of the most effective (or disruptive) protests seen in recent years, all without getting violent. Building a skatepark on a London bridge, dropping a yacht at a busy junction, gluing protesters to stuff. All new, all guaranteed to annoy the climate change denying right. Greta's speech to the EU parliament really impressed me. Seeing the deniers personal attacks on her made me sure she is making a difference.
- vixen99 7y agoDoes this mean you favor the end of air travel and high speed rail everywhere by 2025 plus a general strike? That's what Greta is asking for - a complete cessation of carbon emission by that date. Please indicate how you think this will pan out.
- AlphaGeekZulu 7y agoThis is the kind of logic, that always kills me: "There is no climate catastrophe ahead, because avoiding it would mean unthinkable restrictions".
- jimnotgym 7y agoIt is almost as bad as the logic that since I think Greta is doing a __good_thing__, I must therefore wholeheartedly agree with every point she ever makes.
- AlphaGeekZulu 7y agoExactly! ;-)
- black6 7y agoPoster child for the child abuse the climate alarmists have wrought upon a generation. Are the lasting psychological effects of instilling so much fear in so many children really worth it? We’re not all going to die on account of climate change—nor will our grandchildren. Endless war in the Middle East and child labor in rare-earth metal mines in Africa are what children should be speaking to the UN about.
- 0815test 7y agoI actually agree about the scaremongering coming out of the Thunberg camp, but come on, it's not like she's doing this personally. She's a figurehead for a relatively niche movement that's trying to make it big, and she can surely handle this role. It's not any harder than the things that she did engage with personally in a decision-making role - namely, the initial school protests (that she was entirely right about, btw - the Thunberg/post-millennial generation is entirely disenfranchised wrt. lots of crucial issues not just climate, and they should be very visibly upset about this!)
- nickparker 7y agoOur grandchildren are probably not going to die of climate catastrophe. However, that “probably” is sufficiently weak to justify a huge urgent response. An asteroid with a 3% chance of wiping out hundreds of millions of people in 60 years would motivate us to deflect it. The long tail of climate outcomes is a worse threat than that hypothetical, and we’re doing precious little to prevent it.
- atoav 7y agoYou probably know how feedback (both positive and negative) work in systems. If not, it is the same process that makes a microphone scream if you are too close to the speaker. Often the area between no feedback and full on feedback is really tiny. Climate is similar – with the tipping point according to current models around +1.5°C average temperature. That means if we manag to limit it to <1.5°C we won't enter a region where climate warming accelerates itself to a degree that makes it unstoppable. And there is literally no debate about these mechanisms – there is a >97% consensus on this. Of course we can do the silly thing and try out what happens, ruin our own existential basis, get the predicted migrant waves, conflicts, economic damages etc. Or we could do what a civilized society would do and act accordingly.
- pimmen 7y agoIt's sad that only MPs are allowed to speak in the Swedish parliament. There are quite a few politicians who don't take her seriously here, in her own native country.