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That's a huge amount of negative, and highly inaccurate, opinion of someone you claim to have paid very little attention to. Yet you've presented it backwards.

That's a huge amount of negative, and highly inaccurate, opinion of someone you claim to have paid very little attention to. Yet you've presented it backwards. She has made a point of never travelling by air. All her journeys within Europe have been by rail. She went because as the schools strikes spread across Europe, she has been invited. She crossed the Atlantic to next week's UN summit, as a racing yacht which was going to make the journey anyway, offered her a place on board. Governments around Europe and the EU parliament have again invited her to speak. So she has. So what to do, tell them all to piss off?

DoreenMichele 7y ago
A. She's a child. She cannot possibly be engineering this without the aid and approval of many adults, starting with the cooperation and permission of her parents. Pretending that a legal minor has this much agency is a lie on the face of it. If she were having sex with all these adults, everyone would call that statutory rape (and worse). Everyone would decry "How can you blatantly use a child like that?!!!" But her being used politically seems fine to most people. B. The Pope should be tending his own flock and cleaning up his own mess. Him using a child like her to further his own political ends makes me go "Gee, I wonder why Arch Bishops and the like seem to think using children to meet their sexual needs is A-okay!". The Pope owes her an apology in my mind. I don't harp on this stuff in part because I'm not Catholic and I have a grudging respect for the work he has done to clean up the mess with the Catholic church, but I was a stay-at-home mom for a lot of years and I was very protective of my own special-needs sons. I have seen her described as autistic. Why are her parents allowing this? I don't get that. C. The internet exists. Video exists. If she is so much more holier than thou, she could create a website (as her primary means to share her message) and she could do her testimony at these events she is invited to via video conferencing/prerecorded video. When you want to be the face of a moral argument, it isn't enough to not be guilty of X. There needs to be no appearance of impropriety. If you have to explain to people that gallivanting all over the world is somehow totes different here because it was by train and other vehicles that "were going there anyway," instead of saying "I refuse to complain about traffic while being traffic," then you are diluting your message. Gandhi did a lot of things for which I think he deserves criticism, such as sleeping with naked girls to supposedly prove to himself he could resist temptation. But he succeeded in his goal because he walked the walk on things pertinent to his message concerning how to get economically free of England. He wore very little and wove what little he wore. He didn't argue that other people should burn their British clothes, but he needed to dress appropriately for a world leader so he needed to be an exception. I could probably find other things to say here, but I'm very much regretting saying anything at all. I've paid very little attention to the whole thing because the whole thing strikes me as bullshit theater using a child as its political puppet, so none of it sits well with me, not as a mother and not as an environmental studies major who has endeavored to live by my beliefs instead of lecturing the world to shrink its carbon footprint while I do otherwise. I may never get much press. I get that. But I'm comfortable with the choices I am making for myself without trying to hold other people to a standard I can't be arsed to try to meet because, well, you know, my message is so important or something.
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  Yes, she's a child of 16. Whether her parents supported her early solo protest I do not know. Yet it seems to be clearly important to her, as it continued and grew. So her parents choose to support her - so what? I would sincerely hope that I would have fully supported my kids at that age, had there been an issue they felt quite as passionately for at 16. She's clearly entitled to express an opinion, and old enough to form them. I had political and plenty of other opinions at 16, and I'm sure you did. You probably still feel the same on some. All political parties have youth branches that are freely permitted without global cries of indoctrination! Though some may verge into indoctrination. Climate's an issue that will clearly affect a youngster's future more than yours or mine - I'm past half way in my life, they have 60+ years ahead. My kids see the climate response in far starker terms than most adults, though they're a little older. If she were mere puppet or pawn, I'm pretty sure the resentment, insincerity and unwillingness would be clear and bloody obvious. Being young doesn't discount you from having a opinion, or wanting to change something. So is it discounting the opinion simply because she has proven somewhat successful? It certainly seems that way in many of the media attacks she's received - and brushed off. There was a coal or oil trade body that recently put out a wonderful statement something along the lines of seeing her as one of their biggest threats. Great reason to keep on doing what she is doing then, no? Doubly so if politicians are actually bloody listening. That some sections of the media paint her as $deity and others as $anti-deity is absurd and wrong. On mention of autistic, I'm at a loss. She's described as autistic as it's an accepted term for someone on the autism spectrum in Europe. My friend with an autistic child would, and has, called them autistic when the need arises. Why is that a problem? How would someone with autism be properly referred to in the US? How is it inappropriate? She's certainly freely mentioned it in interview in the past. Some sections of the media have tried to use it as a means of personal attack, but surely better to acknowledge her situation than try to hide it? OK, so you think we should not travel at all if we have an opinion on fixing emissions. That rules out all of us. That seems far too convenient to one side of the argument though. I couldn't go to a demonstration without travelling. So sign an online petition instead or throw up another blog I guess. That doesn't get to influence decision makers though. We all get to make trade-offs within the globalised system we have right now. Whilst agitating and striving to improve it with the least impact practicable on whatever issue we find important.

DoreenMichele 7y ago

A. She's a child. She cannot possibly be engineering this without the aid and approval of many adults, starting with the cooperation and permission of her parents. Pretending that a legal minor has this much agency is a lie on the face of it. If she were having sex with all these adults, everyone would call that statutory rape (and worse). Everyone would decry "How can you blatantly use a child like that?!!!" But her being used politically seems fine to most people. B. The Pope should be tending his own flock and cleaning up his own mess. Him using a child like her to further his own political ends makes me go "Gee, I wonder why Arch Bishops and the like seem to think using children to meet their sexual needs is A-okay!". The Pope owes her an apology in my mind. I don't harp on this stuff in part because I'm not Catholic and I have a grudging respect for the work he has done to clean up the mess with the Catholic church, but I was a stay-at-home mom for a lot of years and I was very protective of my own special-needs sons. I have seen her described as autistic. Why are her parents allowing this? I don't get that. C. The internet exists. Video exists. If she is so much more holier than thou, she could create a website (as her primary means to share her message) and she could do her testimony at these events she is invited to via video conferencing/prerecorded video. When you want to be the face of a moral argument, it isn't enough to not be guilty of X. There needs to be no appearance of impropriety. If you have to explain to people that gallivanting all over the world is somehow totes different here because it was by train and other vehicles that "were going there anyway," instead of saying "I refuse to complain about traffic while being traffic," then you are diluting your message. Gandhi did a lot of things for which I think he deserves criticism, such as sleeping with naked girls to supposedly prove to himself he could resist temptation. But he succeeded in his goal because he walked the walk on things pertinent to his message concerning how to get economically free of England. He wore very little and wove what little he wore. He didn't argue that other people should burn their British clothes, but he needed to dress appropriately for a world leader so he needed to be an exception. I could probably find other things to say here, but I'm very much regretting saying anything at all. I've paid very little attention to the whole thing because the whole thing strikes me as bullshit theater using a child as its political puppet, so none of it sits well with me, not as a mother and not as an environmental studies major who has endeavored to live by my beliefs instead of lecturing the world to shrink its carbon footprint while I do otherwise. I may never get much press. I get that. But I'm comfortable with the choices I am making for myself without trying to hold other people to a standard I can't be arsed to try to meet because, well, you know, my message is so important or something.

NeedMoreTea 7y ago
Yes, she's a child of 16. Whether her parents supported her early solo protest I do not know. Yet it seems to be clearly important to her, as it continued and grew. So her parents choose to support her - so what? I would sincerely hope that I would have fully supported my kids at that age, had there been an issue they felt quite as passionately for at 16. She's clearly entitled to express an opinion, and old enough to form them. I had political and plenty of other opinions at 16, and I'm sure you did. You probably still feel the same on some. All political parties have youth branches that are freely permitted without global cries of indoctrination! Though some may verge into indoctrination. Climate's an issue that will clearly affect a youngster's future more than yours or mine - I'm past half way in my life, they have 60+ years ahead. My kids see the climate response in far starker terms than most adults, though they're a little older. If she were mere puppet or pawn, I'm pretty sure the resentment, insincerity and unwillingness would be clear and bloody obvious. Being young doesn't discount you from having a opinion, or wanting to change something. So is it discounting the opinion simply because she has proven somewhat successful? It certainly seems that way in many of the media attacks she's received - and brushed off. There was a coal or oil trade body that recently put out a wonderful statement something along the lines of seeing her as one of their biggest threats. Great reason to keep on doing what she is doing then, no? Doubly so if politicians are actually bloody listening. That some sections of the media paint her as $deity and others as $anti-deity is absurd and wrong. On mention of autistic, I'm at a loss. She's described as autistic as it's an accepted term for someone on the autism spectrum in Europe. My friend with an autistic child would, and has, called them autistic when the need arises. Why is that a problem? How would someone with autism be properly referred to in the US? How is it inappropriate? She's certainly freely mentioned it in interview in the past. Some sections of the media have tried to use it as a means of personal attack, but surely better to acknowledge her situation than try to hide it? OK, so you think we should not travel at all if we have an opinion on fixing emissions. That rules out all of us. That seems far too convenient to one side of the argument though. I couldn't go to a demonstration without travelling. So sign an online petition instead or throw up another blog I guess. That doesn't get to influence decision makers though. We all get to make trade-offs within the globalised system we have right now. Whilst agitating and striving to improve it with the least impact practicable on whatever issue we find important.