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Reading Twitter today I'm ashamed of how many people are commenting negative things about her and her work. Say what you will about the cause, but how brave do

Reading Twitter today I'm ashamed of how many people are commenting negative things about her and her work. Say what you will about the cause, but how brave do you have to be to be able to stand up and speak your heart to world leaders and to be a focal point of hate from political pundits and not back down? Certainly far more courage than I had at that age, or even have now.

srbby 7y ago
How brave do you have to be to be invited to a place where everybody already knows what you are going to say and they are going to ignore you anyway? This is just the media circus of the month. Well, it's even worse because it's a repeat of the two kids from "March For Our Lives". Boring.
- atlasunshrugged 7y ago
  Maybe everyone already knows what you're going to say and they're going to ignore her but look at all the earned media she's getting. Maybe almost everyone in that audience is too jaded to care, but I'd bet that she's having at least some influence in creating a broader movement (or adding fuel to existing climate movements) globally around the issue. Even media circuses can be useful.
  - srbby 7y ago
    It's going to end like the kids from "March For Our Lives" ended: swimming in complete irrelevance. The media are just milking these kids because emotions sell. All of this is boring and useless, and even the beginning of a worrying trend.
buboard 7y ago
she seems to be enjoying the attention (which is odd for an autistic person) , and inevitably she will receive a lot of abuse. It's not very responsible for the media to promote an underage person so much
- atlasunshrugged 7y ago
  I'm not going to comment on the autistic piece because I'm not qualified enough to know anything about how a person with autism acts but as far as media responsibility, I agree - but I think it's pretty clear that media (at least from what I see mainly watching US media) has abdicated all sense of responsibility for their programming and is entirely driven by what sells. If this is what sells and gets eyeballs then this is what will be on the air.
  - chasd00 7y ago
    this is very true. they'll feed her to a pack of wolves if it will increase ad revenue.
maaaats 7y ago
Yeah, I've seen lots of comments on how she's a left-wing puppet, or why they didn't get some scientist knowing what they speak about up there instead of a kid. But - Why is caring about climate left-wing? - It's the same people ignoring the scientists, that write this crap, so no, a scientist speaking doesn't solve anthing. Unfortunately. It wouldn't have come to this then.
- jansan 7y ago
  Why is caring about climate left-wing? Very simple, because it will be used to increase taxes, taking an even greater share of people's hard earned money. I Germany especially the left loves the concept of a CO2 tax. I hope this helps you understand.
  - lexapro 7y ago
    So spoiling the environment for everyone should be free?
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - ocschwar 7y ago
    There's nothing stopping countries from lowering other taxes along with raising a CO2 tax.
  - maaaats 7y ago
    If that's so, couldn't the right instead find some acceptable ways to handle it (without increasing taxes), instead of sweeping it under the rug?
- bsaul 7y ago
  "It would be best if cold, hard facts were enough" : I think that's the major problem with climate change. We don't observe anything out of the ordinary yet, climate change institutions are trying to warn people based on very complex simulations. You can call simulations cold hard facts, but i think that would be a stretch. The general audience prefer to focus on problems we're having right at the moment.
zorbash 7y ago
Exactly, I even thought of taking a break off Twitter for a few months. It's getting more and more toxic, just like our environment. How can people express such hate, for a 16 old stating what should be obvious?
- Jgrubb 7y ago
  I stopped going habitually a few months back and it's been good. I still check every now and then and it seems to be getting something like 10% worse every month - not enough to notice if you check it every day but if only every couple of weeks the downward trajectory of the discourse and the overall sentiment is really noticeable.
- chasd00 7y ago
  I'm not on Twitter but I know exactly what you mean. These days I check hackernews and a forum for a hobby I'm into and that's it. I'll read google news in the morning but I don't go too far (I stay away from opinion pieces). it's just too toxic and I don't need that in my head.
  - SolaceQuantum 7y ago
    In my experience even HN has had bad faith and low-substance discussion about certain topics like the recent Stallman ousting and tech employees claiming discrimination. They tend to be filled with people who make claims without understanding the context of events, then deny any provided context as illegitimate and continue on repeating their position.
    - chasd00 7y ago
      touche, I admit nothing is going to be completely immune. It is the Internet after all.
      - yc-kraln 7y ago
        I find the separation between "the internet" interesting. You mean... a connected group of all humanity?
AndrewKemendo 7y ago
I guess I'm just not sure what her work is that isn't already being done by others. There are mobs of great people, scientists, activists etc... speaking truth to power about global climate change worldwide and have been doing so for decades. I'm just not clear about what is remarkable about what she's doing aside from her being a teenager. As a relevant counter example, Boyan Slat invented a plastic cleanup device at 16 and has made good progress getting it used in practice. [1] That seems like something that is novel and beneficial. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boyan_Slat https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boyan_Slat
- f3r3nc 7y ago
  sales is just as important as tech
- rusticpenn 7y ago
  Influencing people is vastly underestimated.
- djsumdog 7y ago
  I see her the same way I see parents who brings kids to various protests. I can see wanting to have your kids involved, but do they understand what you're standing for, or are you using them for your point? Obviously she's older/a teenager, but this is still at it's core, an emotional draw. Has she authored papers and done the models? She's a spokeswoman. Even if the intent is different, it's still similar in means and effect to the Nayirah testimony.
- ocschwar 7y ago
  > I guess I'm just not sure what her work is that isn't already being done by others. Making politicians uncomfortable about their careers. Lots of other people have tried and failed. She's succeeding.
  - fwn 7y ago
    > Making politicians uncomfortable about their careers. While this could be true on some deeper level I don't think that this specific event is a good one to base such an assessment on. Being invited to talk to the UN is a great honor from the political establishment and her speech got interrupted by applause several times. I only watched the speech itself, but I have difficulties to see evidence that people there were uncomfortable. edit: This appears to be very controversial? Would someone care to elaborate?
AlgorithmicTime 7y ago
She's a puppet mouthpiece for the climate catastrophist crowd. This is no different than wailing "think of the children!" So, yes, I have only negative things to say about her.
ocschwar 7y ago
I haven't logged into Twitter for years now. And at this point the only Twitter posts I read are Ms. Thunberg's. Much healthier this way.
HyperTalk2 7y ago
You seem confused. The mindless paternal fawning you're currently engaging in is supposed to be directed toward your own offspring, not someone else's.
Freak_NL 7y ago
I wish it was restricted to just Twitter or the usual suspects. Have you looked at the grey comments in this thread? The amount of defeatism, unfounded scepticism, denial, and just pure and nasty ad hominem attacks is sickening. The one potentially positive thing to note may be that denial and anger often come before acceptance. Eventually.
- srbby 7y ago
  I find using kids for political reasons to be problematic. I find using emotions instead of facts to sway the political discourse to be problematic. There are legitimate reasons to be concerned or even angry at this. Maybe not good enough reasons to create an account on Twitter and scream into the void, though.
  - morgancmartin 7y ago
    Agreed. The line ought to be drawn at personal attacks against her. She's 16, a child, personally attacking her is disgusting behavior. By that same token, I also don't care what a 16 y.o. has to say about the state of the world. I just turned 25 a few months ago. Over the past 9 years, since I was 16, I've watched my cognitive abilities continually expand and now have a good feeling for just how ignorant I was when I was 16. I have no idea why this girl was let on stage to begin with and even less of an idea why it's news. Almost as disgusting as the personal attacks are the people whose decision it was to prop up a child on the global stage, for all the world to attack and criticize her, all to advance their political agenda. Gross.
    - mieseratte 7y ago
      This girl had no choice in her life of forced luxury travel, celebrity meetups, and endless media adoration. She takes on all these burdens instead of going to school. Her life is a nightmare scenario for any teenager. We need to respect that and listen. And how dare you criticize a 16 year old, that's not allowed!
      - 7y ago
ReptileMan 7y ago
There is no risk for her so bravery required is zero. If you want brave 16 years old - search for them in Hong Kong protests and the like.
- sjogress 7y ago
  How do you define risk? At her age, and probably even more now, I'd be scared about how the media, politicians, neighbours, peers, and social media would treat me after such a speech.
  - ReptileMan 7y ago
    At her age (okay one year younger) I was busy overthrowing a communist government. One month at the barricades, in the dead of the winter against battons. Didn't consider myself brave at all. We had teen driven revolutions and riots agains governments in the last decade. The least proteser at Gezi park was braver than her. Ditto for arab spring, Venezuela and now against Putin.
- ocschwar 7y ago
  It's not a contest.
hkai 7y ago
When you talk about being brave, what are the consequences that the person is facing, except being famous and being praised by the media? Would that person be expelled from school or put into a jail?
- SauciestGNU 7y ago
  People on the far right have attempted assassinations of political enemies lately. A high profile advocate of a cause perceived to be on the left places themselves in real physical danger these days.
- TheHwangover 7y ago
  being ousted by the media? having lies spread about you by people you never even heard of?

srbby 7y ago

How brave do you have to be to be invited to a place where everybody already knows what you are going to say and they are going to ignore you anyway? This is just the media circus of the month. Well, it's even worse because it's a repeat of the two kids from "March For Our Lives". Boring.

atlasunshrugged 7y ago
Maybe everyone already knows what you're going to say and they're going to ignore her but look at all the earned media she's getting. Maybe almost everyone in that audience is too jaded to care, but I'd bet that she's having at least some influence in creating a broader movement (or adding fuel to existing climate movements) globally around the issue. Even media circuses can be useful.
- srbby 7y ago
  It's going to end like the kids from "March For Our Lives" ended: swimming in complete irrelevance. The media are just milking these kids because emotions sell. All of this is boring and useless, and even the beginning of a worrying trend.

buboard 7y ago

she seems to be enjoying the attention (which is odd for an autistic person) , and inevitably she will receive a lot of abuse. It's not very responsible for the media to promote an underage person so much

atlasunshrugged 7y ago
I'm not going to comment on the autistic piece because I'm not qualified enough to know anything about how a person with autism acts but as far as media responsibility, I agree - but I think it's pretty clear that media (at least from what I see mainly watching US media) has abdicated all sense of responsibility for their programming and is entirely driven by what sells. If this is what sells and gets eyeballs then this is what will be on the air.
- chasd00 7y ago
  this is very true. they'll feed her to a pack of wolves if it will increase ad revenue.

maaaats 7y ago

Yeah, I've seen lots of comments on how she's a left-wing puppet, or why they didn't get some scientist knowing what they speak about up there instead of a kid. But - Why is caring about climate left-wing? - It's the same people ignoring the scientists, that write this crap, so no, a scientist speaking doesn't solve anthing. Unfortunately. It wouldn't have come to this then.

jansan 7y ago
Why is caring about climate left-wing? Very simple, because it will be used to increase taxes, taking an even greater share of people's hard earned money. I Germany especially the left loves the concept of a CO2 tax. I hope this helps you understand.
- lexapro 7y ago
  So spoiling the environment for everyone should be free?
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- ocschwar 7y ago
  There's nothing stopping countries from lowering other taxes along with raising a CO2 tax.
- maaaats 7y ago
  If that's so, couldn't the right instead find some acceptable ways to handle it (without increasing taxes), instead of sweeping it under the rug?
bsaul 7y ago
"It would be best if cold, hard facts were enough" : I think that's the major problem with climate change. We don't observe anything out of the ordinary yet, climate change institutions are trying to warn people based on very complex simulations. You can call simulations cold hard facts, but i think that would be a stretch. The general audience prefer to focus on problems we're having right at the moment.

zorbash 7y ago

Exactly, I even thought of taking a break off Twitter for a few months. It's getting more and more toxic, just like our environment. How can people express such hate, for a 16 old stating what should be obvious?

Jgrubb 7y ago
I stopped going habitually a few months back and it's been good. I still check every now and then and it seems to be getting something like 10% worse every month - not enough to notice if you check it every day but if only every couple of weeks the downward trajectory of the discourse and the overall sentiment is really noticeable.
chasd00 7y ago
I'm not on Twitter but I know exactly what you mean. These days I check hackernews and a forum for a hobby I'm into and that's it. I'll read google news in the morning but I don't go too far (I stay away from opinion pieces). it's just too toxic and I don't need that in my head.
- SolaceQuantum 7y ago
  In my experience even HN has had bad faith and low-substance discussion about certain topics like the recent Stallman ousting and tech employees claiming discrimination. They tend to be filled with people who make claims without understanding the context of events, then deny any provided context as illegitimate and continue on repeating their position.
  - chasd00 7y ago
    touche, I admit nothing is going to be completely immune. It is the Internet after all.
    - yc-kraln 7y ago
      I find the separation between "the internet" interesting. You mean... a connected group of all humanity?

AndrewKemendo 7y ago

I guess I'm just not sure what her work is that isn't already being done by others. There are mobs of great people, scientists, activists etc... speaking truth to power about global climate change worldwide and have been doing so for decades. I'm just not clear about what is remarkable about what she's doing aside from her being a teenager. As a relevant counter example, Boyan Slat invented a plastic cleanup device at 16 and has made good progress getting it used in practice. [1] That seems like something that is novel and beneficial. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boyan_Slat https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boyan_Slat

f3r3nc 7y ago
sales is just as important as tech
rusticpenn 7y ago
Influencing people is vastly underestimated.
djsumdog 7y ago
I see her the same way I see parents who brings kids to various protests. I can see wanting to have your kids involved, but do they understand what you're standing for, or are you using them for your point? Obviously she's older/a teenager, but this is still at it's core, an emotional draw. Has she authored papers and done the models? She's a spokeswoman. Even if the intent is different, it's still similar in means and effect to the Nayirah testimony.
ocschwar 7y ago
> I guess I'm just not sure what her work is that isn't already being done by others. Making politicians uncomfortable about their careers. Lots of other people have tried and failed. She's succeeding.
- fwn 7y ago
  > Making politicians uncomfortable about their careers. While this could be true on some deeper level I don't think that this specific event is a good one to base such an assessment on. Being invited to talk to the UN is a great honor from the political establishment and her speech got interrupted by applause several times. I only watched the speech itself, but I have difficulties to see evidence that people there were uncomfortable. edit: This appears to be very controversial? Would someone care to elaborate?

AlgorithmicTime 7y ago

She's a puppet mouthpiece for the climate catastrophist crowd. This is no different than wailing "think of the children!" So, yes, I have only negative things to say about her.

ocschwar 7y ago

I haven't logged into Twitter for years now. And at this point the only Twitter posts I read are Ms. Thunberg's. Much healthier this way.

HyperTalk2 7y ago

You seem confused. The mindless paternal fawning you're currently engaging in is supposed to be directed toward your own offspring, not someone else's.

Freak_NL 7y ago

I wish it was restricted to just Twitter or the usual suspects. Have you looked at the grey comments in this thread? The amount of defeatism, unfounded scepticism, denial, and just pure and nasty ad hominem attacks is sickening. The one potentially positive thing to note may be that denial and anger often come before acceptance. Eventually.

srbby 7y ago
I find using kids for political reasons to be problematic. I find using emotions instead of facts to sway the political discourse to be problematic. There are legitimate reasons to be concerned or even angry at this. Maybe not good enough reasons to create an account on Twitter and scream into the void, though.
- morgancmartin 7y ago
  Agreed. The line ought to be drawn at personal attacks against her. She's 16, a child, personally attacking her is disgusting behavior. By that same token, I also don't care what a 16 y.o. has to say about the state of the world. I just turned 25 a few months ago. Over the past 9 years, since I was 16, I've watched my cognitive abilities continually expand and now have a good feeling for just how ignorant I was when I was 16. I have no idea why this girl was let on stage to begin with and even less of an idea why it's news. Almost as disgusting as the personal attacks are the people whose decision it was to prop up a child on the global stage, for all the world to attack and criticize her, all to advance their political agenda. Gross.
  - mieseratte 7y ago
    This girl had no choice in her life of forced luxury travel, celebrity meetups, and endless media adoration. She takes on all these burdens instead of going to school. Her life is a nightmare scenario for any teenager. We need to respect that and listen. And how dare you criticize a 16 year old, that's not allowed!
    - 7y ago

ReptileMan 7y ago

There is no risk for her so bravery required is zero. If you want brave 16 years old - search for them in Hong Kong protests and the like.

sjogress 7y ago
How do you define risk? At her age, and probably even more now, I'd be scared about how the media, politicians, neighbours, peers, and social media would treat me after such a speech.
- ReptileMan 7y ago
  At her age (okay one year younger) I was busy overthrowing a communist government. One month at the barricades, in the dead of the winter against battons. Didn't consider myself brave at all. We had teen driven revolutions and riots agains governments in the last decade. The least proteser at Gezi park was braver than her. Ditto for arab spring, Venezuela and now against Putin.
ocschwar 7y ago
It's not a contest.

hkai 7y ago

When you talk about being brave, what are the consequences that the person is facing, except being famous and being praised by the media? Would that person be expelled from school or put into a jail?

SauciestGNU 7y ago
People on the far right have attempted assassinations of political enemies lately. A high profile advocate of a cause perceived to be on the left places themselves in real physical danger these days.
TheHwangover 7y ago
being ousted by the media? having lies spread about you by people you never even heard of?