She's gotten the issue of climate change to be a major issue with young voters
It's really not her fault that the people in power have a vested interest in ignoring climate change.
Also she got Andrew Tate arrested so there's that.
this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2023
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OK now ask what word leaders and companies that hold power have actually achieved so far in the same period.
Speaking from a German perspective I feel like the Fridays for future movement has significantly affected (parts of) her generation. I have many colleagues whose kids are focusing on a diet with less environmental impact and also asking their parents to change.
It is impressive that it has been such a long running and wide spreading movement and I am sure that there will be many politicians, activists and entrepreneurs coming out of this movement in the future.
It is hard to expect anything more from a child who has been belittled constantly. I wish I would be standing up for my believes as strongly as she does.
Thunbergβs style is her best asset. She keeps making a simple point, without trying to complexify it. When people try to complexify it, she brings them back to the simple point:
- this is a major problem
- it will lead to death and destruction if not addressed
- we have a tendency to ignore it that needs to be counteracted
She uses the simplest possible language and stays on point. Which for some odd reason nobody else seems to be capable of.
Some will say sheβs just a βcheerleaderβ but thatβs kind of what we need if weβre going to address this. Political will is the constraining factor in our climate change response.
If your parents were multimillionaires and hired publicists and boat crews and built a brand around those beliefs, I'm sure you would have too.
I think if my parents were multimillionaires I would be even more busy enjoying my life than fighting a fight with uneven odds.
Of course coming from a stable background makes it easier to be an activist, but it is still far from easy to devote your life to one cause.
A lot of rich kids just become spoiled and rich. What Greta did was special.
Awareness
conservatives made a whole smear campaign against her to try and silence her and demoralize her, and she's only stood up even more for it. Can't say she's done nothing if they're trying so hard to discredit her
She opened my eyes to something that should have been obvious.
Eternal economic growth is a fairy tale that's killing us.
What did you achieve since 2018?
Main things is that Gen Z is ashamed of travelling by plane
They do it anyway though.
A full plane is still greener than a car with 1-2 passengers.
A full plane is still greener than a car with 1-2 passengers.
That may be true if you're going the same distance, but planes go a lot farther. A lot of plane trips are unnecessary, and wouldn't be made at all if the plane wasn't an option. Many car trips are also unnecessary, but given modern infrastructure, they tend to be more necessary than plane trips.
Per kg-km flying is higher carbon impact than driving, no matter how full the plane is.
It just isn't. A car would need at least 2 passengers to beat a plane, maybe 3-4 depending on the car. Jet engines are incredibly efficient and planes carry a lot of people. If they all hopped in cars, the planet would turn into a smog hellscape.
If you care about personal emissions so much, take a train.
Sorry - I don't expect you to change your own habits or something, this isn't personal. I work in this space, so to me it's just a fact and not a matter of opinion. Air travel results in higher carbon emissions per kg-km than road travel by about an order of magnitude. Even for long haul flights.
The GREET model: https://www.energy.gov/eere/bioenergy/articles/greet-greenhouse-gases-regulated-emissions-and-energy-use-transportation
I was thinking about doing the math awhile ago, because a full A320 Neon only uses 1,5l per passenger for 100 km. They just don't burn the same fuel and at different altitudes.
It's been five whole years and this teenager hasn't defeated all of global capitalism, what's she even doing?
What have you achieved in the past 5 years?
What she (and other climate activists) have done and do is spread awareness about this issue. As you can imagine, it's important to keep important topics (arguably even the most important topic humanity faces, yes even more important than soccer (lol)) present in media and in people's heads for them to not be forgotten soon after again. People need to be constantly reminded that our current way of life currently destroys our planet, especially considering that not much happened to steer against this problem within the last couple of years after the Paris agreement. And we don't even know many of the tipping points that could accelerate disaster even further. When some ecosystems stop existing and food chains become disrupted, for example.
In a way, she's like a PR person for the most important topic in science currently. And she (and other climate actrivists) is successful at it, considering it's so often in the news and so many of the polluters hate her and try to discredit her and others.
Always remember though: it's about the problem, not specific people. Of course we like talking about people, and the media does it as well, but as the saying goes, "small minds discuss people, great minds discuss ideas". It's about the problem at hand, irrelevant of Greta or other activists. She's just trying to bring the point across to a mass audience, that's all. We (as in: the whole humanity, no exceptions) need to take action against the problem, not talk about Greta. This "ad hominem" strategy is sometimes deliberately used as a distraction away from the issue at hand. When articles talk about Greta or try to discredit her or whatever, then the debate is shifted away from the actual problem at hand. Even articles about her in a positive light are, in the end, irrelevant. It's not about her, or other climate activists. She even says that herself. If the activists didn't exist, we'd still face the exact same problem.
Five years later this is a relevant question. So her awareness campaign is at least as effective as Susan G. Komen.
Hopefully Greta's legacy is more then just a non-profit that steals from desperate cancer patients but given the genesis of her brand, I doubt it.