I&I Editorial
Swedish teen Greta Thunberg scolded the political and business aristocracy Tuesday at the World Economic Forum, insisting “that we start listening to the science and that we actually start treating this crisis as the crisis it is.” Why is she continually treated as a savant and prophetess when she has nothing to offer but embellishment?
Though only 17, Greta is an accomplished nag, a word we don’t use lightly, but it fits because she is perpetually badgering and complaining. In her speech, which the New York Times posted in transcript form as if it were actually important and must be preserved for future generations, she demanded international leaders “immediately end all fossil fuel subsidies and immediately and completely divest from fossil fuels.
“We don’t want these things done by 2050, or 2030 or even 2021,” she said, “we want this done now.”
She even went so far as to tell the Davos crowd “our house is still on fire,” and declared “your inaction is fueling the flames by the hour.”
Of course “our house” – the world we live in – isn’t on fire, though large parts of Australia are, and that generates not only news but wild speculation from the zealots and the political operators that man’s greenhouse gas emissions are responsible. The evidence, however, indicates that green environmental policy is responsible.
The story is the same in California, where wildfire season produced global headlines. It was green policies, not anthropogenic global warming, that charred the state.
Given the magnitude of the exaggerations that pour out of Greta’s mouth, why was she even invited to speak at Davos, and before that at the United Nations? Why would adults name her Time magazine’s person of the year? Why wasn’t the very idea of her being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize laughed at by the Nobel Committee?
There are no substantive arguments made during her public tantrums. She just makes the same tired points that have been debunked on this site enough that we won’t take the time to list them in this editorial. Those who want to refresh their memories can look back at previous editorials here, here, and here.
Greta gets a pulpit and the rock-star treatment because she’s a novelty. She’s a human shield to protect the alarmists from criticism. Adults screaming for attention and the approval of their peers think she provides them with cachet. And don’t forget, she talks back to that mean President Donald Trump.
Despite Greta’s plaints that her future has been stolen, we just finished the best year in human history, says New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof.
“2019 was probably the year in which children were least likely to die, adults were least likely to be illiterate and people were least likely to suffer excruciating and disfiguring diseases,” Kristof writes.
“Every single day in recent years, another 325,000 people got their first access to electricity. Each day, more than 200,000 got piped water for the first time. And some 650,000 went online for the first time, every single day.”
Doomsdayers hope to convince us the future is nevertheless bleak. But 2019 came at the end of “the best decade in human history,” so we’re in an upward arc and there’s nothing to suggest that the advances in the human condition won’t continue to improve.
This is not unknown to the Davos organizers, yet Greta is asked to be a part of the program, in fact a main attraction. What this tells us is the ruling class in the West is exhausted, impotent, and would rather be popular than do the right thing.
— Written by J. Frank Bullitt
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It is fascinating (though frightening) how a global hysteria over the climate can become a global issue upon such flimsy scientific evidence. Thunberg’s opinions, like most of the far left, are based upon feelings not fact.
At the heart of the dispute is the claim that ‘human caused’ CO2 has an outsized warming effect on the planet, and it is characterized as a ‘pollutant’ similar to SO2 or carbon monoxide.
There is no compelling evidence that CO2 caused by humans is causing the slight warming detected in the past 25 years, and even if the accusation were true, there is no evidence that this slight warming is harmful to the planet. Quite the contrary.
Look up ‘NASA Greening of the Earth’ to access the results of a long-term study which shows that the Earth has ‘greened’ by over 15% in the past 30 years. This addition of green leaves and plant life has not only increased wild plants, but it has also dramatically increased agricultural crop yields. This is no surprise, since professional greenhouses have long installed CO2 generators in order to maximize plant growth.
More plant life requires more CO2, it is a virtuous circle.
So the core ‘demon CO2’ of so-called ‘climate change’ is, in fact, good for the planet, and an essential ingredient for all life, and there is no evidence proving that a slight warming of the planet is a bad thing.
PhD experts in CO2, such as Professor William Happer, have correctly claimed there is a CO2 drought, when the history of the past 500 million years is taken into account.
The main plant types, C3 plants, on planet Earth evolved at much higher levels of CO2, from 1200 ppm to over 4000 ppm. Life thrived in those higher CO2 times, and we have copious fossil evidence to prove that higher CO2 led to an ABUNDANCE of life, not the reverse.
We are in an Ice Age, sometimes called the Pleistocene Ice Age or the Quaternary Period which has lasted 2.5 million years. 66 times in this period, two mile thick ice sheets have marched down from the north, crushing everything in their path. The ice sheets last for around 100 to 200 thousand years, and are interrupted by brief inter-glacial warming periods, which last about 15 to 20 thousand years.
We are currently in a relatively brief interglacial warming period which began about 11, 600 years ago.
These climate kooks never view the history of climate on planet Earth. They cherry pick the starting points of their graphs to indicate warming, they fudge data, and they even revise historical temperature records–all to prove that we are doomed, and that the government organizations and scientists should receive billions more in funding to continue to prophesy doom for planet Earth.
The evidence, however, is that Global Average Temperatures (a fantasy metric) has only increased by .8 degrees Celsius in the past 150 years. Everybody panic, and open up your wallets.
Part of me can’t get past that this “child,” is 17, has the intelligence of an 8 year old, and behaves like a 4 year old.
I am not convinced the Climate kooks don’t look at the history. I think they do, and ignore the unsupportive bits. The result is like a bra – something skimpy, lightweight and designed to support a bunch of slack t*ts.
She’s pitching what they’re selling. The ‘elites’ are profiting from this nonsense.
On balance, folks aren’t lectured by Greta. They are lectured by Greta’s dad! LOL! And, in true Democrat/Leftist fashion…they eat it up even more now that the scam has been exposed! Sheesh…you can’t make it up…
The truth slips out:
“We (UN-IPCC) redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy…”
“One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has nothing to do with environmental policy anymore…”
Dr. Ottmar Endenhofer, IPCC co-chair of Working Group 3, November 13, 2010, interview
https://videos.whatfinger.Com/2019/09/22/my-gift-to-climate-alarmists-climate-alarmists-debunked/
When time after time I see this “child”, who sees the world through warped and twisted eyes, kowtowed to I am amazed and a bit worried over those who chose to do so. Are these leaders of countries the kind of people who should be leading if they let this flash in the pan, weirdo speak as though she actually has knowledge or something worth saying! It’s downright scary. I would like to think that educated, rational, people (for the most part) are at the forefront of the nations of our world. This is evidence to me that that is not the case.
Greta is a child with a Psychological Disorder. She is on the Autism Spectrum and is being used ‘abused’ by her father and others in the Climate Alarmist community!’
Greta Thunberg: Daddy’s little sock puppet.
Young Miss Thunberg must never meet young Master Hogg lest they breed.
Might be the only shot either of these unattractive (physically and mentally) people have!
Tom B
File this under “stuff you couldn’t make up”.
There is small town in Northern Eswatini (formerly Swaziland) called Piggs Peak, a timber town. A certain Miss Pigg from Piggs Peak QA married a Mr Hogg and subsequently settled in Carolina, a nearby town in what was then the Transvaal Republic.
All their male offspring would need have been know as “Master Hogg”.
https://rense.com/general96/child-of-chernobyl-greta-thunberg-is-areva-sandviks-tool-of-fukushima-denial.php
It would appear that Grim’s parents Dare to cover this up… It is they who stole her future.
I still get a chuckle out of Trump’s tweet from last year that she seems to be a happy, well adjusted child.
Children should be seen and not heard. IN her case, maybe both.
Greta has all the charm of Hillary Clinton with the honesty of Elizabeth Warren. Or, is it Greta has all the charm of Elizabeth Warren with the honesty of Hillary Clinton?
I’m sure you ask the question rhetorically. She’s not hectoring them; she knows it and they know it. Together, they are engaged in collaborative theater. The pompous elitists provide the stage and, by their presence (and in their own minds), a veneer of gravitas that they believe confers on young Greta the moral authority to hector those not present: the uninvited and unenlightened.
In reality they are not thrilled. The vast majority would gladly tell her to STFU, but hey are ruled by the group think mob mentality of the politically correct world.
The mob will stay united as long as there is money to be made, and power to be gained
Why is she continually treated as a savant and prophetess when she has nothing to offer but embellishment?
Because of the kabuki between some well-funded activist committee which books all her travels and gigs, and the media who pretend that those mighty and quotable eruptions against everyone’s economy all spew from a volcano instead of a school-cutting adolescent.
As well as being the standard attitude of the un/globalist elite-the peasants need to lower their standard of living and become dependent on the all powerful state-controlled by the elite of course.
Why are chief executive officers thrilled to be lectured to by Greta?
Because it is all cost free public virtue signaling and just so much more boob bait for the MSM/Hollywood bubbas. Saying the right words gets you invited to the best parties.
For investors, however, watch very carefully what these very rich and powerful men and women do rather than what they might say. In the real world, real money always talks while sweet sounding bovine droppings…well…you know the rest.
Greta, when I see you in Beijing calling out President Xi’s government, then i might take you a little more serious or heck, even Calcutta.
they haven’t stopped flying around in their fossil-fuel guzzling private jets, obviously they aren’t worried about man-made global warming so why should I or anyone else be?