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Comment by AndrewKemendo | Hacker News Reader

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

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Greta's innovation is bringing two important points into the discussion:

1. Why we talk about climate change being serious threat, yet we are acting as if nothing is going on?

2. What is the point of studying science, if politicians do not listen to science?

That, and her determination to strike (based on the two above points).

You can argue that neither argument is particularly difficult or complicated. They are rather obvious in hindsight. Well, there is a name for things like that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egg_of_Columbus

>2. What is the point of studying science, if politicians do not listen to science?

That's not really what's happening. From day one, in the eighties, the ones who have been vocal about this have been politicians. Al Gore, the IPCC, etc. I mean, most people can't name a single scientist advocating this issue. In France, just like in the US, the number one advocate on this issue is a TV show host. And in fact, the most well-known French scientist (turned politician) who talked about global warming (Claude Allegre) is what people would call a skeptic or denier...

What's happening today is that:

  1. in western democracies, people predominantly vote to ignore it
  2. in developing countries, leaders also choose to ignore it

Greta is protesting against point 1. That's not going to achieve much more. At this point, people have made their mind about the issue and I don't think the balance is going to be tipped significantly. I don't even understand what she's trying to achieve. She can shout at politicians as much as she wants, ultimately the power is held by the people of those democracies.

By "politicians" she means people in power, and by "listening" she means taking actions (or at least refraining from doing the opposite). That's what your examples lack.

> in western democracies, people predominantly vote to ignore it

According to polls, it is considered to be very important issue, see e.g. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/sep/15/americans-cl...

There was another poll and in European countries the support is even higher.

> 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.

How exactly is she succeeding? Macron gave up on petrol tax increases after months of riots by yellow vests; I bet he'll keep responding to them and not to Greta.

I don't understand why you're downvoted. Everybody keeps putting the blame on politicians. But they're not independent, they need to listen to the people. Many people really don't care about something they don't believe is related to them in any way. They do care, however, about their money, expenses, jobs. These are the people that need to be educated so that they get more realistic. And the job of politicians is to give them a good alternative.

Germany, meanwhile, just voted to increase the size of the Green party in the EU parliament. And even the CDU is caucusing with the Greens now. Macron's yellow vest capitulation was what, 4 months ago?

Germany is an interesting case to say the least. After decades of campaigning by the Greens, and right in the middle of this global warming crisis, they closed nuclear power plants and started up coal plants again... But, fortunately, the coal plants were only temporary; Germany is now building a big pipeline to get natural gas from Russia.

As for France, there is not much more to do; the country's energy mix is largely nuclear + hydro and the industry has long left the country anyway. Macron could try to promote insect burgers, as they are trying in other countries, by in that case he'll get protests even bigger than the yellow vests :)

> 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?

The gravity of the topic and its near-binary political divide are the main reasons - but this is true of all climate politics, not just this case.

Influencing people is vastly underestimated.

> Boyan Slat invented a plastic cleanup device at 16 and has made good progress getting it used in practice.

Evaluations about his project should be extremely careful, as [currently] there isn't any meaningful way to measure progress.

Both 2019 deployments failed, and interestingly, there is very little analysis of the second, aside the company's own reports.

sales is just as important as tech

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.

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