Guest essay by Eric Worrall
I guess this was inevitable.
2019 PERSON OF THE YEAR GRETA THUNBERG
BY CHARLOTTE ALTER, SUYIN HAYNES AND JUSTIN WORLANDPHOTOGRAPHS BY EVGENIA ARBUGAEVA FOR TIME
Greta Thunberg sits in silence in the cabin of the boat that will take her across the Atlantic Ocean. Inside, there’s a cow skull hanging on the wall, a faded globe, a child’s yellow raincoat. Outside, it’s a tempest: rain pelts the boat, ice coats the decks, and the sea batters the vessel that will take this slight girl, her father and a few companions from Virginia to Portugal. For a moment, it’s as if Thunberg were the eye of a hurricane, a pool of resolve at the center of swirling chaos. In here, she speaks quietly. Out there, the entire natural world seems to amplify her small voice, screaming along with her.
“We can’t just continue living as if there was no tomorrow, because there is a tomorrow,” she says, tugging on the sleeve of her blue sweatshirt. “That is all we are saying.”
…
Thunberg is 16 but looks 12. She usually wears her light brown hair pulled into two braids, parted in the middle. She has Asperger’s syndrome, which means she doesn’t operate on the same emotional register as many of the people she meets. She dislikes crowds; ignores small talk; and speaks in direct, uncomplicated sentences. She cannot be flattered or distracted. She is not impressed by other people’s celebrity, nor does she seem to have interest in her own growing fame. But these very qualities have helped make her a global sensation. Where others smile to cut the tension, Thunberg is withering. Where others speak the language of hope, Thunberg repeats the unassailable science: Oceans will rise. Cities will flood. Millions of people will suffer.
“I want you to panic,” she told the annual convention of CEOs and world leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January. “I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. And then I want you to act.”
…
Read more: https://time.com/person-of-the-year-2019-greta-thunberg/
She’s been lied to so much, she probably really does feel that fear.
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She is in good company:
Mr. A. Hitler, Mr J Stalin Mr N Kruschev for example
Peter Sinclair at Climate Denial Crock of the week
An innumerate teenager gets labelled the face of science and he is blessed to be followed by her on twitter. What’s going on here?
Another notable person of the year, of course was Hitler in 1938. That didn’t turn out so well either.
I will say that it is wrong for the critics of her to claim that her Asperger’s means she has a mental problem and thus should not be listened to. As an Aspie myself, I can say that it can be a disability in certain ways (social interactions), but most certainly not when it comes to things like technical subjects. That is where Aspies shine. So for someone like her, it actually would be a strength. Rather, she should be criticized for at best having what seems to be a grossly oversimplified understanding of this issue and at worst just being flat wrong.
I do genuinely wonder though just what is her actual level of knowledge on this subject. Some might say, “She is only sixteen, so it has to be an amateurish understanding…” well not necessarily. That depends. There are plenty of sixteen year-olds that can hack computers and have a fairly sophisticated understanding of things like computer programming, computers, electronics, car mechanics, etc…being sixteen means a lack of life experience, not being stupid technically. And with an Asperger person, this is especially the case, as arcane technical subjects are where Aspies are strong. For example, one of the founders of Facebook, Sean Parker, at sixteen, would hack into multiple systems, point out the holes in the security to the system administrator, and then exit and cover his tracks. He had a plan to hack all the major address types (.com, .net, etc…). He got caught when his dad caught him on the computer when he wasn’t supposed to be and pulled the plug, so he left a trail. Then the F.B.I. came and arrested him.
So she might well have a very in-depth understanding of climate change as a subject. What makes me say she seems to have an oversimplified understanding of the issue overall is that she doesn’t seem to have any concept of just ***HOW*** we can go about trying to address the issue. For example, she talks about limiting carbon emissions and criticizing the emissions targets, and HOW DARE YOU do all this carbon damage, and all of that. But yet, how does she propose we do this? You can’t just shift industrial economies to solar and wind power and electric cars (and who knows what for ships and jumbo jets). She doesn’t seem to have any understanding about any of that. For example Germany has tried very hard to do just what she wants, and ran up against the hard limits, and still has among the highest energy prices in the industrialized world.
The only way to do what she demands would be for a tyranny to be implemented and a SEVERE reduction in global standard of living, to the point that you’d likely hurt people more by trying to limit carbon emissions then by the possible damage said carbon emissions (may) cause. She seems not to understand any of this however.
Kyle
“So she might well have a very in-depth understanding of climate change as a subject.”
There is a difference between someone being able to hack computers at 16 years old and being able to understand the science of the greenhouse effect due to CO2. The latter requires not just knowledge of chenmistry , physics, spectroscopy , but also all the many factors that influence meteorology and climate generally . Not to mention having read papers or books on the history of climate and the many natural changes in temperature , precipitation , CO2 levels, solar insolation etc over millions of years.
As many readers here have no doubt found, unless you have put in years of study – which basically means reading a whole library of papers and /or experimental work, then you can have plenty of opinions on climate change but no real authority.
I started off with the supposed advantage of a PhD in near infra red spectroscopy and a lifetime spent in either the lab or library , but I find that I would need another lifetime to get up to the standard where I could argue with confidence against, say. a Nick Stokes. Yet you think that someone who eschews formal study and with no degrees in science has an in-depth understanding of the subject of climate change.
Difficult to believe.
I didn’t say that I think she has an in-depth understanding of the subject, I said that she **could** at her age. To learn to truly be a hacker requires a lot of reading and study. So I would not put it into impossible for a sixteen year-old girl with Asperger’s who is passionate about climate to formally learn the math, physics, and chemistry (or at least a good bit of it) and do a lot of reading of books and maybe even papers. No she likely wouldn’t have the level of knowledge of a professional who studies the subject and has for many years, but she very much could have a lot more knowledge than the average person and be capable of discussing most of the big issues about climate, and addressing people who say the climate changing is not a threat, or who say that the climate isn’t changing, etc…
Put it this way, a sixteen year-old hacker probably won’t have the knowledge of a hacker who has been at it for decades and done a very extensive amount of reading. study, and practicing, but they still will know a lot more than the average person. Where you would say, “Okay, this person is no amateur on this subject.”
But Greta doesn’t come across that way, where you’d say, “Okay, clearly this girl has an above-average level of understanding about climate change and policies to deal with it. She is no amateur in her understanding.” Which I personally find a bit odd for an Aspie who is passionate about the subject.
Asperger’s in children is nicknamed “Little Professor Syndrome.”
Little professor syndrome ” yes I have seen this with children particularly maths, BUT there is a difference between Greta and other little professors, they demonstrate their capabilities were as Greta does not ,she has only demonstrated a belief. A scripted belief, she has been seen to shoo off questions , she has only ever given speeches with no questions and answers directed at her, she has been filmed deffering questions to other members of a speakers panel. She has never demonstrated any understanding of climate science and she has had many opportunities to do so, I do not believe she has little professor syndrome or any other special capability. She does however have a remarkable set of invisible strings.
However, Greta Thunberg not only has Asperger’s syndrome but also a history of anxiety, eating disorders and selective mutism. The latter she alludes to in her latest speech at COP25, where it was only 18 months ago that she would chose when and where to talk.
Asperger’s syndrome appears to manifest itself differently in females than it does in males, and there appears to be a link between how it manifests depending on the menstrual cycle in adolescents.
I’ll find references and post them here.
As far as I know, only Greta mentioned it. Why would that be?
“how does she propose we do this?”
Isn’t it enough that she clarifies the problem, you want her to solve it too?
You mean she hasn’t been given a script for that?
She can read, clearly, from a script. That’s about it! So clarifying the “problem” does not even enter her thoughts, she’s not thinking, she’s reading. Like all good actors.
Loydo do you think there is a problem?
Please detail it for me
“The problem” is an imaginary, fabricated one. Surely she can fabricate a “solution” to the “problem” as well? Or perhaps she lacks the imagination? She imagines she can “see” CO2, so that seems unlikely.
She isn’t ‘clarifying’ any problem – she’s perpetrating a fraud and pushing an incredibly destructive and totalitarian agenda.
But as a ‘Angry, Whiny, Self-Righteous’ she’s a perfect symbol for your movement.
If she wants to be taken seriously on the issue, and if she is as smart as they make her out to be, then yes. She ought to be fully aware that if you are going to truly address climate change, that there are major economic and technological issues involved, that it isn’t simply due to a bunch of old meanies who refuse to get with the program. And as such, use her voice to advocate for solutions she sees as beginning steps and workable.
I remember being 16, and while I was naive in many ways, I was plenty smart enough to recognize that the world, and the various subjects in it, are complicated. I knew for example that there are reasons why we have not yet colonized Mars. She on the other hand is like a kid paranoid about Earth getting smacked by an asteroid, saying, “HOW DARE YOU!” for not having colonized the Solar System.
You’re right, Aspergers is not a mental illness, it’s considered a developmental disorder.
However, she’s also suffered from OCD, anxiety attacks, eating disorders and selective mutism. The reason she’s so tiny is because she starved herself almost to the point of death.
I don’t know if she’s still only eating rice and rice cake sandwiches, but if so she may never undergo puberty.
I don’t know if she’s small because of starvation. Maybe, but there are plenty of people who look extremely young at sixteen. When I was sixteen, nobody believed me that I was that age. At 33, I got taken for 19.
“He got caught when his dad caught him on the computer when he wasn’t supposed to be and pulled the plug, so he left a trail. Then the F.B.I. came and arrested him.”
Ouch!! The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry. 🙂
Kyle
Can you see CO2?
Remember also, Time’s “Person of the Year” doesn’t mean someone they approve of the most, just who has been the most influential (as they see it).
Who has been influenced by Greta?
She’s been busy preaching to the choir. The rest of us ignore here most of the time.
Note I put into parenthesis “as they see it.” I didn’t say she has been influential, I said that Time’s “Person of the Year” is about who THEY see as influential.
I have just asked The Times to run s letter asking for a debate between scientists believing in a climate crisis and those who don’t. All participants to be Nobel prize winners ( and I don’t mean Peace Prize ). Will they print it ?
Re this thread, what is St Greta’s line on the billion or more without electricity? Haven’t heard.
Coeur
I will be surprised if they print it. They long ago abandoned any pretense of being objective and balanced.
If there is still anyone out there who believes the climate hoax is anything other than a political cause, read this:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2019/12/climate-groupies-cheer-as-gasbag-man-bear-pig-al-gore-as-he-slams-stupidest-brexit-decision-at-madrid-climate-conference/
Here is the pertinent part:
The whole Brexit, Trump, climate thing (and every other cause of the New Left) is about them against us, and the more ridiculous the climate scare claims they make and the more absurd the icons they choose as the standard-bearers for their ’cause’, the more they (the self-proclaimed elites) get off on the self-gratification they get from rubbing our (we deplorables) faces in it. It’s not about ideology; it is purely about psychology.
“Angry, Whiny, Self-Righteous High-school Dropout Picked as Time Magazine’s Person of the Year”
Fairly typical CV, for this award.
If she eventually gets married, I will feel bad for the poor guy. He will be hen pecked to the point of driving him insane.
James Delingpole at Breitbart: From Hitler and Stalin to Greta Thunberg — Time Loves to Celebrate Totalitarian Icons
“Adolf Hitler 1938
Joseph Stalin 1939
Joseph Stalin (again) 1942
Ayatollah Khomeini 1979
Greta Thunberg 2019
Yes, you’ve got to hand it to what’s left of Time magazine: it hasn’t lost its unerring ability to put its finger on the pulse of the zeitgeist, invariably managing to name a Person of the Year who sums up perfectly the madness of the age.”
According to Wiki (I think it is safe to use Wiki in this instance) “Time Person of the Year (called Man of the Year or Woman of the Year until 1999) is an annual issue of the United States news magazine Time that features and profiles a person, a group, an idea, or an object that “for better or for worse… has done the most to influence the events of the year”.”
It’s good that Greta Thunberg has been named Time Person of the Year for 2019 so that in the future we can look back on the madness of the age.
They should name something after her, like a prison, or a form of capital punishment, a natural laxative…I don’t know…a disease of the brain or some such.
Many girls have an imaginary friend.
Greta has an imaginary enemy.
Many girls have an invisible imaginary friend that only they can “see”
Greta has invisible CO2 that only she can “See”
… which reminded me of the late, great Rik Mayall in the brilliant “Drop Dead Fred”. Rik is sorely missed. Time to download The New Statesman to improve my mood!
Greta,Greta,Greta you are too young to understand what is happening to you or how you are being used to influence the young and the old around the world .
Please enjoy the moment while it lasts but be prepared for the inevitable come down .
Please also do not feel personably responsible for lack of affordable power to millions of people because governments world wide have not ‘dared’ to invest in fossil fueled energy at your say so .
Happy holidays
Looking at previous recipients of this award she’s in interesting company. Charles Lindbergh, Gandhi, Wallis Simpson, Hitler, Stalin (twice), FDR (3 times), George Marshall(twice), Eisenhower (twice), JFK, LBJ, Khrushchev, Nixon(twice), King Faisal, Deng Xiaoping, Khomeini, Andropov, Putin the list of runners up is equally interesting.
Perhaps it’s best to wait and see rather than throw awards about before the dust settles
Since the list began in 1927, the only US presidents not to have made it have been Republicans Coolidge, Hoover and Ford.
Here’s something no one is addressing: Greta’s a “thing” right now. But her parents are middle-aged adults and at some point, they’ll be dead and gone. They are her enablers, and if anyone thinks there is no cash involved in this exploitation of a naive teen, you aren’t paying attention.
Who is going to be her and her sister’s caretaker after the parents are gone? The real world has a way of evening things out, you know. That includes climate changing on a recurring basis. Has anyone explained this to Greta, brought up the history -the very LONG history – of climate changes on this planet? No? Oh, well…..
They are very famous in Sweden, rich, non-working (In the usual sense) political activists.
Most likely, her parents will be around for another 11 years.
Cruel, but fair!
What an autocrat, telling us all to feel what she feels.
She is frightened because she has been brainwashed, not because she has truly evaluated history.
Aspergers folks are fearful when lacking understanding/competence but become calm when understanding/mastery emerges.
She needs to really study climate science instead of believing ehst she reads and is told by charlatans.
Right now, she is the leader of a cult based on unquestioning ignorance.
Nothing to admire in that…..
Increased (near total) hiding of Greta Thunberg criticism on search engines!
I just used two hours searching on DuckDuckGo and Yandex for critical headlines in the English or Swedish language with preference to “.se” sites: “site:.se dropout greta thunberg”. I added the word “dropout” to get any negative statement at all, which made WUWT pop up on seventh page in the search.
Out of hundreds of entries, only a five or so entries were somewhat negative to Greta.
A month ago, I did a similar search for about 30 min.
Out of about hundred entries, I found about 10 entries being negative to Greta and some serious critical, with comment from Swedes for about 90% being very angry with Greta and particular her parents and the media.
I cannot be certain, but my impression is that the search engines areeffectively filtering out _all_ publications that are not either positive or neutral to the teen.
Pravda’s former so famous censorship dwarfs compared to Associated Press, governments and search engines of today.
—
Some utopian thoughts
===================
Suggestion A:
Divide every country and every state into two regions with each their government. One region for rational industrial progress and the other region for the frightened Green salon communists.
Suggestion B (with example from the past):
Give constitutional mandate in parliament to represent minority population.
When the border between Germany and Denmark was moved peacefully. The border was moved 1864 in favor of Germany and the Danish minded population in the region was admitted a representative and deligation in the Danish parliament. You can attend Danish schools, etc. in the now German region of South Slesvig. The Danish community is today only about 50,000 people though. This may be an almost unique solution, maybe repeatable 🙂
The border was not moved peacefully:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Schleswig_War
Thanks, bummer from my side.
“We can’t just continue living as if there was no tomorrow, because there is a tomorrow”
Chauncey Gardner, we’ve found your daughter!
What a perfect choice that is. No one sums up the level of climate ignorance better than our Greta.
She is the obvious person to grace Time Magazine person of the year. Who knows next year they might have someone who understands the subject they are championing.
Yep she’s the quintessential climate changer alright.
Whadda we want? Climate change! When do we wannit? Now!
I would like to honor all those high school students who are studying math, earth science, biology, chemistry and physics who have chosen to think for themselves. These are the ones who will really learn something, and I hope they have the courage to challenge the baseless claims of climate doom.
“Outside, it’s a tempest: rain pelts the boat, ice coats the decks, and the sea batters the vessel that will take this slight girl, her father and a few companions from Virginia to Portugal.”
Ice coats the decks…
Ice.
Self awareness is strong with this writer.
Also I hope we all realise that Time Magazine have just publicly grouped Greta with Literally Hitler. Nice.
“We can’t just continue living as if there was no tomorrow, because there is a tomorrow”
Ok, Doomer.
https://i.chzbgr.com/full/2479241984/hE074CD3A/implied-facepalm
Person of the year? She doesn’t even have a personality, that little puppet. Her strings are being pulled by somebody else.
A rundown of the Thunberg familiy’s mental state:
https://notrickszone.com/2019/10/26/german-portrait-of-the-thunberg-ernman-family-acutely-dysfunctional-an-infinitely-sad-family-history/
“The predicted climate catastrophe gives Malena Ernman and her family the opportunity to put their own fate and also their responsibility for their own well-being at the bottom of the list. The earth is sick, the Thunbergs are sick.”
When someone asked me what I thought of her, I truthfully said: “I’ll treat her like I treat most teenagers: I’ll ignore them until she becomes too obnoxious, then I’ll ask her to pipe down and let the grown-ups talk”.
BTW, our local talk radio drip just announced that if we don’t like all the attention she’s getting, it means we’re on the wrong side of history.
Can’t wait to fill out my (final) listener’s card…
Just confirms peak civilization occurred some years ago.