Guest essay by Eric Worrall
For once I agree with something Thunberg said; the European Union’s new Green Deal is a total sham.
Greta Thunberg brands EU’s new climate law ‘surrender’
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Ms Thunberg spoke in Brussels on Wednesday as the EU unveiled a proposed law for reducing carbon emissions.
If passed, the law would make it a legal requirement for the EU to be carbon neutral by 2050.
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen hailed the law as the “heart of the European Green Deal”.
But 17-year-old Ms Thunberg dismissed the law as “empty words”, accusing the EU of “pretending” to be a leader on climate change.
“When your house is on fire, you don’t wait a few more years to start putting it out. And yet this is what the Commission is proposing today,” Thunberg told the European Parliament’s environment committee.
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“Your distant targets will mean nothing if high emissions continue like today, even for just a few more years, because that will use up our remaining carbon budget before we even have the chance to deliver on your 2030 or 2050 goals,” Ms Thunberg said.
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Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-51736134
h/t BBC; Click here to see the EU’s explanation of their new green deal, their ambition to move to a “clean circular economy”.
The EU has always had a problem translating words into actions. Their 2005 carbon market collapsed, in my opinion because all the member states tried to cheat by issuing too many carbon credits to their own national champions. I believe Greta is right when she says that the EU setting a 2050 climate goal or even a 2030 climate goal is meaningless.
I don’t support Greta, I think a serious attempt to implement her ideas would be a disaster. But I see the funny side of this situation; all those EU hypocrites who hyped the Greta phenomenon, who hoped to use her as a green smokescreen, are currently having a very uncomfortable time.
Let us hope Greta doesn’t experience the remarkably bad luck with traffic accidents which has afflicted a handful of other high profile critics of EU policy.
Update (EW): A few other examples of bad traffic luck. Note I have no evidence of foul play, other than the nasty incident Nigel Farage suffered.
Hard right Austrian politician and EU critic Jörg Haider died in a car accident in 2008, after stunning establishment parties by repeatedly winning a sizeable fraction of the national vote.
Leading Danish Eurosceptic Ole Krarup suffered a nasty bicycle accident in Strasbourg in 2007, the medical consequences of which led him to resign.
High profile Polish Euroskeptic and cold war resistance hero Filip Adwent died in a car crash in 2005.
Bob Cryer, a leading British Labour Euroskeptic, died in a car crash in 1994.
When we come out the other side of nCoV, and assuming a substantial toll, I predict the world will have little time for either this obnoxious brat, nor the rest of the neo puritan rabble.
Someone will convincingly (to stupid people) blame it on human-caused climate change, and fuel the fervor even more.
Its a point, the tragedies of humanity have in the past led to an upsurge in ridiculous cults and revivals. I take comfort from the fact that ‘The Left’ have lately become so unhinged that they have forgotten which end of the cart the horse goes to, so its entirely likely that we will see the revival preceding the trauma.
What poor Greta is wising up?
Everything about the “Climate Crisis” is a sham and a fraud.
Wonder how long it will take her to figure it out?
For although she is deemed somewhat brain damaged,even she might recognize truth eventually.
The Cult of Calamitous Climate are their own most effective critics and exposers.
Being crazed beyond parody,everything they do exposes their deceit,stupidity and willful blindness.
It ain’t easy being green,Gang Green being terminal unless treated promptly.
I very much want to see gang Green get what they want for us.
I really feel justice demands they get what they are demanding.
With no way out.
They want to put all who question their “wisdom”into reeducation camps,jail or condemn us to silence.I want to see them live the dream.
Whatever this “Carbon Free” “Fossil Fuel Free” lifestyle,I want them forced into demonstrating it.
They attacked us,we were doing fine,never better off and getting better every year.
Cheap reliable energy was freeing the worlds poor.
They jammed their sticks into the wheel,hectored abused and shrieked at the rest of us;”You are killing our future”.
Yet all they have accomplished is to stop the development of the “Third world” condemning millions to perpetual poverty,because the funds we were using to that purpose have been diverted and squandered on useless green energy virtue posturing.
Gang Green has enriched themselves using public hysteria.
Damaging everyone else.
Retribution is in order.
Greta turns 18 in 9 months and 29 days. Then, the pipsqueak will be 18 and the bratty, uneducated,tantrum chucking fib teller will no longer be able to hide under the protection of being a child . She will cease to be the Child High Priestess of the Climate Cult of Doom and Gloom. She will just revert to being an arrogant spoiled brat that did not bother to attend school.
Why anyone would listen to this puppet let alone implement her ravings as policy beggars belief. A rapid rejection of the fossil fuels that lift billions out of poverty by the energy doing the work of hundreds of people will hurtle us back to the stone age rapidly. Slight teeney-weeney problem- the planet supported around 7 million humans rather than 7 billion humans in the neolithic period. Thus, 99.9% of us will not survive. Anyone that has computer skills will NOT be one of those one in a thousand that could survive. Inner city trendies will have absolutely no hope, what with their marshmallow soft attitudes. They will become a communal dinner. How commune-ist.
As for Greta, she will have to be put on suicide watch after her 18th birthday when she is deemed to be an adult. I could see her being martyred for the cause with or without her consent.
Perhaps WUWT needs a Greta countdown of the days until the pipsqueak becomes fair game and her tantrums become unacceptable.
Check out Greta’s mom’s account of Greta’s mental health problems and, if it is really true, Greta Thunberg is an extremely vulnerable girl. What I can never understand is how Greta’s severe social handicaps have been successfully sold as evidence that she has a special wisdom the rest of us lack. Asperger Syndrome is not a superpower; it is an incapacity to understand the feelings and reactions of other people.
The gist of Greta’s problems when she was eleven (according to her mom) is that she was universally disliked by all her same-age peers. In my experience, people who are widely unpopular are also essentially immoral. What happens is, since they can’t make friends, they jettison any attempts to make friends, and behave with complete disregard for the needs of other people. A due consideration for other people’s needs is in fact the foundation of social morality.
I may now be drifting over into a thought which might get my post rejected, but Mother Theresa of Calcutta, whom everyone professed to admire, was a profoundly unhappy woman who didn’t seem to have any friends. Not one of the people who wrote in praise of her at her death claimed to have actually liked her as a person. I suspect (not knowing her, of course) that her kindness to the poor and the sick was overshadowed by an angry resentment of the wealthy and healthy, and that she had very little tolerance for other people’s happiness. And I see a lot of that in Greta Thunberg. Notice, for example, that Greta has an aggressive hair-shirt rejection of sensual pleasure. I don’t trust people who can’t enjoy themselves, and then make that into a virtue.
She was actually quite a nasty person. She wasn’t interested in helping the poor which she became famous for. All she was interested in was convincing as many people to sign up to God and the biggest, wealthiest, gang on the planet, The Catholic Church.
“all those EU hypocrites who hyped the Greta phenomenon, who hoped to use her as a green smokescreen, are currently having a very uncomfortable time.”
That is the Left’s worst nightmare. They created the petard which they have foisted themselves… look at Bernie vs Biden. Really? All Left made and they can’t stop it!
“Thunberg said the European Union’s new Green Deal is a total sham. Greta Thunberg brands EU’s new climate law as surrender”
I don’t think we can have it both ways. If she is a child being used and not a credible source of agw climate change information then that evaluation also applies to the things she says that we happen to like.
https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/05/13/greta2/
There are signs that sanity is quietly creeping back. The UK Somerset Levels, which had until 2014 been deliberately left undrained in order to create a wetland habitat for wading birds, didn’t get flooded this year, despite “the wettest February since records began”. Drain the swamp!
You can never placate or satisfy the demands of the Constantly Offended Green Socialists (COGS).
It is a bit like an ugly competition. When the real ugly are put on stage the just plain ugly, look OK, Greta actually makes AOC seem rational!! That is a scary prospect. Keep it in mind for the 2024 Presidential Election. By then AOC will be eligible to enter, I just hope, the Republicans have developed their candidate sufficiently to ensure they win. If not the future for the USA and the rest of us, doesn’t bear thinking about.
The EU parliament is the real sham. Not nice here anymore.
They don’t matter as they don’t have the real power. It’s the EU Commission that’s the real worry.
Greta is right when she says that the EU setting a 2050 climate goal or even a 2030 climate goal is meaningless.
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Of course it’s meaningless. It’s just virtue signalling. They know it can’t be done, it’s just a smokescreen for implementing the socialist dictatorial regime. She still doesn’t get it.
I wondered why so many comments were shown in the top thread, as opposed to below the comment they referred to. I’ve just changed browsers, and now it happens to me. It makes it a bit pointless to comment.
OK, maybe not. The screen after posting is just misleading.
This is probably way above poor Greta’s head, but with the green-clad lock-stepping of Leyen’s EU Commission, Lagard’s ECB, now also BoJo’s green Brexit betrayal, all marching to B-of-England’s Mark Carney’s green UN finance drum-roll, people are missing the role of Carney’s (and BoJo’s ) City of London.
The one fly in this green ointment, is President Trump. When he meets Putin, and Xi Jinping, to discuss global finance, especially if and when there is a major crash, the City’s role is over.
It just goes to show that in an argument both sides can be utterly wrong.
After a vicious argument, both are still standing only because each comatose props the other up.
The great achievement is they swapped jackets!
That is a story somewhere I just cannot find right now….
So, one more attempt to advertise a proposal already departed from reality as “moderate” via unleashing someone who will push for even more insane things. Never seen THAT coming. *yawn*
You still aren’t bored of these kindergarten level tricks?
I’m certainly bored of the Swedish brat.
OAN Puts the green new deal in its proper place.
I saw her on BBC news as she addressed her adoring teeny-bopper fans. She has adopted to wear a yellow anorak. It’s an irony that she has become a ‘Gilet Jaune’.
Peak Climate Crusades has arrived. Did you miss it?
It was when Christine Lagarde made a public speech in London last Thursday, Ms. Lagarde spoke at length about climate change but didn’t mention the coronavirus at all.
“Clearly it was a disappointment,” said Frederik Ducrozet, an economist with Pictet Wealth Management in Geneva.
I thought she was busy counting money after she turned herself into a trademark? Does she still have time to talk about stuff she doesn’t understand and which she is fed by her handlers (rich investors and greenwashing companies)?
You can understand why Greta is upset. The EU is saying the problem will be fixed by 2050, but Greta thinks she only has about 11 more years on this planet. Greta wants the problem fixed now.
didn’t read every comment (yet) so apologize if already mentioned; but she looks very unhealthy compared to even a few months ago.
I’m not going to lie and say I hope she is ok but I will say I hope others that care for her (family/friends/handlers/etc) notice and help her.
thats the best I can/will do.
Rapidly advancing adulthood has probably added Anorexia to her list of psychological problems. I’m sure she’s clever enough to realise that the transition from awkward looking ‘Child’ to odd looking adult wont have a positive PR impact ?
The European Commission is getting a reality check, something which hasn’t occurred to little Greta yet because she hasn’t learned about reality in school, since she’s been playing hooky too long.
The European Commission can set lofty goals of trying to use energy more efficiently, and develop alternative energy sources, but they know all such things take time and money to develop, and won’t happen overnight. In the meantime, Europeans will need to drive cars or ride buses or trains to work, heat their homes, run their electrical appliances, move products to market, all of which will require burning fossil fuels. In addition, their businesses have to compete with others outside of Europe, and too many draconian regulations will induce businesses to move out of Europe.
So the Commission sets these lofty goals to be achieved by 2050, but they try to effect a slow transition so that nobody will be hurt too badly in the short term, in order to avoid popular revolt. And if a few deadlines slip, well maybe the climate won’t really warm as much as everyone feared (that has been the case over the last 40 years), and the Commissioners will pat themselves on the back for avoiding a catastrophe and retire in luxury on a tropical island far from the crowded cities.
Of course, Greta doesn’t have the patience for such stalling, but since she’s only 17 years old, she will probably outlive her predicted apocalypse and wonder in her later years what all the fuss was about, when the world produces more food than in her youth, and all her beloved coastal cities haven’t been flooded yet, and it still snows in Sweden every winter.
This is a good recent interview with Naomi Seibt . . .
She thinks for herself, has common sense, and disagrees with climate alarmism.
Too bad she doesn’t get more attention from the main stream media like Greta does:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWRlTR1bknA
-JPP
This is a good recent interview with Naomi Seibt . . . Too bad she doesn’t get more attention from the main stream media like Greta does
Well, I think you’ve already explained why she doesn’t: “She thinks for herself, has common sense, and disagrees with climate alarmism.”
Good answer !
JPP
The EU law tries to bridge the unbridgeable. Politicians are aware that we need some basis for living. Passing laws that would put a smile on Gretas face would mean the end of a life that’s worth living in all of Europe. But those same politicians don’t want to confront those protesters and Climate Alarmists head-on as they far the debate. So they fudge the issue. The loser is Europe’s people. They have to pay for this sham and don’t get the benefit. Greta’s rules would have the benefit to show to people where this leads and give them an opportunity to make up their minds. Let’s have a pilot region – I suggest Sweden. Go full Greta and we watch how you do.
Greta versus the EU, like Greta versus the UN last September. The civil war between moderates and radicals continues to tear alarmism apart. See my https://www.cfact.org/2019/09/28/is-climate-alarmism-tearing-itself-apart/.
I predict COP 26 in Glasgow will collapse, just as COP 25 in Madrid did. Woohoo!
Here is a perfect example of the war between radical and moderate alarmists:
https://www.cfact.org/2020/03/01/a-tale-of-two-futures-for-air-travel/
Also the Democtat presidential contest is now between Bernie the radical and Biden the moderate. The Biden surge was caused by Bernie boasting about his grand plans, and taxes. The louder the radicals get the more the public backs away.
She, Greta, is not even wrong;
brilliant… actually, very much so.
Same as AOC and the GND proposition…
Really hilarious… hilariously brilliant.
Oh, well, very well…
if lacking the understanding of the AOC – GND brilliance, no chance whatsoever of even slightly understanding Greta, regardless of all else mess out there.
Could very well be just an accidental brilliance or an accidental excellent act,
or maybe simply intentional, and/or maybe a well or a very well designed one, but never the less in the end of the day still it will consist as it been at the very least as brilliant as it propagates.
AOC-GND schist, happens to be too good and too brilliant, in it’s freaking fracking stand and proposition.
Really really a “very very bad ass schist”… really really hilarious, as per the merit of the outcome and the actual indisputable achievement there… beautiful in the whole,
too beautiful actually. 🙂
Oh well, yes, you do not have to take my word for it, but still you do have to get to try a better understanding of this whole complex affair.
cheers
Dr. Frankenstein was brilliant.
But who’d want to be a “part” of what he produced?