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Post by kerouac2 on Sept 23, 2019 18:58:27 GMT
Greta's UN speech today was devastating. She says that she will never forgive us. It's probably already on YouTube.
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Post by bjd on Sept 23, 2019 19:00:23 GMT
On the news tonight, I saw a clip of Trump walking into the climate meeting in New York, followed by Poodle Pence. The focus was on the dirty look Greta Thunberg gave Trump.
Adding that I saw part of her speech too. Good for her -- it took a lot of guts to be so direct, unlike the mealy-mouthed stuff that is usually said on such occasions.
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Post by kerouac2 on Sept 23, 2019 19:02:27 GMT
Yeah, he had promised that he would not attend, and he didn't keep his promise.
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Post by kerouac2 on Sept 24, 2019 19:11:55 GMT
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DianeMP
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Post by DianeMP on Sept 25, 2019 1:05:14 GMT
I am heartbroken over the lack of care for the mental health and general fate of our youth. The focus of so many adults seems to be how to work the climate issue into political campaigns, government budgets, industrial demands, economies, personal convenience and so on. In other words, a terribly vague "don't be rash, let's work around this, somehow..." This was my response, via a New York Times comment section, to Greta's speech: Diane MP Oregon Sept. 24
Donald, Boris, you are irrelevant. Many world leaders are, now, and certainly most lords of industry. Greta has put you on notice. If she doesn't straighten your spines and focus your attention, I suppose it's because she hasn't offered the most lucrative deal. Money seems a much more important reward to the powerful than continued life on Earth.
I am 72 years old and I am sick for my grandchildren. I have made many changes in my life. The wealthy and powerful have not and they are in the news every day demonstrating their boorishness. Depression and suicide are already problems among adolescents in the West. I looked at Greta's anguished face and it struck me that we should expect the emotional welfare of our children, OUR children, to get much worse if adults don't do what we must.
We can't afford to have an entire generation of hopelessness! If that happens, we are all doomed, whether we so-called grownups take climate action or not.
Who is to blame for our lack of focus in the USA? Donald Trump. He is an ogre, a pestilence, a danger, an evil sack of contempt. What's worse? He's proud of all of that. He made his stupid little afterthought of an appearance at the Summit because he wasn't getting all of the media attention wherever he was before that. He stood there, hunched, like a drunken teenage boy demanding that Dad hand over the car keys, dammit. Well, enough. Millions of us here are more enraged than we've ever been in our lives, and that includes the Baby Boomers who protested for years against the Vietnam war.
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Post by lagatta on Sept 26, 2019 11:38:41 GMT
And Trump isn't the only one; we must remember that the wicked warlord of the South, Bolsonaro, is destroying the Amazon.
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Post by kerouac2 on Sept 26, 2019 12:17:17 GMT
Since former president Jacques Chirac died today, it is probably appropriate to mention that he made one of the first major environmental speeches at the 4th Earth Summit in Johannesburg in 2002. He made his speech on 2 September 2002 at the plenary session of the conference. "Our house is burning and we are looking elsewhere. Nature, mutilated, overexploited, no longer succeeds in reconstituting itself, and we refuse to admit it. Humanity suffers. It suffers from poor development in both North and South, and we are indifferent. Earth and humanity are in danger, and we are all responsible." The world took absolutely no action after this speech, even France.
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Post by whatagain on Sept 26, 2019 12:57:23 GMT
French media are more focused on bernard pivot tweet about young Swedish girls scaring now him rather than arousing him when he was young than about what Greta said. Which proves 2 things - pivot is an idiot - normal people when not driven by money will follow the scent of scandal. But nobidy will do something about climate.
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Post by lagatta on Sept 26, 2019 13:20:25 GMT
That is true. No Chirac fan, but this must be remembered as well as his refusal to take part in the Iraq war, unlike the supposed social-democrat Tony Blair.
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Post by kerouac2 on Sept 26, 2019 13:36:31 GMT
That was the one and only thing that Marine Le Pen praised about him today.
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Post by bjd on Sept 26, 2019 15:36:57 GMT
I appreciated the fact that Chirac was the first French politician to acknowledge that the French state had abetted the Nazis during WW2. And that he pushed for the abolition of military service.
Another guy more appreciated after he was out of power than when he was in it.
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Post by lagatta on Sept 26, 2019 16:29:40 GMT
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Post by kerouac2 on Sept 26, 2019 16:38:26 GMT
Another guy more appreciated after he was out of power than when he was in it. Sarkozy's presidency taught us to appreciate Chirac.
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Post by questa on Sept 27, 2019 5:02:16 GMT
Back to Greta...there has been a bit of a backlash here with the usual shock-jocks airing there uninformed opinions and criticizing her for her "rant". All of them have attacked her because she is a young girl (age-ism, gender-ism) and accused her of seeking the sympathetic attention because she is 'challenged' (has a form of autism).
Not one of these brainless cowards addressed her message, her passion or the environment movement in general. They were so busy getting news coverage of their own rants to even comment on her argument. It is so much easier to attack a 16 year-old girl than face the fact of climate change and DO something.
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Post by kerouac2 on Sept 27, 2019 5:36:30 GMT
I have not seen a single young person say that Greta was out of line -- only old men.
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Post by mossie on Sept 27, 2019 11:01:43 GMT
Let me, as a real old fogey, say that she is a very precocious little girl. But what she said really needed to be said, heads have been buried in the sand for far too long.
We are approaching an anniversary of ‘the Great Storm’ of Oct 1987. I can remember pontificating over the canteen dining table at work the next day that we had to expect more of these extreme conditions because of the way the climate was changing. I was relying on my previous Mer Office experience, but only now am realising the truth of my words. Of course I was roundly “pooh-poohed’ at the time because I was well known for putting forward extreme views just to wind my audience up.
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DianeMP
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Post by DianeMP on Sept 27, 2019 11:03:45 GMT
I have not seen a single young person say that Greta was out of line -- only old men. So true!!!
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Post by lagatta on Sept 27, 2019 11:26:08 GMT
Very few older women either - a few paid contrarian columnists. Women in general get the nastiest comments too. All politicians should expect criticism, but some of the hate against mayors Hidalgo and Plante (for example) is over the top and often threatening.
As for me, I'm getting ready to march, but doubt I'll do the whole thing. Fortunately it will be a lovely day. As for Greta, remember that she says to listen to the scientists. I've interpreted and translated for NGO meetings with IPCC/GIEC members presenting. I'm certainly not a scientist, but have developed a certain ability to read such literature.
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Post by lagatta on Sept 27, 2019 11:58:33 GMT
Now both Severn Cullis-Suzuki and her younger sister actually are scientists. At least one is a marine biologist - obvious why that is a field of choice in BC, with the historical importance of salmon and orcas, among other creatures. Whole cultures developed in the Pacific Northwest centred on the salmon as resource and symbol. I have no idea what Greta will become as an adult, but neurodiversity that does not impinge on intelligence has not been an obstacle for many people in scientific fields. www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/2019/july/50-pound-banknote-character-announcement Turing was not only gay, he was very eccentric to put it mildly! And a genius.
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Post by questa on Sept 28, 2019 2:10:00 GMT
Our former PM, Kevin Rudd, said a day ago that research indicates "opponents of Greta are mostly middle aged, middle class, white guys"
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Post by kerouac2 on Sept 28, 2019 5:50:44 GMT
I see that several hundred thousand people + Greta demonstrated in Montréal yesterday. Another bunch of hysterical whiners, I suppose.
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Post by questa on Sept 28, 2019 6:41:43 GMT
"It's just a passing fad" opined a public figure. (Can't remember who...some overpaid goose with s**t for brains)
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Post by lagatta on Sept 28, 2019 11:48:24 GMT
There are several of those around now. As for the march, estimates (not from the organisers) range somewhere from 300,000 to 500,000 - once again remember that we are a much smaller "big city" than London or Paris, NYC or CDMX. This was even larger than the demonstrations against the Iraq War. Mayor Plante, who garners the same type of nasty personal insults as Mayor Hidalgo, welcomed Greta along with veteran geneticist and ecologist David Suzuki, in a private meeting.
The weather was absoultely ideal for a march (terribly cold winter weather did not prevent a huge turnout for the Iraq marches - I was interpreting at a conference near Brussels for the first and it was terribly cold even there, and I didn't have my warmest winter coat; I never take it to western Europe, and alas have never been to very cold places farther east). Lovely early autumn day; most trees still green, a few atop our so-called mountain turning red, orange or yellow.
I must say that our parks surrounding the mountain have undergone a positive environmental transformation - beforehand there was a postwar traffic interchange that was dangerous for motorists, and for pedestrians, dangerous in terms of collisions and also assault, muggings and rapes (especially students walking home after late classes). Now that has been demolished and if you look at the photos, it has been re-greened and there are trees on both sides of avenue du Parc.
But it was suffocating, waiting for the march to start, and very difficult for me to locate friends (I did later on). I did not do the entire march; it could take it an hour to move from one intersection to the next. If we had been informed of the endpoint, I'd have gone there by myself along a parallel street. More later.
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Post by lagatta on Sept 28, 2019 11:54:36 GMT
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Post by bjd on Sept 28, 2019 18:51:27 GMT
My son and his family marched in Ottawa.
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Post by questa on Sept 30, 2019 1:04:52 GMT
My grandchildren marched in Adelaide, 16yr old made a documentary video of her school's involvement, planning, making signs, interviews etc. I am amazed at how articulate these kids are...no 'umms' or 'errs'. Of course the march features well, I saw her on the TV news zipping around filming as many signs as she could. Can't wait to see the results.
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Post by lugg on Sept 30, 2019 18:49:03 GMT
I loathe the backlash against our children who are standing up for the planet. I particularly loathe the inane posts that are circulating in social media about how we ( 60s and 70s children) all walked to school; used shopping trolleys; had a milkman deliver; no MacDonalds; holidays in a caravan in the UK etc. etc., blah blah blah. So therefore its not our fault . Unbelievable.
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Post by bjd on Oct 1, 2019 8:46:29 GMT
I agree totally, Lugg. It's shameful how Greta Thunberg and all the other kids/young people are being insulted by various climate denyers and other old farts.
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Post by kerouac2 on Oct 1, 2019 10:25:37 GMT
Anyway, Greta is working her way down to South America. Perhaps she will stop in Oaxaca.
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Post by lagatta on Oct 1, 2019 15:44:07 GMT
I get the feeling that she will be stuck in the Americas until boreal spring. If not she'd have a long sea voyage during austral summer. Yes, she is taking part in a conference in Chile. Will she dare visit Bolsonaro's 'hood?
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