The sixteen-year-old Swedish environmentalist Greta Thunberg is young, passionate, brave, and is willing to be used as a prop by left-liberal ideologues. Her global protest – the most apparent social engineering operation I have seen for quite some time – has somehow impressed the world with its idealism.
At 16, Greta ideally would have been embraced as a ‘Little Angel’ by world leaders, but her creepy drama juxtaposed with her tender age and sickness spoiled it.
Greta suffers from OCD and Asperger Syndrome, clinically diagnosed depression, suicidal thoughts, and tendencies. This is what her parents and promoters say. According to her mother Malena Ernman, Greta can see CO2 with her naked eye. Let that sink in. Children with Asperger’s need security, routine, and constant care. Greta’s ‘caregivers’ are evidently providing none of this. In her public speeches, she always talks about the apocalypse, wanting people to panic. No, that is not the right thing for a young girl with suicidal tendencies to say and it should worry her caregivers.
Kids are not autonomous. So I am not blaming Greta at all. Greta with support of her promoters has filed a complaint with the UN against five countries for not stopping climate change. China – the biggest polluter in the world – is not one of them. Her parents and promoters are not only creepy but appear to be complete frauds.
We are watching the blatant abuse of a vulnerable child used as a human ideological shield for their hysterical propaganda. Greta’s age matters as children are not our political mascots. I wish she gets back to school that she bunked and got famous for it.
Greta Thunberg is a victim of indoctrination and child abuse, NOT Climate change!
Climate change is real. The damage that humankind is inflicting on the environment is real. The world has failed to act thus far, in part because the majority, despite the overwhelming scientific evidence, don’t realize that a very rapid change is required. If we fail now and chose inaction, our next generations will have a daunting task.
Climate change represents a threat, but ‘fear messaging’ can be counter-productive. Part of the problem in efforts to promote awareness of climate change is that most people involved in such movements are celebrity hypocrites.
Confronting climate change is a must, but hyperbole and bluster do the planet no favours. The last thing that we need to solve this crisis is the sanctimony of the worst offenders.
The vile vermin left-liberals and hypocrites whining and playing victim today over a ‘poor-16-year-old’ are pathetically disappointing. If you criticize them logically and talk about real issues concerning climate change, you will be branded insensitive.
The lack of climate policy is regrettable, but global failure cannot be attributed to merely Donald Trump’s presence in the White House. It only exposes the vacuous hypocrisy of the movement.
There’s nothing wrong in asking others to do everything to save the planet, while these hypocrites continue to harm it much more than most people through their lifestyle of a Godzilla size carbon footprint. How evil and selfish are they?
Point. Change is best achieved by stripping away the rhetoric and raising inconvenient truths, science, and facts.
After decades of failed climate change policy, more of the same is not the answer. Since the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, our use of renewable energy has increased by only 1.1 percentage point (from meeting 13.1% 14.2% today). Most countries are failing to deliver on carbon cut undertakings. The reason is that the leading climate solutions pursued are costly and ineffective. It is time we should be having a sensible discussion on ‘Cost-Effective’ ways to reduce the worst of climate change’s damages.
To meet the Paris climate targets, developed countries, in particular, must rapidly reduce their carbon footprints. It also requires getting developing countries on board to cut emissions. But the priority remains to lift their populations out of poverty with cheap and reliable energy. How do we square that?
For the search of solutions, there is a clear divide over the historical emissions of developed countries and future differentiated responsibility for developing nations.
Do these activists know that thousands of children in Asia and Africa who lose their childhood (and even lives) because they don’t have electricity? That they endure smoke because they don’t have cooking gas? The increasing electricity prices hurt the poor the most. Alternative energy has increased very little because renewable energy remains incapable of meeting all of our needs met by fossil fuels. Replacing cheap fossil fuel energy with more expensive and less reliable alternative energy weighs down the economy, leading to lower growth.
In the 2014 bilateral agreement on carbon emissions between China and the US – both countries accepted that they had greater responsibility given their outsized contributions to global emissions. However, President Obama accepted that China has the right to energy-intensive industrialization, as every major developed nation has had before it.
As an effect, even today, China is treated as a developing country in climate negotiations that President Trump pointed out. The fact is its economic position and influence far surpasses that of any other developing country.
Of these developing countries, India by far remains the largest and is at a far earlier stage on its trajectory of industrial development. Now that the economic growth has begun to lift sections of its population out of poverty, India cannot wait for the eventuality of cost-competitive renewable energy. Hundreds of million Indians still have little or no access to modern energy sources. India’s dilemma is millions of Indians are on the cusp of prosperity powered by cheaper fossil fuel energy.
The carbon-polluting coal often being the most accessible option. In this, India is similar to previous industrialized nations, from Britain, the United States, and Germany earlier and to China in the recent past. They all powered their industrialization and rise in per capita incomes with fossil fuels. It is challenging for India to accede to any deal that will make its ongoing industrialization (the first in history) to be nipped in the bud by international restrictions.
Thus for India, the tradeoffs between growth and environment are harsher than anywhere else. India’s overall size accords exceptional attention in the global climate debate.
A few months ago, Greta Thunberg was also seen sermonizing Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The fact is, PM Modi, as chief minister of Gujrat, has done so much more than any world leader to mitigate climate change. Now Modi, as the Prime Minister, creates the opportunity across India to benefit from his committed renewable energy-friendly policies. It is he who opened up the possibility that India becomes a leader in cost-competitive renewable energy. India would be committed to reducing its relative dependence on coal if a climate framework created significant funding and technology transfer to accelerate such efforts. Today, India’s adoption of renewable energy and low-carbon technology positions it among the global leaders in sustainable growth.
What India can and cannot do; the challenge is enormous. But within any pragmatic global climate framework, India should be accorded unique status in light of its poverty challenge and imminent growth opportunity.
The real solution lies in honest discussions where developing nations also get the fruits of economic growth while we figure out how to deal with climate change practically. A rising carbon tax can play a limited but essential role in factoring the costs of climate change into fossil fuel use. Implementing a small but increasing carbon tax will practically cut some of the most damaging climate impacts, at low costs.
Climate change also raises challenges if our focus remains solely at the individual level; however, it adds up. Giving up meat/beef does help a lot, but going vegetarian is both challenging and does not solve the issue entirely.
If we look at our past significant challenges – like starvation catastrophes during the 1960s to the 80s – they weren’t fixed by asking people to consume less food but through the Green Revolution. Thus INNOVATION is the key. We should dramatically ramp up spending on Research and Development into green energy.
It is the only way to bring forward the day when green energy alternatives are cheaper and more attractive than fossil fuels for every section of society. Sadly, Renewable energy R&D and an optimal CO2 tax are not what we hear from the climate summits but dramatically expressed rhetoric. The script must change, pinned to science, not emotions.
