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from the calling-for-compulsary-education-by-skipping-education dept.
Across the world Friday, students skipped class to protest their governments failure to take sufficient measures to curb climate change.
It all started with 16 year old Greta Thunberg of Sweden:
who began holding solitary demonstrations outside the Swedish parliament last year. Since then, the weekly protests have snowballed from a handful of cities to hundreds, fueled by dramatic headlines about the impact of climate change during the students' lifetime.
Thunberg has been nominated for a Nobel peace prize for her efforts.
The protestors are calling for a list of anti-climate change actions and solutions including:
Our Demands
- Green New Deal
- A halt in any and all fossil fuel infrastructure projects
- All decisions made by the government be based on the best-available and most-current scientific research.
- Declaring a National Emergency on Climate Change
- Compulsory comprehensive education on climate change and its impacts throughout grades K-8
- Preserving our public lands and wildlife
- Keeping our water supply clean
Our Solutions
- The extraction of Greenhouse Gases from the atmosphere
- Emission standards and benchmarks
- Changing the agriculture industry
- Using renewable energy and building renewable energy infrastructure
- Stopping the unsustainable and dangerous process of fracking
- Stop mountaintop removal/mining
In a speech Friday outside the United Nations HQ in New York, Alexandria Villasenor, one of the founders of Youth Climate Strike U.S. said:
world leaders weren't listening. "Our world leaders are the ones acting like children," she said. "They are the ones having tantrums, arguing with each other and refusing to take responsibility for their actions while the planet burns."
At one of these planned protests a year or two back, permission forms were sent home in advance so kids could get parental permission to participate in skipping school and protesting. Kids who didn't participate were taunted and harassed by the other kids.
How does your school treat such events?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bradley13 on Saturday March 16 2019, @08:34AM (18 children)
Swiss TV interviewed a bunch of high schoolers who are involved in this. They mean well, but they are so naive that it hurts. I suppose we were all that young once.
The moderator tried to guide a discussion between the kids and some elder politicians and business types. At least they had one person on the show who dared question the climate change "consensus". All sides were polite (this is Switzerland, after all), but they were completely talking past each other. Absolutely zero communication.
It was just too painful to watch. I had to turn it off...
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Saturday March 16 2019, @09:50AM
I mean, they are a form of skills, and they *are* kids, so ... yeah, they haven't learned this stuff yet. I agree completely, though -- maybe they all need some basic training in this kind of televised debate/interview.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by lentilla on Saturday March 16 2019, @11:10AM (13 children)
The part I find most sad is that older people know instinctively that most of what these teenagers want will come to nothing when the get a few more years under their belt. It's not that older people don't care about the environment - it's that the entire topic is more nuanced than a bunch of slogans.
Corporations don't usually have comic-book evil CEOs holding a lever marked "dump toxic waste into stream". Corporations by-and-large are owned by other large institutional bodies - like superannuation funds. Which bring us to the ironic situation that the middle class is ultimately responsible for great deal of corporate behaviour. Or; to put it another way; the students' parents. Yes, your parents might separate their garbage like good stewards of the environment, but their pay-cheque (and by extension, the student's existence) isn't all that squeaky-clean.
The best solution I have yet seen to this problem is The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement [vhemt.org]. Whilst I wish Greta Thunberg and her compatriots all the best, my prediction is that within fifteen years she will be a mother and; as such; causing even more damage to the environment.
Every little bit counts, so it's good that the next generation is taking steps. But then again, the Boomer generation had its hippies, Gen X had Captain Planet [wikipedia.org] and we still have a problem. Most people care about the environment, but that never seems to trickle down to walking instead of driving to ballet lessons or agreeing to pay twice as much to heat the house in winter.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Saturday March 16 2019, @11:36AM
I agree with most of what you said, but:
Whilst you're very probably right here, I know that as a teenager I would have found this sort of attitude deeply insulting. It might be true as a trend, but it's basically a form of ageism. You're robbing them of their own personal agency in a way because no matter what they do or say, their age is one thing they cannot change (without some help from good old Father Time). The other comment about them appearing very naive in an interview is fairer because it still gives them the chance to buck the trend, get informed and deny the preconceptions about their age group.
All that said, what's happened in the past is every generation has had a handful of serious environmentalists that will stick to their beliefs throughout their life and then a whole load of other fickler, more impressionable people that just jumped on the bandwagon at the time and abandoned those principles when their lives changed. That doesn't mean that these kids aren't different this time, so I hope you're wrong.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Saturday March 16 2019, @12:23PM (6 children)
Voluntary extinction?? How can you possibly be any more cynical than that?
> Corporations don't usually have comic-book evil CEOs
Disagree. I've seen and heard some of the bozos who landed in a CEO position through inheritance or some other criteria that had nothing to do with merit. The way they talk and think really is comically evil. Let me relate the main points of a speech the CEO of a major HVAC (Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning) manufacturer gave the troops one evening that I attended the (unpaid, of course) gathering:
1. He whined that he could have made more money if he'd sold the company and invested the proceeds in the stock market. He was disappointed that we were not working harder, making it worth his while to do us the favor of staying in his CEO position. We had let him down. But, for our sakes, so that we would all have jobs, Daddy stuck with us helpless children even though he felt we weren't really deserving. Wasn't he a swell guy? He was patting himself on the back so hard he must have wrenched his brain where it was connected to his shoulder.
2. He didn't believe in this Global Warming nonsense. But, if it was true, then GOOD, because the company would get to sell more air conditioners. Bring on the warming!
The audience mostly looked fidgety, uncomfortable, embarrassed, and bored. They were all waiting for him to shut up and sit back down. No one dared talk back. Probably anyone who did speak up would've been fired on the spot. He of course was clueless about his audience's real feelings. Not that he gave a damn anyway.
So, maybe Global Warming is not the root cause of our woes. Global Warming is merely a symptom. Maybe it's our institutions that give great power to such idiocy. I have always found it weird that our democracy stops at the corporate border. Our corporations are run like medieval feudal societies, not modern democracies.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 16 2019, @12:40PM
No one forces you to work for this company, not sure what you are whining about.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday March 16 2019, @01:46PM (1 child)
Some of us non-conforming assholes look for opportunities to "talk back". "Hey, boss, you're so full of shit, you're embarrassing the adults here!"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 16 2019, @06:35PM
Helps to have "fuck you" money.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by acid andy on Saturday March 16 2019, @04:15PM (2 children)
This is one of the most valuable quotes I've seen here in a long time. It becomes particularly relevant as the size and power of corporations begins to dominate all of society, as it has now.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday March 16 2019, @05:39PM (1 child)
Butbutbutbut MUH FREE MARKET! WHY DO YOU HATE AMERICA AND FREEDOM YOU FUCKIN' COMMIE?! Which is basically what we're told whenever we point that out. I have no idea how this happened; maybe it's just greed being that powerful and ignorance being that pervasive.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Bot on Sunday March 17 2019, @11:25AM
Corporations are the result of the free market like the corrupt bureaucrat is the result of socialism. The probably intended result, in fact there seem not to be a moment when free market exists before big interests, or when socialism exists before a statal bureaucracy. The french revolutionaries had their red hat (o look ancient religious symbol) from day 0.
Democracy? What do you mean? When we the people say "do one thing" and representatives conform? Just look at brexit. Just don't look at the 90% yea to the abolition of subsidies to political parties in Italy (if you find problems in determining the year, we voted in 78 93 and 00). Did that stop the subsidies? YES They are now called reimbursements.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 16 2019, @01:36PM (4 children)
No, they are holding a leaver called "need my fucking stock options and golden parachute" and fuck the collective world. Most of these people don't do evil to do evil. They do anything to make money for themselves, not shareholders. And if that includes some evil, then fuck the peasants and shareholders. Just look at most of the large companies and where most of the profits go. Look at how GE fucked over recently all because of bad bad management. Look at how BA keeps lying to everyone that "plane safe" but had a program that relied on a 1 sensor entry to crash a plane. Same for FAA that certified such a monstrosity.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Saturday March 16 2019, @04:10PM (2 children)
So what? The results are exactly the same. Even most comic book baddies have motives. And quite a few of these CEOs and politicians are certainly psychotic enough to be at least partially motivated by an enjoyment of the non-consensual infliction of suffering.
The other half of the problem that I've mentioned before is the massive, almost infinite, dilution of responsibility that human society and the corporate system particularly instigates. Employees do as they have been trained to do. Consumers do as those around them do. Their actions have negative effects, but no-one is directly responsible for the harms that happen. The problems are far, far deeper rooted in humanity than any one person or group of people. If some people refuse to behave in line with the corporate norm, others will be brought in to carry it on. Because the decision making process is incredibly spread out across many thousands of people and also learned from and developed in reaction to millions more, it's almost impossible for any one person to fix it. We're all a part of this. Our actions do indirect harm yet we continue them because of the culture we were conditioned to be a part of.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 4, Informative) by deimtee on Sunday March 17 2019, @03:44AM (1 child)
This is actually one of the things that Mr Orwell explained in his rather famous book, but it was apparently a bit too subtle and is often missed.
It is the use of power that these people find exciting.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Sunday March 17 2019, @12:24PM
I call it "control", the deepest ring in my model of hell. Lust for money, then wealth, then power, then control, hello satan. I never thought about my model of paradise but it must be some mirror image, like: charity, authority (over self, mind you), justice, sacrifice.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 16 2019, @04:24PM
a. adjust the trim wheel at least once per 5 seconds
b. set the flaps down at least 1 notch
Either will do, disabling the software. Adjusting the trim wheel is something that a pilot can be expected to do, perhaps with a bit of bewildered cursing about why the setting keeps getting undone every 5 seconds.
If the sensor isn't bad, another option is autopilot.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Saturday March 16 2019, @11:16AM
Politicians in the making? ;)
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 16 2019, @11:33AM
It always elevates any discussion to include at least one flat earther or antivaxxer.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 16 2019, @06:31PM
We were that young once, but back then we could have had radical but diverging opinions without being unpersoned (as much as today).
The students have been conditioned the last 10 years or so that "Freedom of the press" is great (everything the press says is true!), "Science" is great (once hypothesized, it never changes!). The press has been trumpeting a Chicken Little story on Global Warming, insinuating that "science has proven it".
Since Trump, besides having beat the chosen candidate Hillary, doesn't pay absolute lip service to the one acceptable opinion on Global Warming, he gets named in every "End of the world is nigh" and "It rained in California" story for his foolhardy intransigence. The students are concerned, good on them for taking interest in their world, but they are not being taught to be critical about media anymore (they risk their lives to inform us!). That has become crimethink.
The elder politicians and business types know not to believe everything that's in the paper. But if they fall out of line too much, the unpersoning and deplatforming mobs will come after them too. Better to just wait it out, once they're dead, the living can fuck things up as much as they want.
It's not about communication, it's about grandstanding, virtue signalling, and trying not to be "called out" and shunned for saying crimethink. Just like trying not to get burned for heresy in 16th century Spain.