Funny meme and all, but I kind of hate how people dog on Greta for caring about the world. Like talk about how “ineffective” she is all you want, but she’s doing more than 99% of people, at least she tries.
I think some of it is the activism vs practice question. Who does more to curb climate change: someone protesting about it a lot, or someone who sits down and does the hard work of getting, say, a renewable energy engineering degree and designs next gen wind turbines? There's a decent argument for the latter - which is also a quiet, behind the scenes role that doesn't have the benefit of making you famous at the same time. There's a certain "Look at me" energy to all activists that can be pretty offputting. Just some thoughts.
There's a certain "Look at me" energy to all activists that can be pretty offputting
Please tell us how she and activists generally should be doing it properly.
or someone who sits down and does the hard work of getting, say, a renewable energy engineering degree and designs next gen wind turbines? There's a decent argument for the latter
Lie. Misjudgement rather. Current gen wind turbines are fine, the pols lack the will to deploy them.
Also, Exxon has known about global heating since the 60s. The issue has been the messaging and culture war game, not our lack of engineers.
The other thing is, current wind gen turbines + Solar are only fine because of all the improvements those quiet engineers have been making for decades.
Why have we seen an explosion in global renewables uptake in the past handful of years? Sure, there have been some political shifts due to global emissions treaties etc. But the vast majority of the change is because now the technology is so good that it outcompetes fossil fuels.
It more than doubled 2022-2025, and is still going crazy. Because around that time we reached a key inflection point where it became the best economic choice. As much as motivation by abstract ethical goals is important, actual change occurs when material conditions support it.
The real proof of this? China. They are a totalitarian state completely immune from external (or internal) activism. And they are leading the charge on renewables installation.
It's the engineers at Tesla and BYD making electric cars that are as good or better than ICE cars that have made them successful, not because people were shamed into buying them.
We're not going to solve the problems of climate change by sheer political will. Yes, politics and messaging have an (important) role to play, but the biggest changes come from the hands on, practical, unglamourous, difficult work of finding real solutions that work in the world. We're gonna solve the problems of climate change by making the renewables transition economically desirable.
I've never read a more braindead glorification of the salaryman life than this silly paragraph of yours.
As if there was glory in doing paid labor. The engineers at Tesla are good people but they're just doing a job. They're paid handsomely for it. If money was offered for them to do something else, they'd do something else. That's how it works with paid labor for most people. There's no shame in that but also no glory.
I'm am engineer myself, also paid handsomely, and in no way would I ask for people to glorify my everyday work over the work of activists who actually face adversity and plenty of hostility for what they do.
You also grossly underestimate how powerful the astroturfed activism against green energy can be. If there were no public consciousness about climate change (which is largely stimulated by activists!!) then the established fossil industries, with their huge money, would have a much easier time smothering any attempt to put green technology into the markets through negative PR, political lobbying and lawfare. Which is EXACTLY what they do in other countries where consciousness about climate change doesn't exist, like Russia.
Thing is that the people who in the end decide what's done aren't any of those. They're policy makers.
And the express and explicit job of policy makers is generally to do what the people want them to do. (They often don't bit that's besides the point for the moment).
That means that the correct way to get these things actually getting done is to convince THE PEOPLE that it needs to be done. That's the job activists do.
Only AFTER THAT POINT do people like engineers, financiers et cetera enter the picture at all! So without activists, none of the other jobs really... Matter.
Policy makers aren't what determine what happens. It's economics.
Example: Texas has the highest rate of solar buildout of any US state. It's sure as shit not because the Texas electorate and policy makers care about green energy. It's because they accidentally made it economically viable by being a state with little paperwork for building stuff.
They legislated the cheapest method of transportation out of existence. Not allowed to compete with trucks and rail. 100 years ago! And it's still not allowed
That's only true if the economically favorable options are allowed to be developed and to compete in the first place.
Why do you think the USA doesn't have a real coastal and riverine transport system? Why is everything transported by truck and rail across the continent? Certainly not because the Mississippi and Ohio rivers are any worse as potential waterways than big rivers in other countries.
It was a POLITICAL choice made 100 years ago that smothered river and coastal shipping. They legislated the cheapest method of transport into non-competitiveness.
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u/SecondaryMilk 5d ago
Funny meme and all, but I kind of hate how people dog on Greta for caring about the world. Like talk about how “ineffective” she is all you want, but she’s doing more than 99% of people, at least she tries.