I feel like you guys don’t understand how the laws work in sweden, you can’t just pick and choose who you charge (I expect that it’s like that in any non-corrupt country)
Even in relatively corruption-free countries, there are often shadow mechanisms the governments uses to decide who they charge with a crime.
Prosecutors can just say they don’t have a case, or they can fumble the case purposefully in the initial stages to give credence to the “no case” idea.
We don’t have to look any further than how police charge themselves to see how the laws don’t fairly apply to everyone. And a simple google search will reveal that Sweden is not immune to police corruption, which shouldn’t surprise anyone.
“Disobeying police orders”, which is what Thunberg was charged with, is one of those catch-all laws that are purposefully vague in a way that allows police total discretion over how to enforce it.
I guarantee in this case that calls were made all the way up the top of the Swedish government before police decided what to do here.
Basically, my point is that there are so many strings to pull, even in developed countries, that it’s often possible to suss out the motivations of the administration just by examining how charges proceed.
What this says about Thunberg getting charged for her actions? Probably nothing significant. Sweden cannot allow activists to freely disrupt their economic infrastructure, especially those involving energy. So they charge her as “normal” regardless of her celebrity status. Though they will be very careful to do everything by the book with so many eyes on the case.
You talking about the same government that allowed two different people to burn the Quran, one Infront of the Turkish embassy, while being blocked by turkey to join Nato? I don’t think you guys understand, sure there is corruption in Swedish politics, but if any of them tried to influence the rule of law? They’d be unbelievably fucked
Absolutely amazing. For those who say are saying that it was too extremist of a position, I’d say fuck off. She is doing what we all need to be doing. Oil companies and governments aren’t going to help us out of the climate catastrophe that is coming. They simply aren’t. Capitalism will not allow it. This is the only option we have left.
Well, that’s assuming they get to keep their money. My preference would be that we need to start taking it, but that likely won’t happen. They won’t help out of good will, but hopefully we can make them help by force.
Something that intrigued me was how Martin Luther King managed to do so much through nonviolent protest. Rosa Parks refusal to give up her seat and the bus boycotts made people realize how absurd and unfair Jim Crow laws were.
He even participated in a sit in at a department store and was arrested for it. People were getting arrested in such numbers for such simple things it made people think about what King and his followers were trying to do.
I have no doubts that Ms. Thunberg has good intentions, but her protests are simply ineffective. In this case, “blockading” an oil port just frustrates people for delaying a crucial product.
I don’t know, man. I’m not saying it was the best thing that could’ve been done, but at least she’s actually trying to get us to stop cooking ourselves. It wasn’t like she went full blown eco terrorist.
Fair point, it isn’t the worst either. The thing I see though is people shouting over one another trying to push their agenda (noble or not) and all it does is make people more polarized. Just look at the comments on this post.
There are other problems in addition to global warming. The scientific reports I’ve heard of conclude that this is not a civilization killer. It’s a serious problem, but it’s not at the 100% serious level that it’s portrayed at.
And that 100% serious level is not a place you want to be, in terms of responses, if your responses might cause other problems that could reach the 100% serious level.
Like nuclear war. Nuclear war is a real possibility, and it’s something to avoid at all costs. It would be worse than global warming’s projected effects.
So if we cause a nuclear war by taking actions to avoid climate change, we fucked up and killed ourselves by overreacting.
I’m not saying it’s likely. I’m just giving some context into how the major changes being proposed scare some people. A lot of people see the economy and the power structures of the world and all of our fossil-fuel burning industry as a delicate system that is keeping us all fed enough to not be starting wars. Some people are more worried about fucking with that system than they are about climate change.
An analogy would be if you were in a little shack in the wilderness, in the bitter cold winter, and you had a heater that was producing noxious fumes like carbon monoxide.
It’s a really fucking serious problem to have th carbon monoxide in your air. So you’re like “let’s shut off the heater and replace it with blankets”. But if the blankets aren’t effective enough, you freeze to death.
Another analogy would be facing a man-eating tiger while there’s a minefield behind you. Two dangers. And someone who only sees tiger will be like “what the hell are you doing?? This is life or death! Get away from that tiger!” but there’s a legit worry about that minefield too.
Global warming is a new enemy of humanity. But we have to be careful that we don’t resurrect the old enemies of humanity while we’re fighting global warming: famine, war, disease, etc.
Another analogy: human culture is a gigantic codebase that somehow runs. The code was written by developers who aren’t here any more. There’s very little documentation. And this program is running and providing us with food and peace. Mucking about in the code, even for very good reasons, could disrupt existing features that we rely on heavily.
Do you have any fucking idea how the civil rights protests worked? Do you think MLK just asked everyone nicely to give black people rights pretty please? MLK did the exact same kind of thing as Greta, so don’t even fucking pretend you give half a shit about MLK when you’re making it crystal clear that you don’t know a goddamn thing about his methods or beliefs. You wanna know what MLK actually thought about violent protests? In his own words: “A riot is the language of the unheard.”
I hate how often people like you use MLK to hide behind while misinterpreting him and ignoring everything he actually stood for.
It’s frustrating when people think talking down to others is going to change minds. It’s no wonder progressive activists fail to make progress.
If you expect people with different perspectives to get behind people like Greta you’ll want to adopt a better strategy. Otherwise, you’ll continue to polarize folks.
Human activity and wealth flows like water: through the path of least resistance. You can’t affect change unless and until it is easier not to use oil than it is to use it.
The only thing better than Greta’s commitment to fighting against climate change, is seeing how much she pisses off old rich men. One day I’m going to make a shirt that says “Your girlfriend would rather fuck Greta” just to watch them seethe even harder.
Right, because i dont have the same views about what to do, I’m in the same boat as the fucking oil mafia? And you people wonder why republicans and right wing views get so much approval and the left doesn’t get shit done? God, this world is really beyond fucked.
Because some right wing rag told him Greta bad. These people are total shills lol. Imagine defending oil corps who wouldn’t hesitate fucking you over for a dime.
How about you just fuck off with your baseless accusations. Nobody tells me what to think, especially not right-wing armchair farts who don’t have a clue about tooting and blowing. Both extremist views are absolute junk and have no place in a civilized world and that’s exactly why Greta (and the same, it’s not just her) gets on my nerves so much.
She cares about the environment man! And and she like, stood in front of an oil port!! I can’t think of anything more extreme leftist terrorist than that
To know as much about something as the man in the moon
As to her extremist and disagreeable views, now, I haven’t collaborated this properly but have it on very good authority that she prefers vanilla over chocolate pudding. What a monster.
Wahrscheinlich nicht - ist mir aber ehrlich gesagt auch Egal, weil es am Ende eh nix bringt. Sobald man bei dem Thema ne andere Meinung hat, ist man eh unten durch. Aber, weil ich ja eig. verständigungswillig bin…hier die Erklärung:
Yes, i care: I’ve said it in another post, the fact that she (and pretty much everyone else that applauded her) want’s to basically stop living life, without proposing or advocating how to do it better or rather using her Plattform to advocate real change without completely demolishing “life” irks me. To quote the other post:
Because I do not agree with the methods and also the basic goal. Basically, just telling everyone to stop living isn’t going to do shit in terms of change. You have to give people a perspective to rally behind the cause - I support the cause, but neither the goal of going cold turkey on fossils from tomorrow morning, nor do I support the way they go about that.
The issue is: The extremist positions are doing more harm than any good, it’s one of the reasons the AfD got so big in the last few months and neither the Greens nor any other party seem to understand that all they are doing is playing in to the hands of those right wing extremist positions. It infuriates me beyond comparison and makes me actually mad.
And “the other side” just get’s foam around their mouth (wahrscheinlich noch was, was man anders übersetzen müsste, ich bin aber gerade zu verärgert um das ordentlich zu tun - sorry) and put’s you in to the same corner. Which is not only absolutely stupid, it also damages Democracy, Free Speech and also our society - probably on the same level as Climate Change itself, because in the end, does it matter if we bash our heads in because of climate change (no water, no food) or because we disagree? Both things can be avoided.
The popularity of the AFD is not the fault of the people actually trying to make things a tiny bit better. It’s thanks to right wing media and politics (CxU) continuously slandering them after complete failure to improve things even the tiniest bit during their time in power.
Even the most mild and harmless change to somewhat reduce the apocalyptic global warming we’re creating is fought tooth and nail by the right wing.
You’re argument makes as much sense as the people saying gay people are making things worse by forcing their gayness down everyone’s throat. No, right wing people don’t want to do anything about climate change and want LGBT people not to exist.
From what I gather, blocking an oil port is extremist and doesn’t actually do anything but make life more difficult for the general population.
From that perspective I can agree with him. Blockading an oil port is an extreme approach to combating climate change. More sensible approaches would be figuring out how to lobby governments to tax fossil fuels and use that money to support renewable resources.
And people didn’t think Trump had a shot back in 2016.
I live in a town that’s split down the middle politically and I still see people flying Trump flags even after all the bs he has done. We even had a council member denounce pride month back in June at a council meeting. They think they are fighting the good fight.
Anyway, my point is that there are people who will see what Greta is doing, even if it benefits them, and still fight it because they think their side has their back.
Because I do not agree with the methods and also the basic goal. Basically, just telling everyone to stop living isn’t going to do shit in terms of change. You have to give people a perspective to rally behind the cause - I support the cause, but neither the goal of going cold turkey on fossils from tomorrow morning, nor do I support the way they go about that.
It’s funny how you never reply whenever people actually try to ask you what you think is extremist about Greta and her methods/views. Something tells me you’ve just been told she’s extremist by some bad faith actor and you’re just repeating that without enacting any actual critical thought about it.
Her goal is to stop or at least significantly reduce climate change - which is a goal i support. One thing i would appreciate greatly is to actually use her platform and tell people about how many different things there are that every single one can do, to actually reduce the climate impact, without having to change much in their daily live and even their hobbies. For example, those people that invest heavily in to fossile fuel companies with their own private money should look in to investing it somewhere else (and i do actually know a lot of people - not that wealthy - that do exactly that), “vote” with their pockets and actually pay attention what they are buying (like, are you buying your avocados from the other side of the globe, or maybe from sustainable greenhouses that exist all around Europe? Do you really need the latest iPhone 2500X?), support green hydrogen initiatives and companies that do something with Alge to reduce the souring in the oceans and so on - there are COUNTLESS efforts underway that ACTUALLY are going to change things WITHOUT having to deal with all the animosity and bad blood.
Ah good old oil company propaganda where it’s every single individual’s responsibility to fix climate change.
You’re incredibly naive if you think we can solve climate change with your wishful thinking instead of political action to regulate production, circularize the economy, build cities that don’t make you need to drive a car if you want to get anywhere, etc etc etc.
There’s no such thing as fixing a systemic issue without animosity with the people who profit from said system.
One thing i would appreciate greatly is to actually use her platform and tell people about how many different things there are that every single one can do, to actually reduce the climate impact, without having to change much in their daily live and even their hobbies.
You want the path of least resistance, which it is too late for. She has suggested a lot of things previously.
No, of course i do not disagree with stopping climate change (well, actually, i do, because the term “stopping climate change” is wrong, climate change is something that happens naturally and continuously, stopping the man made acceleration of climate change is the correct thing)
I agree she is obnoxious and that famous speech at the UN is so cringe it’s hard for me to watch. I also agree with the message overall, and I’m pretty much a single issue voter now on climate change. Blockading an oil port (?) isn’t the way to go about it though. We need to make alternatives better, cheaper, and more affordable than oil. That’s the only way to get people to change. That’s the only way to change things on a massive scale.
All the downvotes against you are dismaying. I think people hear ‘Greta bad’ and assume you enjoy dumping oil in the arctic and killing baby seals as your weekend hobby. It would be cool if we could discuss these things without going straight to each other’s throats.
I agree she is obnoxious and that famous speech at the UN is so cringe it’s hard for me to watch. I also agree with the message overall, and I’m pretty much a single issue voter now on climate change. Blockading an oil port (?) isn’t the way to go about it though. We need to make alternatives better, cheaper, and more affordable than oil. That’s the only way to get people to change. That’s the only way to change things on a massive scale.
That’s pretty much one of my points as well. There are also other things that can and have to be done, we’ve fucked up pretty royally and need to be doing stuff ASAP - but not through force. We need everyone to do it and we can’t afford the different “camps”.
All the downvotes against you are dismaying. I think people hear ‘Greta bad’ and assume you enjoy dumping oil in the arctic and killing baby seals as your weekend hobby. It would be cool if we could discuss these things without going straight to each other’s throats.
Pretty much, yeah. I’m by no means right on everything and some ideas are stupid (still, they should be done to get everyone on board), but no discussions i one of the biggest issues we have in our societies right now.
And now here we both are now sitting at “scores” below zero. I was really hoping Lemmy wouldn’t bring reddit’s rabid overzealous hateful groupthink with it. It would be really nice if we could discuss this like adults but no, I guess we should go fuck off and die instead.
What’s that line from big lebowski, you’re not wrong, you’re just an asshole? I think that applies to greta and other so-called climate activists. Sitting in the road blocking people from getting to work isn’t going to win the hearts and minds. Blocking oil tankers isn’t going to stop people, businesses, governments, etc from using oil. It’s just super childish and naive to think otherwise.
Dude human race is a danger to the environment and we are going kill life on this planet. So asking us to not live to save the environment would be spot on.
I believe that is the truly only way to save the environment.
But to your point of living our lives like normal. You keep doing that right up until were fucked I am sure future generations will appreciate you for all the "nothing " you did to combate climate change. When our grandkids (supposing you have kids) are fighting wars over water I’m sure they will look back on you fondly knowing that you kept up the good fight of enjoying the overabundance of food and water.
And you kept driving gas power cars and just enjoy life. Because god forbid anyone inconvenience you our the world over climate change.
How about instead of bitching about the girl who at least is fighting for her future and future generations you join the fight instead.
Do that our shut the fuck up no one interested in your complaining.
The main character kid judged his mentor “with the sanctimonious only a youth can muster while decrying the faults of their elders.”
I think of that line often. That’s what comes to mind when watching that infamous speech of hers at the UN. It’s just so cringe and hard to watch. I agree with the message, but the delivery, oof…
The hell? What kind of fucked up world view does one need to have, to jump to that conclusion, just because I don’t agree with the methods Great and her cult use? That’s on the same level of stupid as telling Ukraine they have to negotiate with Russia at all costs.
You apparently don’t, because there are countless scientists who deliver alternatives, so we don’t have to strip ourself from enjoying life in every possible way.
If you read into his other posts he is saying her approach of blocking people from living their lives is ineffective. It is like protesting something by blocking off a highway people need to use to make a living.
At this point who notices protests? They are so commonplace unless tens of thousands of people are involved. I agree that this will catch the public eye and may motivate people to side with her, but it could have the opposite effect as well. People rely on fossil fuels to get through their day (e.g. commuting, heating their homes, electric generation even). Making it more expensive may frustrate people who are more concerned about making ends meet than the climate.
It sucks, but there are limits to how practical it is to disrupt a crucial resource.
Though if I had to guess, it’s going to be stuff like “build a shit ton of nuclear power plants, use e fuels for cars, use green hydrogen, develop fusion power, and generally do all the things that allow us to believe that we have to change absolutely nothing in our lives.”
these countless scientists (accounting for less than 2% of the scientific community), are they in the room with us right now?
Also Greta doesn’t control literally anyone, doesn’t require unwavering devotion and most importantly it is not a spiritual belief that human-made climate change is a thing. In fact it’s a well established fact by now.
Because 1 moron screaming that the sky is green does not make the sky green just because he’s “providing an alternative” to what the other 99 people are saying after looking up at the sky and seeing it is blue. Scientists are also not telling people to repent, they’re telling people there needs to be a system change and they’re also telling politicians that they need to enact policies to contrast climate change, and the same is what activists ask for. You’d know if you spent some time looking at what they say rather than what the media says about them.
You know who actually is both telling people to repent for their own emissions and also spreading misinformation about climate change and financing those “alternative science”? Oil companies. I wonder why.
She’s charged basically for not leaving a the premises when told by police, she’ll likely receive a fine.
She’ll be alright and will get a chance to argue in court, a new platform one might even argue. I don’t think this is anything to get rallied up or worried about, civil disobedience works sometimes
And this isn’t the first time. A lot of climate activists (and I assume Greta included) love these non-compliance fines, since it’s basically advertising for them
Oh no! The horror! These Fossil Fuel companies are out there making fuel out of the goodness of their hearts, and these people come in and just sit there blocking them?
Though I wish this were true it is not. Romanian authorities, specifically Ramona Bolla of DIICOT confirmed that the tweet had nothing to do with locating him.
I don’t think that is necessarily relevant. Romania didn’t seem to be in a hurry to arrest him until she made the post. I think the more relevant thing she did was to embarrass Romania into action.
You suggesting that Romanian authorities rely on tweets of some social media celebrity to arrest another one is not that different from Top scumbag himself suggesting he can bribe his way to stay away from prison in Romania. Both are pretty insulting to Romania.
Granted, yours isn’t as bad, yet you should still reconsider your position.
I wish you were right. Look at Bulgaria. A year of peaceful protest, and the ones who were supposed to save us from the corrupt government made a coalition with them and thus rehabilitated the mafia government. I hope that I get proven wrong, and Kennedy is correct, but only time will tell.
The purpose and function of the police and the courts is the protection of capital from the people. Some cases illustrate this more clearly than others. This is one of them.
Laws are threats made by the dominant socioeconomic-ethnic group in a given nation. It’s just the promise of violence that’s enacted and the police are basically an occupying army. You know what I mean?
Turns out that in their demands on Sweden to change the way they apply the law when it comes to PKK demonstations, what Turkey is doing wrong is making it a quid pro quo for approving NATO membership rather than just helping the Swedish upper classes get richer.
Clearly freedom of speech CAN be traded in Sweden, as long as its for cold hard cash.
I could demonstrate to you That every single bank robbery That in every single case practically The cost of the police was more than The actual money that the robbers took from the bank Does that mean, 'Oh, you see There’s really no economic interest involved, then They’re not protecting the banks The police are just doing this ‘cause they’re on a A power trip or they’re macho, or they’re control freaks That’s why they do it’ No, of course, it’s an economic… Of course, they’re defending the banks Of course, because if they didn’t stop that bank robbery Regardless of the cost, this could jeopardize The entire banking system You see, there are people who believe That the function of the police Is to fight crime, and that’s not true The function of the police is social control And protection of property…
Good. Stopping people from doing their jobs or inconveniencing the public aren’t how you should protest. You deserved to be locked up for doing that. If you don’t like something, you advertise and get the word around so you can eventually get it fixed going through the correct systems.
Ah yes, I remember the civil rights movement where black Americans just politely asked politicians to please give them rights. And the gay rights movement where nobody was arrested. And the protests in Hong Kong which were very peaceful. And the non-provocative Tiennaman Square protest. And the protests for women’s rights against the Taliban where no laws are being broken
Pretty common point of view unfortunately - like the people in the US who think they should be able to run over (liberal only of course) protestors if they block a street.
Amongst the little mice fighting for crumbs under the table were the fatcats divide the cake, a few, having grabbed slightly larger crumbs, proudly raise them above their heads and shout: “See?! The System works!!!”
There is no “eventually” regarding climate, the time for civility was decades ago and we’re out of time. Remember oil companies have their own research divisions and knew all of this before the public, it is a crime against humanity and the public has to hold them accountable somehow.
Actually, Mandela did protest apartheid using the system. After all, he was a lawyer. But after decades of that didn’t work, he and the ANC decided that violence was appropriate against an opponent that did not view them as fully human.
To be fair, a shocking number of people don’t actually know that he and the ANC did eventually adopt guerrila warfare/terrorism for a time to achieve their ends. I blame the kid-gloves treatment that most discussion of apartheid gets, usually to kids, and the fact that it usually never gets mentioned again to adults.
If you don’t inconvenience others in your protest, your protest is just masturbation, ie pointless.
People like you will be hilariously blaming the environmentalists and not the capitalists when water ceases to come out of your tap from the capitalist’s fine work.
With that logic, people like you deserve to be punished for being complacent with negligent homicide and property damage. My country is being wracked with extreme weather events and my countrymen are now inconvenienced with rising costs of and lack of water supply due to lowering water levels due to the extreme heat because of climate change, and guess what? Lots of people dying to heat stroke, because of the high humidity levels. There is a limit to the temperature people can survive with those humidity levels. People like you only care about convenience, even though hundreds of millions of people will suffer or even die from it because people like you DON’T CARE, and you only will when you complain about the incoming climate refugee crisis. Someday it will be so hot out that poor people won’t be able to protest outside, and the rich people ever more out of touch with reality because they’ll never get out of their air-conditioned houses.
“We blocked the port in order to stop the use of fossil fuels that are killing innocent people,” she said. “The real crimes continue inside the gate of the port. We are not going to sit and wait while the fossil fuel industry takes our dreams away from us.” Asked if she’s worried about the consequences of the trial, she replied: “I personally am more worried about the horrible harm the fossil fuel industry is doing to the world.” “I’m not going to stop while they are threatening the planet.”
Much of the oil and gas industry says that continued production is necessary in order to meet global energy demands. Cutting oil and gas production would be “dangerous and irresponsible”, the head of energy company Shell told BBC News. The International Energy Agency has said that there can be no new investments in oil, gas and coal now if governments are serious about the climate crisis. UN chief António Guterres recently said investment in new oil and gas production was “economic and moral madness”. This week the world experienced its hottest day on record on Tuesday, topping 17C for the first time.
Our world burns and people suffer so that oil companies can turn a profit. The few are making decisions that will have disasterous effects on the many in the not too distant future.
As long as people are buying gas for their cars and flying planes around the world, oil companies will need to exist.
It’s so strange to me how people will protest oil companies, then go fill up their tank at the gas station. Or fly across the globe for their vacations.
For most Americans, there is no alternative for a car. The tram lines we used 60 years ago were bought and torn up by car manufacturers. We need grocery stores within walking distance, and transit lines to useful places before people will give up their cars.
One relatively recent and quite expensive alternative would be electric cars. But I don’t really see that as a real, permanent solution, for that you would need a good railway/tram system, which sadly isn’t all that common all around the world
I have grocery stores within walking distance, but even taking a dolly it’s a hell of a lot of work carrying back a bunch of groceries. Plus the way the roads are constructed I risk my life every time I cross the street. Young and fit people should walk to the store but it’s not practical for everyone.
That makes sense. I feel like probably NYC is constructed better in terms of walkability and public transportation. I live in semi-suburban Denver. There are 7-8 small grocery stores and 2 wholesale food warehouses about a mile from my house, primarily Asian and Central American markets, which is a lot, so it’s feasible for me to walk. 3-4 liquor stores, a couple weed shops and a few convenience stores. For many other areas of the city it wouldn’t be as reasonable to live without a car, though probably one could take the bus or light rail. The problem is just walking to a bus stop is about half a mile so it wouldn’t help that much. I could use an Uber or Lyft, but it would be expensive unless I just went to the store once every 2 weeks.
I’m reasonably fit, in my 40s, but things like “I’ll carry back 4 12 packs of Diet Pepsi from the store for my girlfriend” leaves me feeling pretty worn out. Taking a dolly or cart helps but I’m the only person around here I ever see doing that… not that I mind. I suppose I could do grocery delivery.
Grocery delivery is a good stop gap, but you’d need all the various grocery stores to be on board. Municipal and state governments could literally subsidize the costs of maintenance and fueling delivery vehicles to incentivize this method, and even offer rebates for customers who participate, but nah that’s all too hard and will eat at the bottom line so let the world burn I guess.
Asked if she’s worried about the consequences of the trial, she replied: “I personally am more worried about the horrible harm the fossil fuel industry is doing to the world.” “I’m not going to stop while they are threatening the planet.”
This. This is activism. I’m not brave enough to face a justice system hostile to my existence like she does, so I’m glad she’s there to do it.
Right? Really, tho. I sincerely hope she was coached by somebody and not left in the dark to figure out how to be a figurehead of a movement and lightning rod for abuse all on her own. That’d be kinda fucked up.
She’s been literally protesting for eco solutions since she was like 12 or something. While some kids were busy jerking off to Harry Potter, she found her outlet in becoming an activist and leading one of the largest movements in climate change protests, becoming an inspiration millions of children just like her. I’ve seen the Friday walk-out protests in Europe, and the attendance was always huge and the people involved were very passionate about the cause.
I know people have a hard time understanding that, but that’s why they jerk off to Harry Potter instead. It’s all they got.
bbc.co.uk
Newest