@stevenroose No you are probably right, i might be wrong.

It sounds like less of a strike and more of a march, lasts a few hours and its over. Thats better than nothing as it brings awareness. But sadly it sounds like too little too late. We need more than marches.

@stevenroose I'd join them to. Only thing that would cause me not to join them is if Greta was a spokesperson for them or otherwise endorsed by them. Otherwise I support it.

@freemo
What's wrong with Greta?

@stevenroose Mostly that she takes an anti-education stance which to me is more damaging than an anti-climate stance.

Saying "I want to bring awareness to climate by encouraging everyone to boycott education/school every friday" sounds extremly harmful. It would be like an educator bringing awareness to education by saying "I want to bring awareness to education by encouraging people every friday to dump toxic waste into their local river"

Encouraging something harmful to the community as a form of protest against something harmful to the community is a failed tactic.

@freemo @stevenroose
I'm not aware she is against education.

Liking a climate-change post on FB or retweeting a tweet about it, is about the extend to which 'protest' has been done so far.

As has become painfully obvious, that hasn't changed a single thing. What will cause representatives to get into action is massive societal disruption.
Kids are teaching the adults here.

An argument I've heard from kids: what's the point of education if there isn't a livable world to apply that knowledge.

@FreePietje

If they want to protest it then why get out of school why not go on the weekends to show us they are really committed. If they are taking off school its kind of negating any good they do. When I was a kid if I could get an excuse to get a day off school I would.

I'm sorry I just cant respect that message.

@stevenroose

@freemo @stevenroose
I've heard that argument before and I see some truth in that.

Gilets Jaunes are STILL protesting every saturday/weekend. When was the last time you heard about that? What have they achieved?

Doing things in the weekend doesn't cause societal disruption because no one is negatively affected by it. Politician/representatives can ignore that indefinitely.

@FreePietje

Then why not disrupt society on the weekends. They can all go march on their local government and do something disruptive like storm in on their politicians... the SS couldn't stop little kids right? It would go noticed at least, they wouldn't arrest them!

I dont care what, something disruptive, something good, but ont he weeekends, or after school or whatever.

@stevenroose

@freemo @stevenroose
I can repeat my previous argument:

Doing things in the weekend doesn't cause societal disruption because no one is negatively affected by it.

I can also do it in all caps if that helps.

Storming into politicians sounds violent and the most we heard about Gilets Jaunes when there was violence.
Violence has seldom brought anything good.

@FreePietje

I listed an exampled in my last reply of how they could negatively affect people after school and ont he weekend. They get out, what, 2. go straight to .a disruptive protest after school each day. Depending onw hee they live they may even have access to city hall. Go disrupt there from 2 - 6 every day!

they have options.

I reject your hypothesis that you cant be disruptive after school and on the weekends.

@stevenroose

@freemo
We can agree to disagree.
I don't see how your example is even near disruptive, unless violent and I'm against that.

I've heard your argument by almost any politician who is hell bound on not doing anything (Australian PM f.e.). You know, just like nothing has happened in the last decade(s).

When the economy grinds to a standstill due to a global strike, businesses and governments lose money. Turns out, THAT is what is causing them to change course.

@stevenroose

@FreePietje

Well hold on, lets be honest. Here is what SHOULD. Happen. Our children shouldnt need to stand up for us at all. We should put them in school where they belong while WE take off work once a week to protest or some shit.. But of course we wont do that will we (well you might, i mean humans, adults, everuone :) )

**Thats's** really my stance!

@stevenroose

@freemo
Well, that is their argument all along!

While we 'adults' like to bring up the argument that we 'do it for our children (and our children's children), we consistently haven't done anything (substantial) to fight climate change which is an existential thread to our world.

It is actually quite sad that children have to teach the adults that. Quite logically, as they will experience all the bad things that will come from our in-action.

@stevenroose

@freemo
Government doesn't work on weekend either, does it?
@FreePietje

@stevenroose

They do work from 2-6 after school.

@FreePietje

@freemo
I agree with @FreePietje here. The only reason they have gotten so much media attention is because they skipped school. And please don't come tell us that "skipping school" is such a harmful act that will undermine their education. As a student that never skipped school but also never joined any political action, I believe it would have enriched me more to have had that experience instead of not missing those few classes.

@stevenroose

Well yea when you act like a child and become destructive (telling people to skip school) yea you will get attention for sure.

If someone trying to bring awareness to education urged people to dump toxic waste into a river every friday I can garuntee you he would get WAY more attention too.

Getting attention is not a good measure in isolation sadly.

@FreePietje

@freemo
I absolutely disagree with your comparison, btw. It doesn't make sense. They are harming no one with skipping a few Fridays. Dumping toxic waste in a river can directly harm an entire city.

I think you're trying to be too principled here, without a real underlying reason. Perhaps jealousy.

You're from the US, perhaps your high-school experience is different. Where I'm from (Belgium) and where Greta's from (Sweden), skipping some Fridays don't matter. At all.
@FreePietje

@stevenroose

I disagree that they are harming no one. Kids are already coming out of school dumb as bricks. Greta of all people was moving to a special needs school she fell so far behind. The damage is very real and in fact the underlieing cause of the climate issue. We need more education, more study, more rigour and understanding, not less.

If school really doesnt matter in sweden and belgium then you have a serious issue with your school system not educating student and that needs to be addressed. All the more so a message of "just skip school" has no place there if school is already doing poorly. If anything the message should be "study harder in school"

@FreePietje

@freemo
My point was that schools here work very well. We learn whatever we need to learn, whether or not we skip those few Fridays.
When workers strike, some machines in the factory shut down. When many pupils are absent (whether sick or striking), teachers won't be teaching the most important subjects those days. And if they did, there is ample opportunity to catch up on lost classes.

All I'm saying is that you exaggerate the importance of those Fridays. Let's leave it at that.
@FreePietje

@stevenroose

Thats not the impression I get. Aside from Greta herself needing to be put in a special needs school I live in europe (the netherlands) and used to live in the USA. If there is one thing that is evident to me it is that the school in neither country "works well" We have kids coming out of school dumb as bricks and its a HUGE epidemic that needs addressing. When schools are so woefully inadequate the last thing we need are people proposing leaving it or agendas that dismiss its importance.

I dont think i exagerate the importance of those fridays at all, if anything i understate them. Not just the fridays but the need for MORE school, and BETTER school, not less. Society is so uneducated these days and so easily swayed by nonsense facts society is barely holding together right now.

@FreePietje

@freemo

Whether schools are good or not good enough is an entirely different discussion. I was born and raised (and still live) in The Netherlands and I have no problem with our school system.

(I disagree with the constant changing of the system and with their structural underfunding, but that is also besides the point)

The education system is not the reason for the climate crises. Nor do we need more study into it (although I would be fine with that).
What we need is action.

@stevenroose

@FreePietje

It isnt an entierly different discussion. When part of your tactic is to protest schools it is no longer a seperate discussion but rather vital to the current one.

Yes we need action, it isnt the study, from the perspective of scientists, that is lacking. What is lacking is the understanding int he general population which allows for climate change deniers to exist. This is the direct result of lack of good education and critical thinking skills.

All I know is most people around the world, including the dutch and americans, are dumb as bricks and are more than capable of being quite bright if they were educated. People just stop learning how to learn, and actually doing it, a long time ago.

The climate crisis is a direct result of this, it is why climate change deniers can thrive when its so easy to debunk.

@stevenroose

@freemo
I'm glad to read that even though for a large part I disagree with your analyses.
I do wonder how it is possible that too many people don't see the problem. If the general population was more intelligent, things may be better.
I don't think lack of intelligence is (very) relevant though as people who should be smart, still don't want to do anything about it.

As is often the case, money/financial interests is the cause.
DemocracyNow! had a relevant segment on David Koch

@stevenroose

@FreePietje

Im not sure intelligence is the right word. Intelligence speaks of potential not application. It seems to be a lack of critical thinking skills and a lack of understanding logical fallacies and objective scientific methods for arriving at truth.

Schools, if done right, teach rigerous science and how to distinguish between truth and fact. They teach formal logic, logical fallacies, and Data analysis, all of which give you the tools needed to reach more objective truths.

Sadly with education seen as such a low priority and with kids not even going to school (and not being taught well even if they did go to school) I feel that leads far more to climate change deniers than just "intelligence" would.

@stevenroose

@freemo
Oil companies have know for *decades* what the problem was, but the solution ends their money machine. So they fight it.
Just like tobacco cos claimed for years/decades there is no correlation with tobacco and (lung) cancer.

I also wonder why f.e. the Dutch gov raised taxes 'for the climate', but the greatest polluters were exempted from it.
Thus: people see nothing change, except that their taxes are being raised. Few better ways to destroy willingness to combat CC

@stevenroose

@FreePietje

Those are valid concerns for sure. My point is if we had a society filled with critical thinkers then Oil companies wouldnt have gotten away with the lie in the first place.

Even now the people who oppose the oil companies are so uneducated they make emotional pleas and protests that seem like a positive act ont he surface but tend to be self destructive of their own causes. This in turn fuels the climate change deniers because when those whoa re pro-climate make absurd claims and are easily debunked it causes them to use this as a way of discrediting the whole moment, sadly.

A few examples. The amazon fires. All the scientists on the issue are well aware that the trend in forest fires are generally on the decline inteh amazon. This year the total number of fires is not unusual for the dry season in anyway compared to previous decades and rolling averages. Yet the left makes it sound like 80% of the forest is on fire (the actual number is 0.0054% as of last week). So while deforestation is a very real and critical problem by being too uneducated and focusing on the forest fires instead ultimately hurt their cause.

Another example are the trend of protests on oil pipelines, when people should be protesting gasoline consumption (which would require them to look at themselves as well). Pipelines themselves reduce oil consumption since they replace transportation along boat and trust with pipes. Pipelines consume far far less fossil fuels in transport and do far less harm to the environment than an equivalent number of trucks transporting the same fuel. As such it is self-destructive to protest the pipelines when they should be protesting the consumers.

These patterns of uneducated group-think result in the whole climate change movement to be discredited, which is unfair because the core scientists are still right even if the people are uneducated and absurd.

If we had a more educated public then those who are pro-eco would behave in ways that would be more respectable and thus would like drive fewer people to oppose the movement and discount it. Never mind the fact that there are plenty of uneducated right wingers too who deny it just due to their own lack of education as well, rather than as an effect of a discredited left.

@stevenroose

@freemo
It's an 80% increase vs last year, but that is a bit more nuanced iirc (again, recently DN! was more specific about it)

What you say wrt pipelines is somewhat true. Pipelines also decrease the cost of production of oil, thereby making exploitation of oil fields economical viable, whereas otherwise they shouldn't. Stop oil consumption and we wouldn't need them in the first place. Those pipelines cause enormous environmental damage themselves + threaten water supplies

@stevenroose

@freemo
I also blame social media and tech cos. People are easily indoctrinated with lies through them. Google/FB/etc thrive on 'engagement' and spreading conspiracy theories is the best way to 'enhance' engagement.

The low/short attention span of people also doesn't help. The real/actual news/facts are often nuanced, so the 'news' often gets dumbed down to the point they (almost) become false themselves, giving fuel to people who want to deny the basic premise.

@stevenroose

@FreePietje

I am a Data scientist, thats NOT how we measure if something is statistically unusual. I mean just think about it, how do you know if the 80% increase from last year is due to last year being unusually low in fires rather than this year being unusually high?

Obviously if people were more educatede they would know the second they hear something like "80% increase from last year" that such claims are BS and every red flag should go off, thats not how scienstists measure things.

What we would do is use a distribution, compare the last few DECADES, and try to see what distribution describes the event we are describing. At that point we see where this year falls compared to the previous years.

What you find is that this year is in no way special. It is statistically insignificant. You just so happen to have a year with an unusually low number of fires preceding a year with a more normal number of fires. In fact with forrest forest that is exactly how it works. The more years you go without a fire the bigger the fire is once you have one. So in fact with any rigorous analysis we quickly see that the trend is fewer fires, not more, despite the twisting of data in the way you just suggested.

@stevenroose

@FreePietje If they arent selling oil then they dont need pipelines. The fact that they want to sell oil in a way that costs them less money by not wasting more oil than they need to in the act of transporting oil is hardly something we should be mad at them for. They only sell the oil we buy. So the only people to blame is us for buying it. But no one ever wants to blame the people for their collective bad moves.

With that said lets take what you said at face value and ignore my objection. The response should be to push for a pipeline tax that ensures the cost of building a pipeline is high enough that it offsets any damage it does as best we can. This negates the argument of a financial advantage that can be used to harvest more oil.

@FreePietje

Also check out this post were i go a bit deeper into the data. You can see the 80% increase over last year int eh data but it is also evident that we had an unusual low number of fires the last year and a few years before. As can be seen this years number of fires is still below the average for last decade.

https://qoto.org/@freemo/102678852721648878

@stevenroose

@freemo
Your argument about pipelines is only partly valid, though. Pipelines make oil prices go down on the receivers end and markups higher on the senders end. So it incentivices the receiver to build more gas plants and to use more oil generally and in the meantime also incentivices the sender side to produce more gas.
@FreePietje

@stevenroose

Well yea pipelines make prices go down because it means you dont need to waste half a barrel of oil in order to ship the other half. So you get more oil when you buy it since less of the oil was wasted.. sure. That isnt a bad thing. To take the stance of raising oil prices through a tactic that that wastes oil to do it is ultimately lunacy.

By that logic we should pass a law where everyone needs to buy a hummer or other fuel **inefficient** car. This ensures gas prices stay high so people wont buy it... Even if people buy less oil as a result it, as a policy, is lunacy.

@FreePietje

@freemo
DN! Koch segment: https://www.democracynow.org/2019/8/26/headlines/billionaire_conservative_donor_david_koch_who_funded_climate_change_denial_and_anti_labor_efforts_dies

@stevenroose

@FreePietje

I will check this out. But please be aware I am not and have never been a koch fan. So any article about ock to discredit him will mostly be lost on me since i largely just dont care about kock or his opinions much.

@stevenroose

@freemo
It's a short article, but my point was the (insane imo) influence of money (on politics) and the Koch brothers put a lot of money into discrediting climate change. And it looks like they succeeded far better then I could've imagined and surely more then I wanted.
@stevenroose

@FreePietje

Yea he did. But thats not money's problem. Only reason money works to convince people of climate change denial is because people arent educated enough to do the research themselves so they rely on media to convince them what to think int he first place.

In a well educated society Koch's money would be a vain attempt lost into the ether and the only result would be him having less money with no effect on climate activism.

So while koch was an asshole I wouldnt say he is the root of the problem, only the symptom.

@stevenroose

@freemo @stevenroose
Today was a FAR larger (2 part) segment on the Koch brothers/empire and it's influence on politics including wrt climate change:
https://www.democracynow.org/2019/8/27/christopher_leonard_kochland_koch_brothers

It's ~50 minutes in total, so don't feel an obligation to watch it.
I found it *very* interesting.

The author of “Kochland” attributed much of their success to their long-term and strategic visions in which NOT going public was considered critical because you don't have to report every 3 months and CAN execute a LT vision

@FreePietje

I'm very much convinced that lacking education isn't the (at least not the biggest) problem.

As far as my perception of the people whose behavior I can watch in my everyday life goes, well educated people who even remotely behave according to their knowledge of what kind of behaviour is damaging/less damaging to the environment .. these people are really hard to find.

... continued ...

My theory is, that the fundamental problem/cause is the contemporary construction of #socialstatus.

As long as social status and perception of achievement is strongly tied to travelling, big houses, excessive consumption, big cars, new electronics gadgets, higher resolution/power/throughput/definition everything .. people will be more or less indifferent about the negative impact of their pursuit of higher status ..

... continued ...

The most effective contribution to protecting the environment would be to actively associate less harmful ways of living with very high social status.

@freemo
I didn't 'like' Steven's toot because his 'jealousy' remark made it personal and I don't like that.
But besides that, I agree with him.

I really wonder what your problem with Greta is. It's getting harder to assume good intentions on your part, but in case you didn't know:
Greta has Asperger syndrome, an autism spectrum disorder. I have no idea what her IQ is, nor do I care, but it's quite reasonable to assume that Asperger is the cause for her 'special needs' school

@stevenroose

@FreePietje

Fair i had a similar feeling, the jeaousy remark wasnt the best of wording and drifted into personal. But it wasnt the worst of insults so i let it slide.

While i disagree with his main point and feel it is much more serious than he does I do respect his opinion all the same.

My problem with greta is simple. In an age where lack of education is causes climate change denial and for society itself to break down the most important thing we need right now is an environment that encourages people to be educated and well informed. Greta's movement is contrary to that and damaging more so than it is helpful.

Yes greta as Aspergers. Generally people with aspergers can perform very well in school, some dont. It may be this aspergers that is holding her back i dont know. But the fact is the factthat she is struggling to keep up with others her age is an indication she should be investing MORE time in school not less. If you are behind, whatever the reason, you are probably the last person who should be skipping school let alone encouraging others to do so.

@stevenroose

@freemo
Wait, are you actually saying that skipping a few Fridays in primary school or high-school can have any impact on your education? Can I laugh at that? I think I could easily have skipped all Fridays while still learning the same stuff.
I don't agree with your argument that she takes an anti-education stance. It's a strike, they perform an act that is harmless but against the rules to draw attention for their cause. Just like people refusing to work for a day.

@stevenroose Depends on the nation and the person. I spent most of my free time learning so I could have skipped a few fridays and be fine. However Greta and people like her are behind in school (she was held back into a special learning school if i recall correctly). The vast majority of students are dumb as bricks these days, yes they desperately need school.

People refusing to work is different than people refusing to LEARN. If adults took a day where they refused to read books or learn or go to school it would be just as idiotic.