@freemo
Not a strike in the employer-employee sense. But in a citizen/government sense, like "a refusal to work organized by a body of citizens as a form of protest, in an attempt to gain a concession or concessions from their government".

It's a good initiative to give leaders a mandate to take more fierce action against pollution. Only they can solve this crisis and they keep using the excuses that there is no political support for stronger action. We show then there is.

@stevenroose In general I can get behind that. So the idea is the citizens refuse to go to work, any work, until the government does what we demand? What do we demand? Are the people really prepared to be out of work that long? Because i doubt the governments will cave so we are talking a lot of people out of work for a long time.

Aside from Greta herself I like what im hearing so far.

@freemo
I don't think the idea is to stop working the entire week. But to urge local communities to organize strikes/protests on days within that week and for local workers to join those.

Correct me if I'm wrong though. I'm curious to see if there'll be any protests where I'm living and I'll gladly join them.

@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
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

@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
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
Sigh. I'm done with this 'discussion'.

@stevenroose

@FreePietje

Well seems we mostly left off in agreement anyway. If we disagreed on anything it seems to be more the nuance than the overarching points.

So yea, not really sure there was much left to discuss anyway.

But if you feel you have anything more to add feel free later.

Thanks for all your input.

@stevenroose

@freemo
I find it highly annoying that you belittle and/or ridicule what I consider a completely valid argument by @stevenroose
Your 'argument' of throwing toxic waste in the river to get attention, I found similarly annoying.

I now know that you're not a climate change denier, quite the opposite, but I wasn't sure for a while because of those 'arguments'.
I now also know that you can bring useful things to the discussion. Thanks for that.

But those other things really ruin it for me.

@FreePietje

I'm very sorry. I didnt mean to make it sound like i was belittling you. I did belittle the argument as absurd, but that was before i knew that you yourself believe int he argument.

I try very hard to attack ideas, not people, so if you felt attacked I'm sorry that wasnt the intention.

For the record I think you handled yourself maturely, intelligently, and did your best to review the facts as they were presented. I would have no valid reason to belittle you.

@stevenroose

@freemo
Apology accepted.

I made essentially the same argument. Even if I wasn't, I find it disrespectful and it doesn't matter if it was directed to me or not.

Besides that we shouldn't facilitate the fossil fuel industry, but rigorously move away from it, f.e. the Dakota Access pipeline not only steals, again, land of indigenous people it *will* also spoil their source of water, thus life. And for 10s of million of other people. An oil spill will happen. Guaranteed.

@stevenroose

@freemo @stevenroose Well, that didn't take long :-(
"Keystone Pipeline Spill in North Dakota Leaked 383,000 Gallons of Oil"
https://www.democracynow.org/2019/11/1/headlines/keystone_pipeline_spill_in_north_dakota_leaked_383_000_gallons_of_oil

@FreePietje

What percentage do piplines leak and how would it compare to the huge number of tons of fossil fuels that would need to be burned to transport it by other means (train or truck)..

We shouldnt be focused on individual incidents if we care about if we support pipelines or done, because that is misleading. Pipes have spills, rarely, trucks and train "spill" that same oil into the atmosphere constantly. The latter tends to be far worse though.

@stevenroose