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PostPosted: 01/19/20 3:41 pm • # 26 
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Some meetings do have to be done in person.

And there's the little matter of security - can you be 100% certain that no-one is hacking into your Skype call?


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PostPosted: 01/19/20 9:34 pm • # 27 
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Yes, some do need to be done in person but the vast majority don't. I've done whole sets of negotiations where my team was in Toronto or Los Angeles and there was just me and the Union in B.C. Worked quite well. In fact they seemed to make for more efficient meetings. Biggest drawback was time zones. One company was headquartered in Virginia so if we want a meeting to start at nine their time, we locals have to be in our chairs by five in the morning. If we start at nine our time it's well after lunch their time which makes for a short meeting.


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PostPosted: 01/20/20 1:07 pm • # 28 
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IMO, 50% of meetings could be done away with and no one would even notice.


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PostPosted: 01/21/20 12:26 am • # 29 
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oskar576 wrote:
IMO, 50% of meetings could be done away with and no one would even notice.


True but then I'd lose half my income. Useless meetings are my bread and butter.


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PostPosted: 01/21/20 10:23 am • # 30 
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Cross posted on the "Prophets of Doom" thread

‘You haven’t seen the last of us’

Greta Thunberg scolds elites at World Economic Forum for inaction on climate change

BY PAN PYLAS

Four young climate activists, including Greta Thunberg, scolded the elites gathered at the World Economic Forum for not doing enough to deal with the climate emergency and warned them that time was running out.

At a panel in the Swiss ski resort of Davos, the four said Tuesday that they hoped their generation had found its voice and can work with those in power to bring about the necessary change to limit climate change. Yet Thunberg said not enough has been done.

READ MORE: Canadian airlines feel the pressure of flight shaming and the ‘Greta effect’

“We need to start listening to the science, and treat this crisis with the importance it deserves,” said the 17-year-old, just as U.S. President Donald Trump was arriving in Davos and was due to give a speech. Trump has pulled the U.S. out of the Paris accord to limit climate change and has traded barbs with Thunberg on social media.

“Without treating it as a real crisis we cannot solve it,” Thunberg said.

The Swedish teenager came to fame by staging a regular strike at her school, sparking a global movement that eventually earned her Time Magazine’s award as the 2019 Person of the Year.

She said that people are more aware about climate issues now. “It feels like the climate and environment is a hot topic now, thanks to young people pushing.”

The others on the panel were just as forceful and passionate about the effects of global warming and how they, as young people, need to play a central role in raising awareness and insist on change.

“The older generation has a lot of experience, but we have ideas, we have energy, and we have solutions,” said Natasha Wang Mwansa, an 18-year-old activist from Zambia who campaigns for girls’ and women’s rights.

Salvador Gomez-Colon, who raised funds and awareness after Hurricane Maria devastated his native Puerto Rico in 2017, said young activists are doing more than just talking.

“We’re not waiting five, 10, 20 years to take the action we want to see. We’re not the future of the world, we’re the present, we’re acting now. We’re not waiting any longer.”

Thunberg said the time for action was now, that being at the top of the agenda meant nothing if the world doesn’t get to grips with the climate emergency.

“I am not the person who can complain about not being heard. I’m being heard all the time,” she quipped. “But in general the science and the voice of young people is not in the centre of the conversation.”

Autumn Peltier, the chief water commissioner for the Anishinabek Nation of indigenous people in Canada, said plaudits are not what they are looking for at the World Economic Forum.

“I don’t want your awards. If you are going to award me, award me with helping to find solutions and helping to make change.”

U.S. President Donald Trump, meanwhile, sold the United States to the global business community during his address to the forum in Davos.

Trump said America’s economic turnaround has been “nothing short of spectacular.”

His address came hours before his historic impeachment trial was set to reconvene in the U.S. Senate in Washington.

His participation will his ability to balance his anger over being impeached with a desire to project leadership on the world stage.

SOURCE

Multiple vids and live links at source


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PostPosted: 01/23/20 8:07 am • # 31 
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He still can't accept that he lost ....

Trump moans that “she beat me out on TIME magazine” in petty rant about Greta Thunberg

VINNIE LONGOBARDO

s the man responsible for the biggest federal regulatory rollbacks since the Environmental Protection Agency was proposed by Republican President Richard Nixon, Donald Trump somehow manages to brazenly dissemble about the current state of the environment in the United States — and the world as a whole — with a perfectly straight face.

Trump’s bravura performance as a faux eco-warrior came during a press conference at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland when he was asked about his reaction to the fiery speech made by the precocious climate activist Greta Thunberg to the assembled crowd of business tycoons and political leaders from around the globe.

The 17-year-old Thunberg had lambasted the assembled keepers of the status quo in her address yesterday for largely ignoring — or, at best, paying lip service to — her admonition from the speech that she gave at last year’s Davos conference in which she told the crowd that she wanted them to panic over the climate emergency that the earth is already experiencing.

Declaring the time for half-measures and insincere efforts to reduce carbon-emissions has long-since passed, Thunberg called for an end to business as usual with a demand that:

Quote:
“All companies, banks, institutions and governments:

Immediately halt all investments in fossil fuel exploration and extraction.

Immediately end all fossil fuel subsidies.

And immediately and completely divest from fossil fuels.”

The climate activist’s urgent plea is, of course, the polar opposite of the policies that Donald Trump has been ramming down the throats of the American people against their wishes.

Trump responded to the question about his reaction to Thunberg’s address by jealously pointing out that she beat him out as Time Magazine’s Person of the Year and unconvincingly saying that he “would have loved to have seen her statement,” before admitting “I did not.”

What the president said next made that admission obvious.

Quote:
“I think that some people are, they put it at a level that is, you know, unrealistic to a point where you can’t live your lives,” Trump declared, ignoring the fact that a climate-raaged, barren planet would make it literaly impossible for anyone to live their lives.

Trump went on to brag about America’s “environmental numbers” while entirely laying the blame on other countries, despite the fact that what the numbers really prove is that the United States is the world’s second-largest emitter of carbon dioxide after China.

Quote:
“We have to do something about other continents. We have to do something about other countries. We’re clean and beautiful and everything’s good, but you have another continant where the fumes are rising at levels that you can’t believe. I mean, Greta ought to focus on those places.”

“I wonder, what will you tell your children was the reason to fail and leave them facing the climate chaos you knowingly brought upon them?”

A full transcript of Greta Thunberg’s speech at the Davos forum is available here.

You can watch a video clip of Donald trump’s environmental remarks in the excerpt of his press conference below.

Link to tweet of Trump's remarks at source

SOURCE

live links including Greta's speech at source


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PostPosted: 01/23/20 10:53 pm • # 32 
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Greta Thunberg responds perfectly to swipe from Trump at Davos

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2462835687365987


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PostPosted: 02/04/20 2:28 pm • # 33 
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No question that she's more deserving than any number of past winners

Greta Thunberg nominated for Nobel Peace Prize

BY STAFF THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Two lawmakers in Sweden have nominated Swedish teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg for the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize.

Jens Holm and Hakan Svenneling, who are both members of Sweden’s Left Party, said Monday that Thunberg “has worked hard to make politicians open their eyes to the climate crisis” and “action for reducing our emissions and complying with the Paris Agreement is therefore also an act of making peace.”

The 2015 landmark Paris climate deal asks both rich and poor countries to take action to curb the rise in global temperatures that is melting glaciers, raising sea levels and shifting rainfall patterns. It requires governments to present national plans to reduce emissions to limit global temperature rise to well below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit).

Thunberg, 17, has encouraged students to skip school to join protests demanding faster action on climate change, a movement that has spread beyond Sweden to other European nations and around the world. She founded the Fridays for Future movement that has inspired similar actions by other young people.

Any national lawmaker can nominate somebody for the Nobel Peace Prize, and three members of the Norwegian Parliament nominated Thunberg last year.

In 2019, she was among four people named as the winners of a Right Livelihood Award, also known as the “Alternative Nobel” and she was named Time magazine’s “Person of the Year.”

The Norwegian Nobel Committee doesn’t publicly comment on nominations, which for 2020 had to be submitted by Feb. 1.

SOURCE


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PostPosted: 02/04/20 2:44 pm • # 34 
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To digress for a moment and comment on some past winners of the Nobel Peace Prize:

2009
BARACK OBAMA - since nominations have to be submitted before February 1st Obama couldn't have been in office for more than a week when his name was submitted.

2007
AL GORE (joint winner) no need to comment at all

2005
MOHAMED ELBARADEI (joint winner). He's done such a nice job with Iran.

2004
WANGARI MAATHAI. The Kenyan ecologist peacefully teaches that the AIDS virus is a biological agent deliberately created by the Man.

2002
JIMMY CARTER JR., former President of the United States of America. A true cosmopolitan, he has undermined the foreign policy of his own country and vouched for the bona fides of tyrants and murderers all over the world.

2001
UNITED NATIONS, New York, NY, USA.
KOFI ANNAN, United Nations Secretary General. Among other things, they have respectively served as the vehicle for, and presided over, one of the biggest scams in history.

1994
YASSER ARAFAT (joint winner), Chairman of the Executive Committee of the PLO, President of the Palestinian National Authority. He was a cold-blooded murderer both before and after receiving the award.

1992
RIGOBERTA MENCHU TUM, Guatemala. She is the notorious Guatemalan faker and author, sort of, of I, Rigoberta Menchu.

1988
THE UNITED NATIONS PEACE-KEEPING FORCES New York, NY, U.S.A. Notwithstanding rapes and sex abuse committed by the team in Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea and the Congo, still doing fine work all over the world.

How about some recognition for the scientists of Laputa discovered by Gulliver in the course of his travels? Is it too late to recognize them for their fine efforts to extract sunlight from cucumbers?

================


it is worth nothing an important difference between the peace prize and the other Nobel prizes. The Swedish scholars and scientists who make up the committees that award the science, literature, and economics prizes routinely choose honorees whose greatest work was done years, even decades, earlier.

For instance, Max Planck's revolutionary paper on quantum theory was published in 1900; he received the Nobel Prize for it in 1918. Albert Einstein's discovery of the photoelectric effect -- a 1905 achievement -- earned him the Nobel Prize in physics in 1921. James Watson and Francis Crick figured out the structure of DNA in 1953; they didn't receive the Nobel Prize in medicine (with Maurice Williams) until 1962. The 1924 Nobel in medicine went to Willem Einthoven for discovering the mechanism of the electrocardiogram. He had done the work between 1895 and 1905.

This is why recipients of the Swedish Nobels are so often very old. Doris Lessing, this year's literature laureate, is 88. Two years ago, Thomas Schelling -- then 84 -- was a co-recipient of the economics prize for work he had done in 1960. As a rule, a scientist, author, or economist receives a Nobel Prize only after his work has been sifted and weighed and put to the test of time. Its importance has been established, often through years of peer review. As a result, the science, literature, and economics Nobels rarely end up looking foolish or naive.

By contrast, the Norwegian committee entrusted with awarding the peace prize comprises politicians, not scholars. Like politicians everywhere, the peace prize committee tends to be more interested in what the headlines will say today than in what historians will believe 20 -- or 100 -- years from now. And unlike their Swedish counterparts, the Norwegians often intend their choice to have a political impact. When they gave the prize to Jimmy Carter in 2002, the committee chairman emphasized that it was intended to be "a kick in the leg" of the Bush administration. This year's prize to Al Gore speaks for itself.

In short, the five Swedish Nobels are almost always rewards for true achievement. The one Norwegian Nobel too often smacks of an agenda. Maybe the peace laureates would be less risible if they were chosen in Stockholm too.

================


And perhaps most importantly (as has been previously noted):-

Alfred Nobel's will specifies that the peace prize would go "to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses."

Looking at this list, Greta is at least as deserving as most of them.


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PostPosted: 02/04/20 10:39 pm • # 35 
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The one good thing about Greta's nomination - and that's all it is - is that it must be driving Grabem up the wall.

I truly believe the passengers on the plane that was shot down in Iran deserve the next award. I have no doubt bumble nuts and the Mullahs would have pushed each other's buttons into a full fledged war with hundreds of thousands of casualties if they had not died.


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PostPosted: 03/01/20 12:11 pm • # 36 
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This young lady has class ...

Greta Thunberg says graphic sticker shows 'we're winning'

Newsroom Staff

Image
Swedish teen environmental activist Greta Thunberg speaks at a climate change rally in Denver, Colo., on Oct. 11, 2019.


Climate change activist Greta Thunberg said sexually graphic stickers purportedly produced and distributed in Alberta show desperation and highlight that her cause is “winning.”

The stickers appear to depict the sexual assault of 17-year-old Thunberg, along with an Alberta energy services company’s logo.

The owner of the company, X-Site Energy Services, has denied having anything to do with the stickers.

In a tweet sent out Saturday morning, Thunberg linked to a news article about the stickers, and said, “They are starting to get more and more desperate… This shows that we’re winning.”

Quote:
Greta Thunberg @GretaThunberg

They are starting to get more and more desperate...
This shows that we’re winning. https://twitter.com/emrazz/status/1233398335060443136

Quote:
feminist next door @emrazz

Someone DREW A CARTOON of Greta Thunberg, a teenager, being violently raped. Naturally, some oilfield companymen decided to PRINT IT ON A PROMO STICKER WITH THEIR LOGO. Men love to laughingly remind us that if we speak out, we deserve what’s coming to us. https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/gre ... 02210e12ff

In response to criminal complaints about the stickers, Alberta RCMP issued a release saying the image does not meet the threshold for child pornography.

The stickers were widely denounced by many in the province, including the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, Premier Jason Kenney and members of his government.

Thunberg visited Alberta and spoke at a rally in Edmonton in October of last year.

SOURCE

Live links at source

========================================


If you must see it, the sticker is here.


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PostPosted: 03/29/20 6:26 am • # 37 
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How one Swedish teenager armed with a homemade sign ignited a crusade and became the leader of a movement
STEPHEN RODRICK

Image


There is persona and there is reality in Greta Thunberg. It is Valentine’s Day in her hometown of Stockholm, but there’s only wind, no hearts and flowers. A few hundred kids mill about, with a smattering of adults. If there were not signs reading “Our Earth, We Only Have One,” it could be mistaken for a field trip to the ABBA museum.

But where is Greta? I find a scrum of reporters interviewing a child in a purple puffer jacket, pink mittens, and a homemade-looking knit hat. It takes me a minute to realize that it’s Greta. She is 17, but could pass for 12. I can’t quite square the fiery speaker with the micro teen in front of me. She seems in need of protection.

Of course, this is emphatically wrong. Greta Thunberg has Asperger’s, which, she says, gives her pinpoint focus on climate minutiae while parrying and discarding even the smallest attempt at flattery. We stand near the Swedish Parliament house, where less than two years ago Thunberg started her Skolstrejk för klimatet, School Strike for Climate.

Back then, it was just Greta, a sign, and a lunch of bean pasta in a reusable glass jar. Then it was two people, and then a dozen, and then an international movement. I mention the bravery of her speeches, but she waves me away. She wants to talk about the loss of will among the olds.

“It seems like the people in power have given up,” says Thunberg, taking her hat off and pushing back her mussed up brown-blond hair. She remains on message despite the tourists and teens taking her picture and mugging behind us. “They say it’s too hard — it’s too much of a challenge. But that’s what we are doing here. We have not given up because this is a matter of life and death for countless people.”

It was my second encounter with Greta in three weeks. Back in January, before the Coronavirus brought the world to its knees, forcing Greta to move her Friday protests online, she was in Davos, Switzerland, for the annual conference of the World Economic Forum, where billionaires helo into the Swiss resort town and talk about solving the world’s problems without making their lives any harder. Thunberg had appeared last year and made her now iconic “Our House Is on Fire” speech, in which she declared the climate crisis to be the mortal threat to our planet. Solve it or all the other causes — feminism, human rights, and economic justice — would not matter.

“Either we choose to go on as a civilization or we don’t,” said Thunberg with cold precision. “That is as black or white as it gets. There are no gray areas when it comes to survival.”

The speech made Thunberg the unlikely and reluctant hero of the climate crisis. She crossed the ocean in a sailboat — she doesn’t fly for environmental reasons — to speak before the United Nations. She was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and was named Time magazine’s Person of the Year, conjuring the manic jealousy of Donald Trump, who called the honor “so ridiculous” and suggested she go to the movies and chill out.

In Davos, the illuminati prattled on about planting a trillion trees, even as we are still clear-cutting actual trees from the Amazon all the way to Thunberg’s beloved Sweden. This did not amuse nor placate the hoodie-wearing Greta. She seemed irritated and perhaps a little sick; she canceled an appearance the day before because she wasn’t feeling well. She was in no mood for flattery and nonsense. So when Time editor Edward Felsenthal asked her how she dealt with all the haters, Greta didn’t even try to answer diplomatically.

“I would like to say something that I think people need to know more than how I deal with haters,” she answered, before launching into details from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s latest report. She mentioned that if we are to have even a 67 percent chance of limiting global temperature change to under 1.5 C, the point where catastrophic changes begin, we have less than 420 gigatons of CO2 that we can emit before we pass the no-going-back line. Thunberg stated that, at the current rate, we have eight years to change everything.

Thunberg’s face was controlled fury. This was the persona: an adolescent iron-willed truth teller. The Davos one-percenters clapped and rattled their Rolexes. It has become a disconcerting pattern for Thunberg appearances that would be repeated at the European Commission: Greta tells the adults they are fools...

MORE>

Quote:
Greta Thunberg @GretaThunberg

”I’m very tiny and I am very emotional, and that is not something people usually associate with strength.”

I’m on the cover of the @RollingStone special Climate Crisis Issue.

“We need to care about each other more.”

Image


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