Topic: Greta Thunberg is the time's person of the year 2019 - page 3. (Read 998 times)

All for it

I'm not really going to entertain the authority of colonial negotiations but what is the significance of "one country" part of one country, two systems if the people in HK only enjoy the privileges of being part of China without any of the responsibilities?

Time Person of the Year doesn't actually mean 'person'.  It just means the thing the had the most influence. 

Last year it was 5 journalists.
2018 it was 5 women.
'The Computer', 'You', 'American Women' all won also.

Hong Kongs local authority is Hong Kong, not China.  The Chinese government does not have the right to hold them accountable.


Not the same.

Hong Kong was a British territory for 150 years until 1997 that ran as an independent Democracy with their own laws, constitution, elections etc

In 1997 The UK handed them over to China after negotiating the 'One Country Two Systems' agreement that would be in effect until at least 2047: "The two SARs of Hong Kong and Macau are responsible for their domestic affairs including, but not limited to, the judiciary and courts of last resort, immigration and customs, public finance, currencies and extradition"

My thoughts about her is so mixed. I think that most of us agree that climate change is important issue. But from what perspective she is talking about it and who she is targetting with all these dramatical "how dare you?" I'm not sure... I have nothing against Greta, but all this around her is made by news media and now she got award for that. I'm not sure that she can be placed in same place with all historical winners of this award.

There is no "they". There is just one individual that chooses, however he likes, the "person of the year."

Hong kong protests are not a person, they are a political movement.  Greta is a person.  Also, they don't use political biases when choosing the person of the year.  As stated in this thread, people want to promote HK protesters "to shame china" and not because they have done something so great. 

Their cause is to not be held accountable by the Chinese government.  The whole protest started because they didn't want extradition from Hong Kong to China to be possible.  Meanwhile, most people in the world can be extridited from their local authority by their federal authority. 

Imagine if people in Portland didn't have to pay taxes and wanted to be exempt from all federal laws.

So... she's been smoking some of that really good stuff?

Time magazine even featured Maria Ressa who had been harassing Duterte administration since election days, Time Magazine had lost it all and turned it all for being paid tabloid. Often times the people they feature are the ones managed by oligarchs who has the ulterior motives. You just can't trust any media today. But Congrats to Greta.


HK protesters are the worse. You are misinformed. For all we know, its funded by bigger parties wanting China's economy to slip.

Wtf? You're completely out of your mind xD

HK protests are not against China they're against life conditions in HK at the moment. People are getting more and more poor it's more or less the same protests than in Europe right now.
And China never shot live munition on HK protests for the very simple reason China hasn't done anything there yet, it's one HK police officer who panicked and shot live munition.

What's happening in HK is just a population getting tired of the inequalities and cost of life that's all. And their government suppressing them.

haven't you seen that in all the Western world governments are using more and more force against their own people? If HK protestors should be "person of the year" as you say then what about the Europeans fighting every week? What about Chile?

It's just that USA put the spotlight on HK to blame China. Nothing more.

she is from a country where her supposed 'school strike' was not a strike at all. at that age she can voluntarily not go school and it was the summer, and when she later went school she always got permission not to attend... (not much of a strike then huh)

yet she demands other kids to do actual strikes in actual schools that dont have this leeway

id have probably preffered a african/indian kid who's family were struggling farmers due to desertification become the youth spokesmen and do actual campaigns of getting countries to agree to hard numbers of actual action and not the flimsy
'do something'

greta lives in a county with a cool climate a healthy land growth environment. clean air. and her family life shows she has never experienced real struggles.

if her message is just to obide by the paris agreement then many countries dont have to do anything extra. infact many countries already for decades had town/city plans that certain amount of area's had to have X green area (parks and recreation) and X trees and could easily show they planted them X tree's and class that as their contribution.
in the UK for instance. many towns that used to be called 'market towns' are being rebranded 'green towns' .. no real big changes done but just a branding decision of councils
there may be more tree's panted but at the same time old woodland has been made into housing estates so it is not any more tree numbers than before just the tree's are scattered along roadsides at calculated distances to make it appear more spread

same goes with power plants. with many being outdated and crumbing anyway by just standard renovation practice and demand concerns that had nothing to do with environmental agenda. they could then class it as being an environmental agenda that triggered their renovation/upgrades just to tick a box
EG underground stocks of coal are depleted so they move to fracked gas to stay in business, without it being an environmental climate change decision, the power company can pretend later it was purely climate driven decision and(just happens to) have a positive climate change impact to get their new power plant built for them for free using government environment, technology innovation and R&D grants

america school meal budgets get cut and the FDA approved suppliers churn out crap frozen meals at ever increasing prices so schools are forced into making 'food growth' part of their curriculum where students grow lettuce tomato's and stuff on school property that subsidises the school meals. this then later translates to schools being declared green schools and thats used politically as reducing food waste, carbon footprint of food delivery and other stuff to show as a ticked box. even when al the 'farming' would still e done without any paris agreement involvement. but now they just mark it off as if they doing it to then not have to do extra

same goes for real estate. buy up cheap flood risk land. threaten their investment is at risk to climate change. then get grants to build flood resistant properties. and tick a box about securing a legacy of flood resistance towns all for cheap real estate

to me greta's message is just a parody of the lyrics to
'say something' im giving up on you, featuring christina aguilera. just changing 'say' to 'do'

maybe the next youth environment ambassador has actual experience of struggles due to environmental change, and actually tries to set numbers countries have to hit, have laws changed where in 10 years coal and gas is illegal. thus forcing energy companies to change plans.
then let the scientists work on other remedies like the water cycle. just to keep scientists busy instead of just doing tours with reports that are now outdated

Well done. I'm not sure if it's good or bad. I have doubts about Greta... A lot of doubts. But she talks about important issues, so who cares

Well the prestige of this award has certainly gone down recently but hey, the kid did get a lot of attention and that fierce speech a couple of months ago did place her on the spotlight, along with what seems to be her advocacy. So i don't have anything against her being named Person of the Year, though i also don't consider this award something to look up to anymore.

Very stupid!
Bad move from Time!
Don't we expect the person of the year to be some kind of an innovator, or at least to do or say new things?

Everything that Greta girl says, environmentalists all over the world have been saying if for years... Nothing new.
What I've yet to understand, though, is why are there people believing her than respected scientists.

I mean if we're talking about influence or the person who's been in the news the most : Trump.

But yes, I think the HK protestors truly do need a win like this. People may not fully understand it, but being on the cover of something like the Times brings people to research a topic that they may not know much about. HK needs that. Most people don't even know whats going on there. As world leaders, politicans, news, corporations, and so on ignore it.

This award had some credibility to start with?

Afterall, this is not award for "best person" or whatever, this is simply about those that had influenced world  the most. That's why Hitler, Stalin (won it 2 times), Khomeini, Chiang Kai-shek won that . Even though Times stopped with that practice of choosing obvious bad guys , after fiasco and criticism for choosing Khomeini.

I agree that what people in HK are doing is admirable, and that Greta Thurnberg is obviously manipulated, but she got shit load of  (undeserved) attention.

I think putting Hong Kong protestors on the cover would do the most good. (they need all the support they can get, plus a great way to shame China).

But they decide based on who's had the most influence.

Hong Kong is just something that the world is kind of just watching with interest.

Trump or Putin probably deserve the cover most imo.  Would be boring if they just picked world leaders every year though.

Given that the brain doesn't finish (significant) developments until your 20s, this is an agreeable opinion.

Another misguided kid who has been manipulated by the politically correct educational system. She is a prime example of why the voting age should be increased and not lowered.

It's just not possible to be 15 yo and have a clue about such complicated topics. I have no personal attitude towards the girl but she's just a tool pushing someone's agenda. If you really want to influence the world, start with yourself, then your family and friends and you'll se how hard it is to move even a bit. Talking isn't walking, modern media seem to forget (or neglect in their own interest) this simple truth.

And modern magazines, even the respectable ones are losing their power day by day and turning into clickbait pulp fiction for those who don't want to think. Twitter and all this sht makes it easy to become part of "movement" and look benevolent to others and yourself, yet it's much harder to clean up your room, lmao.

I think Greta winning person of the year is a major blow to the credibility of this award.

Greta is clearly being taken advantage of by someone on the left trying to push an agenda that gives the left more political power and more control over citizens' lives. This is true even if she is getting rich in the process.

Further, her only qualifications are that she 'believes' in a certain viewpoint, and would not have been able to speak in front of Congress, nor the UN if not for her specific stances.

China is, by far, the industrialized country that is doing the most harm to the environment on a per capita basis (and they have the largest population), yet Greta (nor any other environmental "activists") is not calling to put pressure on China to reduce its emissions.

They are much more qualified for person of the year.  +1