Four years ago, on this day, September 28th 2021, Greta Thunberg gave her “blah blah blah” speech
Greta Thunberg has excoriated global leaders over their promises to address the climate emergency, dismissing them as “blah, blah, blah”.
She quoted statements by Boris Johnson: “This is not some expensive, politically correct, green act of bunny hugging”, and Narendra Modi: “Fighting climate change calls for innovation, cooperation and willpower” but said the science did not lie.
Carbon emissions are on track to rise by 16% by 2030, according to the UN, rather than fall by half, which is the cut needed to keep global heating under the internationally agreed limit of 1.5C.
“Build back better. Blah, blah, blah. Green economy. Blah blah blah. Net zero by 2050. Blah, blah, blah,” she said in a speech to the Youth4Climate summit in Milan, Italy, on Tuesday. “This is all we hear from our so-called leaders. Words that sound great but so far have not led to action. Our hopes and ambitions drown in their empty promises.”
And here’s a video
‘Blah Blah Blah’: Greta Thunberg Dismisses World Leaders’ Climate Rhetoric
Kayfabe, innit?
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 416ppm. As of 2025, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was that Thunberg’s “school strikes” had started in late 2018, and caught the public imagination.
The specific context was the “world saving” Glasgow COP was about to happen, and the bullshit and hopium levels were rising to a dangerous level.
What I think we can learn from this is that “blah blah blah” is a pretty good soundbite. Greta’s got game.
What happened next – we kept blah blah blahing. Greta has added Palestine to her short list of causes, to her credit.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
References
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Also on this day:
September 28, 1977 – John Mason being an idiot again. – All Our Yesterdays
September 28, 1997 – Australian denialist spouting tosh to his US mates.
September 28, 2000 – Liberal MP goes full cooker on Kyoto as threat to sovereignty.
September 28, 2007 – Bush invokes “technology” to fix climate. Like morons everywhere.