Meaning of Thunbergian | Babel Free

Definitions

1. Of or relating to Carl Peter Thunberg (1743–1828), Swedish naturalist who collected and described many plants and animals new to European science.
2. Of or relating to Greta Thunberg (b. 2003), Swedish environmental activist who is known for challenging world leaders to take immediate action for climate change mitigation.

Examples

“When asked if she’ll meet with President Donald Trump, she gave a predictably Thunbergian response: “Why should I waste time talking to him when he, of course, is not going to listen to me?””

“At present, with China allowed to self-identify as a “developing” nation it can continue merrily to grow its emissions, while tapping into the UN Climate fund to which Australia has contributed almost $200 million. That’s an outrage actually worthy of Thunbergian meltdown.”

“Not only is Scott a voice crying out in the wilderness, heralding the virtues of the Thunbergian project, but he is an outright evangelist for the faith: “We’re hoping to have other building owners who like this idea and support our objectives and want to have something similar on their buildings.” […] The Thunbergian clergy might claim that the public is functionally illiterate on issues of climate change, but the mural seems to suggest that they are more interested in selling indulgences than in informing the masses of the putative virtues of climate conversion. It might be that the great majority of people are “illiterate” on, for instance, the literature of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.”

“Thunbergian activism, along with many other advocates, such as Autumn Peltier (who heartbreakingly asked the Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau for clean water), are figures we should align ourselves with in this fight for our planet.”

“So how is the past decade going to be remembered? As the Trumpy 2010s? And what will this new one be like? The Thunbergian 2020s, perhaps?”

“And if we were to heed the Thunbergian call for “immediate” action by halting the extraction of coal, oil, gas, and so forth, the consequences wold^([sic]) be so economically disastrous that all work on new, alternative technologies would cease.”

““Climanipulation ?” (F1): reason over the “Thunbergian dogma” (F7) / Climate denialists are thought to be dissidents from the climate orthodoxy (C6). The climate emergency is perceived to be “an apocalyptic faith” (C1), a new “eco-religion” unnecessarily catastrophist, namely “ecologism” (A4; B4; C4; D1,2; F7,10,11; G3,4; H1). The IPCC is the “ultimate cult body” (C13) proselytising its “doctrine” (L22). Greta Thunberg is denounced as the “great priestess” (D2; F10; M2), a new “goddess” (L4), a “climatic guru” or an “ecolo-catastrophist shaman” (F7) prophesising as an “oracle” (L4).”

“It inspires me about as much as Thunbergian climate-squeaking and, while not being happy about paying R26 for a small Coke in a local club when two litres is available from Pick n Pay at R11, I do not support price hiking followed by trumped-up […]”

“So long as environmentalism tends to begin with a Thoreauvian (or for that matter, Thunbergian)²⁹ regard for the wild rather than the environmental perspectives of the former, environmentalist movements are fatally locked into an underestimation of their problem. […] 29. I am thinking here about the controversy surrounding the publication of an “all-white” photograph of prominent young climate activists, including Greta Thunberg, which deliberately cropped out the Ugandan climate activist Vanessa Nakate.”

“You may be inclined to dye your hair green, wear a nose ring and subscribe wholeheartedly to those plentiful Thunbergian prophets of impending climatic doom; as the truculent Swedish teen frightens the living daylights out of the big WOKE world. […] Thunbergian ideologists seem to hanker for some kind of pre-industrial, retrograde existence where human achievements are all but unwound, dragging us all back to a Flintstones-like state of cave-dwelling.”

CEFR level