Climate activist Greta Thunberg ends 15 day Atlantic crossing

Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old Swedish climate activist has crossed the Atlantic on a zero-emissions sailboat to attend a conference on global warming, after leaving England two weeks ago on her 3,000-mile-long voyage. Thunberg chose not to fly because of the high levels of emissions from air travel.

Thunberg made her journey aboard the 18-meter (59-feet) elite racing yacht, the Malizia II, with two professional skippers, her dad, and a documentary filmmaker. The Malizia uses solar panels to power its underwater turbines.

The soft-spoken young climate activist will attend two climate summits at the United Nations in New York on September 23, and then, Chile. Thunberg has become the figurehead for a growing movement of youth climate activists after her weekly protests inspired student strikes in more than 100 cities worldwide, reports CNN News.

Greta has a way of making the complicated issue of climate change easy to understand. She attributes this to her being on the autism spectrum. Greta calls it a gift because it helps her see issues more starkly.

“If burning fossil fuels was so bad that it threatened our very existence, how could we just continue like before? Why were there no restrictions? Why wasn’t it made illegal?” she asked in her TED Talk last year.

Grete also plans to visit Canada and Mexico after the climate summit in New York City before traveling to Chile in December for a climate conference. Thunberg’s family says she is taking a sabbatical from school this year to focus on climate action.

[Digital Journal]

This entry was posted in International Cooperation, Uncategorized by Grant Montgomery.