Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Dr. Willie Soon – Swedish climate messiah Greta Thunberg has a problem. She desperately wants to attend climate conferences in New York (September) and Santiago (December), but unlike most greens she is serious about avoiding air travel.
How do you cross the Atlantic Ocean without flying?
I’ve got a few ideas, but I doubt arriving by luxury transatlantic cruise liner is quite the down to earth minimalist image Greta wants to project.
Some of Greta’s fans have suggested telecommuting, but if this was a solution surely all greens would be telecommuting to climate conferences, instead of scarring their personal consciences with distasteful but ecologically necessary air travel.
I’m sure you are all as keen to help as I am. Perhaps we can all pitch in, help little Greta figure out how to attend those crucial climate conferences in far flung locations, without compromising those heartfelt climate principles which have attracted so much global media attention.
Come on, people.. you’re not taking this seriously. If she sprinkles fairy dust on her unicorn it can fly. I thought everybody knew that.
Tornado one way, follow the yellow brick road with the munchkins, tin man, scarecrow and lion to see the wizard, ruby slippers to return
Phileas Fogg was capable of circumnavigating the world in less than 80 days in 1873 without taking a single plane*. Do you mean that super Greta can’t do better than a mere man (although a British one) of the 19th century?
She would miss some school but that doesn’t appear to be an issue to her. She already knows everything she needs to know.
(*) Note: Jules Verne researched his books quite well so the feat was possible then. The trip was made in 72 days by Nellie Bly in 1889, and in 54 days by James Willis Sayre in 1903. It was repeated without taking a plane in 1989 by Michael Palin in 72 days, and by bicycle in 2017 in 78 days by Mark Beaumont. Clearly Greta is not as committed as many believe.
Bly relied on steamships and railroads burning coal.
Sayre of Seattle used public transportation:
https://www.historylink.org/File/732
In 2002, Steve Fossett went around the world solo by hot air balloon in under 15 days:
https://www.balloonsoverbritain.co.uk/around-the-world-flights-first-successful-solo
But that was in the Southern Hemisphere. Same for this record setting Russian priest in 2016:
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/features/athletes/hot-air-balloon-circumnaviation-record-fedor-konyukhov/
The first non-stop circumnavigation was however in the NH during 1999:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breitling_Orbiter
Maybe Breitling would sponsor Greta from Sweden to NYC, thence to Chile and back to Sweden. She’d be the first to cross the Equator while circumnavigating. Her balloon might however need to be dirigible, perhaps with a solar and wind-powered electric motor.
Though they did it by (stem-powered) trains and (steam-powered) liners that produced lots of CO2, probably more per passenger-mile than a modern aircraft.
The liners don’t exist any more, and many of the railways don’t carry passengers any longer.
If ferries are permissible in addition to railways it is easy to get as far west as Iceland/Ireland and as far east as Japan but then…
She can ask to be towed by a merchant ship in a wooden bathtub of Scandinavian design (like they use in Finnish Saunas), by rope, kindly supplied by the Stockholm Museum. – Easy ! I guess she will leave her iphone at home, and signal the ship by semaphor (signal flags), when she is hungry etc.
“Get in muh belly ya wee litt-le girrlll!” Al Gore, June 19, 2019.
a pedalo made from wood might be a solution 😉
Ask Piccard, (SolarImpulse, HB-SIA) to give her a free solar powered airlift ?
No lavatories on this flight.
She has the advantage of not weighing much, and could wear an all natural fiber diaper.
Two-seat Solar Impulse 2 however is made of evil carbon fiber. And of course making solar cells and batteries entails environmental disasters.
Lol, John Tillman, guess she’ll need a pretty performant diaper the moment this contraption meets some wet weather. What was the wing load already ? Like 5kg/m2, not sure, but around there ?
Therefore the first multi-engine cordless kite.
So, yes, Mr. Piccard, if you read this, get your walkaround and preflight going, there’s pax for you and by what we hear in the trade, you sure need the business, any business.
But is she a paying pax?
Even in September the North Atlantic can be pretty windy. Outbound, Solar Impulse 2 would face headwinds most of the way. Then flying her down to Santiago would be get hairy at times, too.
Santiago actually lies over three degrees of longitude east of NYC, but on the most direct heading, ie not quite due south, the flimsy plane would have to deal with the Andes.
Better to go by solar-powered dirigible helium airship. Although producing the He and building the aircraft require fossil fuels. He comes from rock and natural gas deposits. The world was in danger of running out of it, due to wastefulness and increasing demand, even before the current vogue to He blimps and dirigibles.
https://phys.org/news/2010-08-world-helium-nobel-prize-winner.html
It’s worse than we thought:
“by the year 2020, next year, the emission curve must have been bended steep downwards if we are to have a chance to stay below 1,5 or 2 degrees of warming.”
What will poor Greta do on 1st January 2021 after she learns that the steep downwards bend did not occur in 2020? Shift the goalposts? At least most of us will be alive to find out.
You have to feel sorry for the girl. She is going to spend most of her life realising that she was totally duped.
I suggest she reads up on what happened to joan of arc. when her ’cause ‘ sold her out in the end .
Fanatic devotion and unquestioning faith in your own superiority , hardly ever ends well .
Me I take a guess it will ‘business class ‘ all the way and plenty of ‘excuses ‘ why she ‘must be there ‘
One issue with those with Autism can be a total and absolute buy-in to an idea that no logic can change . combined with a focus that means they simply cannot see anything else that is of interest .This person has those classic signs, add in hangers on hopping to enjoy the ride , and plenty who are more than happy to use this new fact to further their own ideology , and you got a rather toxic mix .
Mike Mann never had such misgivings. He was more interested in those beach-side drinks with the little parasols in them.
Serious question: “What difference does it make if she attends?”
If all she can bring is emotion-laden, spittle-laced invective, what does it matter?
What can a 16 yo autistic child contribute to a rational discussion of international proportion?
It is only her vanity/ego or ego-vanity of her parents that is pushing her.
Stay home Greta. No one will notice. And the outcome will be unchanged. Or better still, use the money to go to Florida Disney World and just be a kid.
You would think a Swede would have heard of the Viking seafarers.
Is she too important to take part in a Skype talk or equivalent????? Just asking
Is there anybody on the planet who hasn’t heard what Greta has to say about her religion?
We’ve had 50 years of video-conferencing
Perhaps a holographic Greta – using lots of electricity – is more her style?
As fitting her Scandinavian heritage, she should eschew paddling a canoe across the Atlantic, and instead go with a Thor Heyerdahl style approach. She should build a homemade reed raft like Kon-Tiki (the vessel Heyerdahl built and sailed across the Pacific). This would leave Greta well-positioned to offer any number of goofball theories with which to inflame the fears and trigger mechanisms of Progressives everywhere.
Guys. You are really missing the major point here. Remember, Greta can see carbon dioxide. Therefore it is likely that she can just walk to either one. Or in case she is not feeling miraculous, she can time it and walk across the arctic ice from Russia to Canada. At least if there is no ice it would be a short walk or swim.
Laure Dekker sailed singlehandedly around the world at the age of sixteen.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Dekker
She did however use her engine at times.
Simple really, just saddle up a pig and head for the big apple because , as we all know, pigs can fly. However, the emission savings on jet fuel will be largely offset by the the pig belching and farting.
Put her, her family and her financial backers in a BIG row boat and say “start paddling”….
Please do not publish any more about that sinister and deluded teenager.
How about Boaty McBoatface?
“A Greta’s strength flows from the Farce, but beware of the dark side, anger, fear, aggression – the dark side of the Farce are they. Easily they flow, quick to join you in a media scrum. If once you start down the dark path forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will!”
The Titanic is boarding now and hopes to set a new speed record with its solar hybrid drive system…..through the ice field.
I think someone should educate her about the life enhancing role CO2 plays in the carbon cycle and how our Earth for most of it’s existence has been warmer and with more CO2 than there is today, and how all these green policies are simply fueling industry in countries that don’t care and giving us extra green house gasses in the process.
… but mostly I don’t think emotive children should be used as pawns for political propaganda.
Shame be on the lot of them!
Continue with the virtual signalling! Catch an ‘lectric Uber drone! Got range anxiety?
A good friend of mine says, fear can be experienced only by creatures with a serviceable brain.
What if they move the meeting to Sweden? Then she doesn’t have to go anywhere?