The BBC reports today that Greta Thunberg will travel to some climate conferences by sail.
Guest post by Mike Jonas
Greta Thunberg to sail Atlantic for climate conferences
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg has accepted a ride across the Atlantic by boat to attend two key climate conferences.
The teenager will make the journey aboard the Malizia II, a high-speed 18-metre (60ft) yacht built to race around the globe.
“We’ll be sailing across the Atlantic Ocean from the UK to New York in mid August,” she tweeted.
Thunberg refuses to fly because of the environmental impact of air travel.
In a Facebook post, Team Malizia said they were “honoured to sail Greta Thunberg emission free across the Atlantic”.
Is Greta Thunberg the first climate activist prepared to abide by their convictions and use “carbon-free” travel? I think she is.
My personal opinion is that Greta should be congratulated for her integrity (just as the others should be condemned for their hypocrisy).
But maybe, just maybe, this story will drive home to people just how ridiculous the whole “carbon-free” idea is.
Greta is fortunate enough to be invited to visit the other side of the Atlantic in a fast racing yacht, because she is famous. That’s the positive part of the story. But let’s go through just a few of the issues arising from this story:
1. It will take a very long time compared with flying, especially if you aren’t famous. At Malizia II’s trans-Atlantic racing speed of 14.5 knots (https://www.yacht-club-monaco.mc/en/route-du-rhum-malizia-ii-finished-5th/), an Atlantic crossing takes a fortnight. Time is money to most people, and especially to businesses.
Want to use your 4-week annual leave or the children’s school holiday to visit relatives on the other side of the Atlantic? Forget it.
2. The Atlantic, just like any large body of water, has severe storms. Even professional competitors in ocean races get sea-sick.
“It’s a feeling that you just want to jump off the side of the boat and end it all. It’s miserable, you don’t feel like doing anything, you get lethargic and you get tired. You loose[sic] interest in anything except in how manky you feel and pretty much each time you move, or change your environment, you end up throwing up.”.
(There’s lots more like that). Greta will be in an ocean racer, and even without a storm I doubt she will enjoy it. What will trans-ocean travel be like in our future “carbon-free” world?
3. …
There really isn’t any point in going on with this – the whole “carbon-free” idea is utterly impractical. In a “carbon-free” world, they are going to have to have all nuclear-powered ships and planes, or the whole world just descends into poverty. How long did they say we had left to go “carbon-free”?
So, while I congratulate Greta on her high ethical standards, maybe be best thing that can come out of this journey is the final realisation that the whole “carbon-free” thing is an exercise in absurdly expensive futility. The cost of going “carbon-free” – if it is actually possible – is clearly many orders of magnitude higher than just adapting to what the climate may or may not do. And bear in mind that China and India and others will do more than enough to guarantee that we will have to adapt to that anyway.
I hope that Greta’s greatest achievement will be getting the message through to the media and the politicians that they have been conned.
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As an added bonus, Greta will be in the Americas for 9 months starting in August.
I am curious and am wondering who might be willing to hazard a guess as to how long this girl will keep this charade up?
There is zero chance of the world going cold turkey on energy, ever.
And zero chance wind and solar are gonna work out.
Is there any chance they will all get behind nuclear, an all out push?
And Nuclear, wind and solar only make power…what about all the other energy?
Farming alone and the need for everyone on Earth to eat every day, and for many of them to use heating much of the year, make it impossible she will get her wish.
So, how long can anyone continue to devote their life to a goal which is not only never gonna happen, but would kill billions of it did?
If she shows up in Dallas, I’ll join the protest contingent (since I’ve got my sight back, and can drive again).
Hehe, asking Greenpeace what to say could also apply to the CBC just as well.
As for Greta’s planned transatlantic sail, I only wish some sort of followup logic could flow from those who’ve made her a figurehead. Right now, if any of these people even notices that it is taking her a long time to get to her destination, they will likely just ask Elon Musk, or someone, to please send a battery powered helicopter to pick her up and get her there faster …
Check out the picture of the interior of this “yacht”.
It makes sense…it is a racing craft, with as little extra weight as can possibly be managed and lived with.
Living on this thing for two weeks will make backwoods camping seem suite at the Ritz Carlton:
https://sl.sbs.com.au/public/image/file/f57d9b69-f9a4-4bec-a938-e2e8e3a3b91b
Here is one of the picture of the sorts of conditions these boats travel through on open ocean…when there is NOT a storm:
http://yachtboatnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/The-Ocean-Race-enters.jpg
I think she is in for a very abrupt lesson in why people do things the way they do, and not the way she wants.
Yeah, but she will arrive at the other side having gained profound and deep original insights and Wisdom of the Great Sages, which she will bestow liberally to those much older and far less aware of the ultimate expression of reality, than she.
I can’t wait to hear all about it. This is a very good start to an exciting career. Lets hope she keeps this up.
Surely the Arctic is ice free in Summer these days?
Wouldn’t it be quicker to sail directly from Scandawegia to Canada?
All engines full ahead…stand by to ram.
“Carbon free” isn’t. In addition to production, energy is required for the transportation and maintenance of the racing yacht. It’s easy to virtue-signal if you have money backing you. This is a publicity stunt, with powerful symbolism. She is (or already has) attaining cult status.
“Swing-state households would lose at least $70G within first year of Green New Deal, study finds”
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/green-new-deal-swing-state-households-would-lose-70g-first-year
“Within the first year of implementing the program, the average household in each of the given states (Alaska, Florida, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Pennsylvania) would incur at least $70,000 in expenses — followed by roughly $45,000 in annual expenses for each of the following 2-5 years and over $37,000 after that time frame.”
When does she get the Nobel Peace Prize and the Oscar? Maybe Al Gore can give us the inside story ahead of the announcements.
Can’t be long. She’s already got an honorary doctorate.
http://www.jellypages.com/breaking/Greta-gets-an-honorary-doctorate-in-Belgium-h90815.html
The fossil fuels used to cover her one way stunt will far exceed here pretentious conservation.
She may have to be rescued and hospitalized.
She will certainly not take a boat on the return trip.
Perhaps a good ending to this story: A gale sends the yacht far to the north in heavy seas, where the now sick-as-a-dog crew, is trapped by sea ice. Before a rescue boat arrives, the crew, no longer seasick but nearly frozen, must kill an unvading polar bear. Greta now questions if a warmer earth and fewer polar bears might not be a better world. The media never prints another Greta story.
The question is, “Will she be returning the same way by boat?”
Somebody, somewhere is taking wagers on that.
I’d be inclined to bet on, ‘Will return by boat’ but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a lot less spartan than a racing yacht. I’d also bet that someone will charter one of those luxury sailing ships to get her back.
If she is at all prone to motion sickness, I would expect her return trip to be by air. Being seasick is an utterly miserable condition, and after enduring it for two weeks I doubt she would want to repeat the experience.
She is training to be an oceanographer, of olde.
I have a few questions I would love to ask Greta:
(1) Have you honestly examined all sides of the issue, as is required by proper science? If not, why not?
(2) Can you name one, just one, bad weather event that has not been blamed on climate change? If everything is because of man-made climate change, how is that different than saying “God did it” for everything? Also, why was the exact same or worse bad weather in the past not climate change but today it is?
(3) Can you name, just one, prophecy about climate change that was made about when you were born that actually came true?
(4) Why does the solution to climate change always only require the rich countries with democracies to pay up but never the rich countries with communism or autocracies to pay up?
(5) Do you know about the logical fallacies ad hominum and ad populum? If so, explain why do the believers in man-made climate change frequently resort to those logical fallacies?
(6) Can you explain how something that 0.041% of the atmosphere can have an effect of the climate? Did you know that there is 22 times more argon in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide?
(7) Did you know nature emits much much more carbon dioxide in one year than humans possibly can? Can you explain how nature knows the difference between natural carbon dioxide and human carbon dioxide?
(8) Do you know how the rare earth metals required for wind farms and lithium batteries are mined? If so, why is the toxic environment created by mining them considered good for the environment? Where do the other metals required for wind and solar farms come from? Why is it considered green to bulldoze trees to put up solar farms?
Let’s look on the bright side; perhaps she’ll discover that until now she hasn’t been living, and that sailing is the answer to all her woes – and she’ll forget about all that Green nonsense. We can hope. Get a life, Greta!
Sailing across the Atlantic from the UK to NYC in August? And how are going to do this without firing up those diesel electric engines? What, are they going to rely on all the hot air coming out of the green cult’s mouth?
The trade winds blow west along the northern Atlantic and east from the Iberian Peninsula/Africa to the Caribbean. I guarantee she will burn more fuel crossing the Atlantic from the UK to NYC in a 60′ yacht than she would by simply flying.
Ship wrecked and living in a life raft for two weeks ought to do it..
Greta isn’t doing it. She is just a convenient cog in the sinister Green Machine.
She will be dumped once she has outlived her usefulness.
Well done to her.
Now if all other Climate alarmist would do the same we would be free of their rubbish for months at a time.
I heard Bob Dylan say that “ … when Quinn the Eskimo gets here everybody’s gonna jump for joy ! “ While am pretty sure that’s not gonna happen in the case of that girl.
you fail to mention that although written by Dylan it was made famous in 1968-and reached the top of the UK charts- by Manfred MANN. So, Mann is number One!
tonyb
Well tony, you can do wah diddy diddy down diddy do, so there!
The yacht Greta is using to travel over Atlantic has 6 person ashore team and 6 person offshore team. They are following the boat somehow, probably by flying. So probably everywhere that yacht goes, 6 person will fly after. So much for that Carbon free thing.
Also I assume they have quit lot of spare parts and tools with them. So even if Greta would be the seventh passenger who could in theory be “carbon free”, she probably isn’t. Because all the stuff that follows the boat around world weights more than Greta.
Also I assume that there are lot of parts that will be changed after every longer race, so probably building those parts causes more CO2 than flying one person over Atlantic.
IF…we can persuade all the rest of the Green Believers to follow her lead and live without carbon usage…
THEN… we will never hear from them again…
I read all the comments to here and everyone has missed one thing: she just might, small might, actually grow up as a result of this adventure. OMG, then what will happen to all the manipulators if all of a sudden they have to deal with a grown-up?
Considering that could occur too. Real life experiences have a habit of doing that …
Growing up often means learning the aphorism : “ It is better to have sailed, than to sail.”
This is too funny, pretentious and poorly planned made-for-alarmists event. I’m picturing Greta and her intrepid crew arriving at New Your Harbor with salt encrusted eyebrows when the wind dies. The captain, without hesitation and thinking only of his gazillion dollar hi-tech yacht, starts the 160-hp Yanmar diesel and brings the vessel to a gentle landing at the dock. The adoring crowd on shore transitions from wild cheering to stunned silence as puffs of stinky black exhaust rise into the warming thermosphere. Blub, blub, blub.
The sails are made of hydrocarbons and the hull out of carbon fiber Greta!
Could be ‘bad’ if she realizes this mid-ocean.
One day she’ll realize she’s wearing plastic cloths.