The United Nations Climate Action Summit is slated to begin September 23, 2019. One attendee, Greta Thunberg, arrived in New York harbor Wednesday via a zero-emissions yacht.
Thunberg spoke before the 2018 UN climate summit and returned to speak again. As the summit takes place in New York at United Nations headquarters, people wondered if Thunberg would try to speak to President Donald Trump.
Upon arriving in New York, however, Thunberg stated:
"My message to him is just to listen to the science, and he obviously doesn’t do that."
Indeed, the Trump administration's contempt for climate science and environmental protection is well documented.
From appointing an Environmental Protection Agency head—later forced to resign—who once vowed to destroy the EPA to rollbacks on the Endangered Species Act and reductions in national monuments to open areas for mining and oilfields to unwavering support of fracking, pipelines, fossil fuels and especially coal, the Trump mindset is apparent.
The Trump administration also gutted science departments at multiple agencies, suppressed findings counter to their agenda and eliminated environmental and climate related programs and projects.
Prior to her departure, Thunberg spoke of the futility of addressing Trump on climate change.
"Why should I waste time talking to him when he, of course, is not going to listen to me? I can’t say anything that he hasn’t already heard."
Thunberg is a Swedish 16 year-old environmental activist. At age 15 she started a "school strike for the climate" by demonstrating outside the Swedish parliament holding up a sign calling for bold action on climate change.
Her strike went global under the name Fridays for Future.
Thunberg documented her arrival in New York on her Twitter feed.
The UN Secretary General, António Guterres, also welcomed Thunberg to New York.
Meanwhile conservatives and Trump supporters found reasons to criticize Thunberg while ignoring her actual message.
Including full on attacks by adult male Breitbart correspondents like 54 year-old James Delingpole, the highlights of which were shared by someone who is not a Delingpole fan.
You can learn more about Thunberg's by watching her full 2018 UN address here.
Thunberg's book No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference is available here.
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