Swedish climate worrier Greta Thunberg has taken a swipe at Australia’s leaders as the bushfire disaster rages on, delivering demands for action tempered by her own advice for solutions to the problem convulsing the land Down Under.
The teen, who celebrated her 17th birthday on January 3, took to Facebook on Sunday to share an image of a kangaroo fleeing flames as a fire engulfs a home.
In her caption, she offered support to bushfire victims and then took aim at what she called the Australian government’s lack of action on climate change.
“Australia is on fire. And the summer there has only just begun. 2019 was a year of record heat and record drought. Today the temperature outside Sydney was 48.9°C,” she wrote.
“500 million (!!) animals are estimated dead because of the bushfires. Over 20 people have died and thousands of homes have burned to ground. The fires have spewed 2/3 of the nations national annual CO2 emissions, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. The smoke has covered glaciers in distant New Zealand (!) making them warm and melt faster because of the albedo effect.
“And yet. All of this still has not resulted in any political action. Because we still fail to make the connection between the climate crisis and increased extreme weather events and nature disasters like the #AustraliaFires.”
Thunberg made an impassioned call for action, chiding what she saw as a lack of action.
“That has to change. And it has to change now,” she posted.
“My thoughts are with the people of Australia and those affected by these devastating fires.”
This is not the first time Greta Thunberg has offered her observations on Australian politics or its natural environment, a country she has never visited.
Last month Thunberg retweeted a video from Australian media outlet 9 News saying politicians had failed to connect “increased extreme weather events and nature disasters,” as Breitbart News reported.
Not even catastrophes like these seem to bring any political action. How is this possible?
Because we still fail to make the connection between the climate crisis and increased extreme weather events and nature disasters like the #AustraliaFires
That’s what has to change.
Now. https://t.co/DQcZViKJQz— Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) December 22, 2019
Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison dismissed her gratuitous advice, declaring he was “not here to impress people overseas.”
Morrison also rejected calls to downsize Australia’s lucrative coal industry, noting Australia is the world’s largest exporter of coal and liquefied natural gas and he intends to keep it that way.
“Australia and the Australian Government will set our policies based on Australia’s national interests, on what Australia needs to do,” Morrison told reporters in the rural center of Mudgee.
“That’s where I keep my focus. It’s not for me to make commentaries on what those outside of Australia think that Australia should do. We’ll do in Australia what we think is right for Australia. And that has always been my guiding principle.”
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