Delingpole: Greta Thunberg – Saving the World One Sick Bag at a Time

TOPSHOT - Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg looks on during a meeting in the garden
LIONEL BONAVENTURE/AFP/Getty Images
James Delingpole

If you’re not a fan of Greta Thunberg you are going to LOVE her latest wheeze: sailing across the Atlantic in a 60-foot vomit-machine made up of so much eco-unfriendly carbon fibre she would probably have done less environmental damage if she’d flown by private jet.

The pig-tailed eco activist – recently voted* Official World’s Number One Most Annoying Child – will be leaving Europe from an undisclosed location sometime in August and sailing to the U.S. on a 60-foot racing yacht Malizia II.

(*by me – but I’m sure I’m far from alone)

It’s being spun as a victory for the environment because even though the boat – fitted with solar panels and underwater turbines – has a diesel engine for emergencies it will attempt to make the journey using wind power alone.

What the publicity blurb doesn’t mention, though, is how incredibly un-eco-friendly carbon fibre is.

As the Guardian reported in 2017:

But carbon fibre has a dirty secret: the hi-tech material is wasteful to produce and difficult to recycle.

Truly, if Greta had elected to cross the Atlantic on a raft made up of single-use plastic straws, each tipped with plankton titbits so as to attract passing turtles and get stuck up their nostrils, she could scarcely have won more Pyrrhic a victory for the environment.

The crossing – if Greta is lucky – will take two weeks. But given that this is the height of the hurricane season, anything is possible.

I certainly wouldn’t wish any harm to come to Greta — not least because however irksome and wrong she may be (and she is both: very), she is essentially the stooge of various green vested interests — I still think that the most poetic outcome for this ridiculous publicity jaunt would be if the ship were holed by a passing whale and Greta, unharmed, had to be rescued by an oil tanker.

Some would argue that if Greta really cared that much about the environment, she’d stay at home in Sweden and do all her proselytising via Skype on a giant screen which could be moved from eco-summit to eco-summit with the barest minimum of carbon footprint.

There’s also, I’d say, a huge question mark over the wisdom of a 16-year old schoolgirl with Aspergers spending a fortnight crossing the Atlantic on a racing yacht.

These boats are not built for comfort.

I know because a few years ago I spent an evening on something similar – a racing yacht called Hugo Boss, skippered by Alex Thomson.

You can read about it here.

Even though we barely left the Solent – the fairly sheltered bit of water outside Portsmouth – I hated every second.

These round-the-world racing yachts are designed to be as light as possible. They’re stripped of all unnecessary comforts to the point where all they really are is a floating shell carrying ropes, sails, food, water and safety equipment. They are also incredibly noisy as the echoing hull slaps against the waves. There’s nowhere you can retreat to for peace or rest. All you want to do is curl up into a darkened corner and die.

Greta is going to have a horrible time crossing the Atlantic.

Then again, I suppose you could call it karmic payback for all the misery her message of doom has inflicted on credulous kids like this little girl below:

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