Crew of Five Are Flying To New York To Bring Greta’s Boat Back!
By Paul Homewood
h/t Dave Ward
Bjorn Lomborg has picked up on this story from the German news site, Taz:
https://twitter.com/BjornLomborg/status/1162311408144531457?s=20
This is the translation from the Taz story:
BERLIN taz | Climate activist Greta Thunberg causes more greenhouse gas emissions from her sailing trip from the United Kingdom to the United States than if she had flown. About five employees would sail the yacht back to Europe, said Andreas Kling, spokesman for Thunberg skipper Boris Herrmann, on Thursday the taz.
"Of course, they fly over there, that’s no different," says Kling. Herrmann will also take the plane for the return journey. The sailing trip triggers at least six climate-damaging air travel across the Atlantic. If Thunberg had flown with her father, only two would have been necessary to come to New York.
According to the atmosfair emissions calculator, a flight from New York to Hamburg has a climate impact of around 1,800 kilograms of carbon dioxide. That is more than three quarters of what every person is entitled to each year if global warming is to be stopped at 2 degrees.
Because flights are so damaging to the climate, Thunberg had been looking for a better way to travel to the United Nations Climate Change Summit in New York in September. On Wednesday afternoon, the 16-year-old struck aboard the high-sea yacht "Malizia II" together with the two professional sailors Herrmann and Pierre Casiraghi and their father Svante and a filmmaker in the southern English town of Plymouth. The ship is powered by the wind, electricity for navigation and communication is generated by solar cells.
The press spokesperson for the Fridays for Future activist was unable to reach an opinion on the carbon footprint of the sailing trip until the copy deadline. Skipper spokesman Kling admitted that the departure with hundreds of journalists, supporters and spectators in Plymouth had a carbon footprint. "It would have been less greenhouse gas emissions if we had not made this departure," Kling said. "Of course it would have been more environmentally friendly not to draw attention to the fact that we urgently need to do something against the climate crisis. But if nobody points out, then we do not do anything. "
When asked if it would not have been more climate-friendly if Thunberg had travelled on a container ship, Kling replied: "This is a thought that is actually being considered for the return to Europe."
https://taz.de/Thunbergs-Segelreise-in-die-USA/!5615733/
This proves that Thunberg’s decision to sail by racing yacht had nothing whatsoever to do with saving emissions, and was no more than a silly publicity stunt.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
It’s only the publicity stunts anfd fake news that keep the climate alarm circus going.
LOLROTF, Greta should join the great green activists Harry and Meghan! Great revelation; thanks, Paul, for your excellent blog. Greetings from the USA.
I had to look up Fridays for Futures UK as new to me:
The UK Student Climate Network draws a lot of inspiration from the ideas and campaigning of Swedish 16 year old climate activist Greta Thunberg. The movement she founded, Fridays for Future, refers to how she strikes every Friday to protest the lack of effective climate legislation on a governmental level. Thanks to Greta, students throughout Europe now regularly strike on Fridays.
Hmmmm…..
Gender intersectionality students miss their one Friday lecture. That’ll bring the fossil fuel industry to it’s knees!
OK guys.
Your degree will now take a year longer.
Happy with that?
Am not a fan of Greta and agree with the hypocrisy factor BUT —
“The sailing trip triggers at least SIX climate-damaging air travel across the Atlantic.”
Surely, they are all only flying in one plane at the same time (presumably with a bunch of other people, perhaps several hundred), which is not the same as rating one individual “damaging” flight per person………….
alexei
As the sailing trip is being promoted as virtually ‘zero carbon’ (which it’s not of course as this sophisticated £4m yacht is largely constructed from Carbon Fibre) then each of those seats on the aeroplane represents an environmental cost many times that of the sailing trip.
Wouldn’t that have applied to Greta… in the first place?
Well yes, which is why if she’d taken a plane there it would have had even less impact. Its just an excuse for a jolly good, free adventure
You can work out your carbon guilt score by dividing the total output of guilt produced by the plane by the number of passengers. If there are half a dozen people flying out to retrieve the boat you will then have to multiply by six.
Pedantic but true, in the real universe people normally fly on pre existing empty seats, the plane will spew out the same amount of carbon with or without these five ecowarriors.
Similarly with the fancy yacht, a lot of embedded carbon but probably built before Gretas children’s crusade.
It’s all about PR of course, but does Greta seriously suggest that we replace airliners with carbon fibre yachts?
No, we all stay home. Only elites will travel.
her trip is using solar panels and turbines as opposed to sails… the carbon footprint from those is far worse than if shed just used sails and diesel. more however you roll
They only have to take the flight as the boat is going to the USA. Boat does not go, no flights.
Utter hypocrisy from all involved.
The 1800 kg co2 for the flight is per passenger. The boat crew, whether on one flight or several, each displace an airline passenger who will take another flight. Unless they are all on standby and will only board when there would have been an unoccupied seat on the trip.
Perhaps she could return on an LNG tanker from Cove Point, Maryland?
I now feel such green guilt I will light up the BBQ with coke and cook a cows worth of burger with the outdoor heating on..
Reblogged this on Climate- Science.press.
And the crew that sailed it to the US….how will they get back?
I can’t wait until Roger Harrabin reports this on the BBC news and it is reported in the Grauniad..
WTF does a 16 year old girl know about climate change?
WTF does a 16 year old girl know about
climate changeanything at all?And to be a bit more serious about it; this child likely suffers from learning difficulties if she is on the autism spectrum so the likelihood of her having achieved any meaningful science qualifications at her age are extremely low.
It therefore goes without saying that she is entirely incapable of testing the theories of climate change presented to her as fact, upon which she is risking her life on a yacht crossing the Atlantic Ocean.
The movie industry long ago gave up exploiting children, not so any organisation associated with climate change.
Testing the theories of climate change is not required. Haven’t you heard that the debate is over and that it is real and happening. Rational analysis is totally unnecessary because a self-selected group of propagandists tell us it is so.
It doesn’t matter what she knows, those manipulating her do so purely for the PR value. The long term agenda is being managed by the same people and organisations that have been at it from the start:
The photo here, https://i1.wp.com/www.wrongkindofgreen.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Thunberg-Morgan.jpg shows Greta with Jennifer Morgan, formerly International Director of WWF, currently CEO of Greenpeace International.
She has been a major player for many years, influential in the Climate Action Network of NGO’s, former adviser to Tony Blair and John Schellnhuber of Potsdam. She has also worked with the World Resources Institute, where Al Gore has been a director and with UK quasi-governmental organisation, E3G.
She is currently on the Advisory Board at the Grantham Institutes and as such has input into UK Policy via the Grantham representation on the UK Climate Change Committee.
About as much as I know about Brain Surgery, well I am a retired mechanical engineer.
What a lot of nonsense The boat too has been built with composites and other high tech materials all derived from the oil industry and is kitted out with technology only possible through the endeavours of the oil and gas industry – it has a Diesel engine too in case the wind does not blow / emergencies
Sent by CJ Matchette-Downes
>
Ooh the irony. According to Sir David A, one of the most dangerous current ecological problems is the abundance of ‘single use plastic’ clogging up certain sectors of our oceans with devastating affects on marine biodiversity. Well, my dear Greta, you don’t get much more ‘single use’ than a carbon fibre racing mono-hull which is almost impossible to recycle at the end of its’ short life and will, most likely, end its’ days abandoned in a harbour side somewhere or dumped in a landfill. Not to mention the thousands of ‘energy’ hours that went into the craft’s construction (ooh and the sneaky little Diesel engines for emergencies!) The whole expedition is a farce.
“… if we do not do anything”.
Like what?
Even worse: If we do ‘something’ – and cock it up. Gates’s chalk parasols? The Green Screen Of Death? (much like his BSODs in Windows).
Surely the parents ought to be prosecuted for child abuse, endangering the life of a child for propaganda purposes?
I have experience of young people like Greta who need emotional support, I fear this could all go horribly wrong at a personal level, it will be a very challenging trip both physical and mental, something I would indeed find challenging myself, so I will keep quiet.
“I have experience of young people like Greta . . . ”
What happens in three to six years when she figures out the world is not about to end and there is no need to panic?
Those using her will drop her for the next new subject. They have no concern for her welfare or that of the planet.
Since she speaks of the world we’re leaving her children and grandchildren, I suspect she already knows.
Publicity stunt indeed; why isn’t she returning on the carbon fibre boat? She had better come back on a container ship or her hypocrisy, or rather that of her exploitative and manipulative handlers, will be completely obvious.
There is a full film team on the boat to make sure that every second of Holy Greta’s ordeal is captured on film. There is also news that the crossing is accompanied by almost 100 military surveillance airplanes to make sure that things are safe. This is by any standards to the most expensive Atlantic crossing of all times. And the highest CO2 emissions profile of any person to cross since WW2. This is a media stunt, like all the stuff those followers of Greta and other climate Alarmist value-signalers do. They fly more than any other person, they do the exact opposite of what they say. Good thing is, they are so arrogant, they can’t see that they shot themselves in the foot.
It might have been cheaper and less fuss if they had flown the boat over (and back).
It would have been more green to move the entire boondoggle to her front room
She has time to reach NY by travelling eastwards and crossing Magellan’s channel on foot. But walk, not run, it emits higher CO.
Maybe she needs to be taught what apodcast is so there is no need to travel…but….what alosss of publicity!
I liked this partial quote from the Taz piece –
“When asked if it would not have been more climate-friendly if Thunberg had travelled on a container ship, Kling replied: “This is a thought that is actually being considered for the return to Europe.”
my bet would be on a banana boat.
I caught a small part of a discussion about St. Greta on the Jeremy Vine show at work yesterday. The was a green type on and someone who was hostile to the greens, so there was some sort of balance for once. He did let her get away with claiming that India and China were serious about combating climate change. By building hundreds of coal fired power stations presumably.
As Greta is from Sweden I am surprised she has not herd of Skype .
What would this imaginary thing called a carbon footprint be of sending and receiving electrons via Skype. My bad forget this requires satellites that need rockets with lots of fuel.
Pigeon post maybe or virtue signalling instead.
I am appalled! As someone honestly concerned with the prudent use of resources, I find this stunt to be a toe-curling, buttock-clenching embarrassment. It fails on just about every criteria and how anyone of any persuasion can support it is beyond me.
This must surely be the point at which Ms T’s cult following finally collapses. It’s a train-wreck in slow motion – after all, how many days yet to go at sea? By the time this boat gets to the US, I can see opinion being well and truly turned against her and her camp followers.
She’s missed the point completely. If she doesn’t like flying, then she should send a postcard, or an email (copy to all and sundry), or post a video on the net or even do an internet broadcast. She does not need to travel and she would gain far more traction if she encouraged all those tens of thousands of hangers-on, who insist on travelling to the annual COP shindig, to stay at home.
It’s an old saying, but there’s no such thing as bad publicity. But this ego-preening is toxic publicity – and toxic publicity is, well, just toxic. Just watch it all come apart as the wider environmental movement runs for cover.
I am appalled!
Her game is disruptive and is interference in another country’s affairs. Its beyond freedom of speech and the US authorities need to deal with her and her supporters.
It occurred to me that this carry on is a perfect example of every ‘carbon reducing’ scheme ever. Crossing the Atlantic by sailing boat rather than flying sounds as though it will reduce your ‘carbon emissions’ as long as you don’t think the whole thing through. The thinking it through part is always the bit that they seem to have trouble with. Do solar panels and windmills really reduce emissions of CO2 when you take every aspect of their construction, deployment and maintenance into account? When you factor in the inefficiencies of ramping up and down the proper power stations to accommodate them as well, I really doubt it. The same thing applies to electric cars, bio fuels and possibly every other green scheme that does far more harm than good and costs us all a bloody fortune as well.
Is there a TV feed from the boat? I’d love to see this little wan face lying in its canvas hammock berth having not eaten for three days.
Reblogged this on ajmarciniak.
The sad thing is that the myths about CO2 are perpetuated and accepted as fact.
“That is more than three quarters of what every person is entitled to each year if global warming is to be stopped at 2 degrees.”
Controlling CO2 does not control temperatures. The “Carbon Budget” concept is deeply flawed and not borne out by observations.
“Because flights are so damaging to the climate”
No empirical evidence exists to show this statement to be true.
In any event the whole thing is a farce because Asia is increasing emissions astronomically.
From 1997-2017, European emissions fell by 10%, the UK by 32%, (creative accounting, “carbon offsets” export of manufacturing, destruction of coal industry). In that same period, China’s emissions increased by 188%. UK is 1% of global emissions.
If the whole of Europe went to zero emissions tomorrow, Asia would still be emitting three times the amount of the total European emissions lost and will do so at an increasing rate for the foreseeable future. The “zero carbon” agenda is doomed to failure, it will have no impact on temperatures, but it will decimate western economies and put huge sums into the coffers of the international financiers, NGO’s and other vested interests who are pushing carbon trading and renewables at public expense.
‘This proves that Thunberg’s decision to sail by racing yacht had nothing whatsoever to do with saving emissions, and was no more than a silly publicity stunt.’
And it will be quite successful.
Does anyone remember a children’s horror TV series from the late 1970s called “Children of the Corn”?
Greta and her glassy eyed followers are creepily reminiscent of the children in that programme.
Seriously, who gives a shit? The publicity she generates is absolutely worth it. It is important to defend realiity against the science deniers and the Flintstone world they inhabit. This childishness is a typical example of how really smallminded these embarrassing clowns are.
Have they let you out of Infants School yet?
@Paul I read Owen’s comment the other way to you
That “Team Greta are the science deniers and clowns”
So the publicity they are generating is great for us science supporters.
Scepticism is supposed to be the cornerstone of scientific research and endeavour, Owen. Shrilly condemning anyone who questions orthodoxy and “concensus” as “deniers” is not the behaviour of a follower of science – rather it’s the behaviour of the follower of a cult.
I wonder why the Swedish authorities did not ban the stunt and took Thunberg into their care.
I am hoping that she will be turned back at US Immigration Control and put on a flight home. As I was many years ago even though I-d lived there for 5 years!
I have seen no comment yet about the carbon “cost” of the building etc of this magnificent boat. No mention, either, of how sweet little Greta got from Stockholm to Plymouth ? Perfectly sailable, but I bet she flew ! And how is our little darling getting back to Sweden, when her little stunt is over ? Just asking !
@Ajax see my comment at NTZ
I see no evidence she flew I guess she took the train from central Germany.
pg11 of Saturday’s Times : Activist’s sea trip brought down to earth.
– Mentions the flights of the crew and possibly her father flying home from the US.
– claims the inflatable that took her to the yacht was electric powered.
Ends with last paragraph from Mr Bob Ward.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/greta-thunberg-s-yacht-trip-to-new-york-not-as-green-as-it-may-seem-6fsn5sbpz
Please check my maths.
Carbon fibre is estimated to have a carbon cost 14 times that of steel. Steel is 1.83 TCO2/T product. So lets take it as 25 T/T (I have seen higher figures).
The boat weighs 8 tonnes (excl sails) so that makes 200 tonnes CO2 for the manufacture. The boat, since 2015, has sailed around 40,000 km. So the boat is at about 5000 gCO2/km currently (so maybe 1000 gCO2/passanger-km, given a crew of 5). A modern golf will be at around 110 g/passanger-km.
Further they reckon that 32,000 man hours went into the boats construction. The crew eat freeze dried food that comes in individual plastic packets. Also, there will be the cost associated with the infrastructure to use such a beast.
Whatever way you look at it, only the fuel cost can be considered zero carbon. Everything else adds up to an extremely carbon intensive way to travel.
People with Aspergers may experience, irrational fear, difficulties with emotions such as grief, frustration, emotional outbursts, hyper focus on certain topics etc etc. Her father who has manipulated her into this situation where she is being used for a political agenda really should be questioned about his motives which given her condition really amount to parental abuse.