Greta Thunberg, a young muse in the fight against global warming, set sail for New York on Wednesday aboard a zero-carbon racing sailboat. The boat is skippered by a member of the Monegasque princely family.
The boat left the port of Plymouth in the south of England at 3:00 p.m. for a two-week crossing. This should allow the teenager to attend the UN world summit, scheduled for September in the American megalopolis.
The 16-year-old Swede, at the origin of a global school strike movement in favor of the climate, has in fact refused to go there by plane because of the carbon emissions that this transport generates. Suddenly, Pierre Casiraghi, son of Princess Caroline of Monaco, provided him with a free boat to cover the 3,000 nautical miles, which he skips with the German Boris Herrmann.
The journey promises to be difficult for the novice that is Greta, but she has said she is ready to face seasickness and lack of comfort. “I’m one of the few people in the world who can do that, so I had to take the opportunity,” she told reporters shortly before departure, wearing the black outfit of the boat’s crew.
Green sailboat with … gas stove
The Malizia II, an 18-meter-long sailboat, is equipped with solar panels and underwater turbines to generate electricity that powers the navigation instruments, the autopilot, the watermakers and a laboratory to test the level of CO2 waters. The only consumer of fossil fuel on board is a small gas stove to heat the water needed for freeze-dried vegan food.
Designed for racing, the boat can go up to 35 knots per hour (70 km / h) but the captain intends to sail more slowly. “The goal is to arrive safe and sound in New York,” Boris Herrmann had explained the day before.
Ahead of the UN summit on September 23, Greta will participate in youth protests and then travel to Canada, Mexico and Chile for another UN conference in December. “I don’t know yet how I’m going to get home,” she said.
“Pressure on the leaders”
Greta Thunberg has become an icon of climate activists by warning of the catastrophic consequences of global warming if nothing is done to reduce CO2 emissions. In the United States, “a lot of people don’t understand and accept science,” the teenager said before she left, who her long tresses make her look younger than her age. “I’ll just have to do what I’ve always done: ignore them and just say what the science says.”
Its objective: “to create a movement of world opinion, so that people come together and put pressure on the leaders”. She finds reason to be optimistic in the fact that “the mentality of a lot of people is changing. Even if it is not enough and not fast enough, it is already that ”. But she assures that she has nothing to say to US President Donald Trump.
Books and games
Before this adventure, Greta Thunberg had never sailed. She got seasick the first time she was around Plymouth on Monday. The activist, however, does not have any concerns about his crossing, which is however basic in comfort.
On board the narrow sailboat, a plastic bucket serves as a toilet. Four bunk beds have been installed for Greta, her father and a filmmaker who is making a documentary about her fight. MM. Hermann and Casiraghi will take turns sleeping in the fourth.
“You can’t ask for too much when you cross the Atlantic for free,” said the one who has already spent hours traveling around Europe to spread her message. “I am grateful for what I have”. She has stocked up on books and board games to pass the time, and she also takes a rabbit, a toy given as a gift.
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