We all know that Donald Trump is a big baby who picks on people that threaten his authority, so it was no surprise when he turned his tirade to teen climate activist Greta Thunberg last year.
Now, the president is back on his bullshit, it seems. Speaking at a press conference before exiting the World Economic Forum in Davos, Trump suggested that the 17-year-old should focus on other countries than the US, which is “clean and beautiful” and where “everything is good”.
“Our numbers are very good, our environmental numbers. Our water numbers, our numbers on the air are tremendous. We have to do something about other continents and other countries,” he said. (Disclaimer: the US is responsible for more cumulative carbon emissions than any other nation.)
“We have a beautiful ocean called the Pacific Ocean where thousands of tons of garbage flows towards us, put there by other countries, so Greta needs to work on them,” he added, because clearly the buck falls on a 17-year-old activist and not the world’s governments.
Presumably Trump’s tantrum is a response to Thunberg’s scathing attack on the US climate record on Tuesday (January 21), where she said: “Unlike you, my generation will not give up without a fight. Our house is still on fire. Your inaction is fuelling the flames.”
When asked to address these claims the following day, Trump responded: “How old is she?” After journalists told him Thunberg’s age, he said: “Oh, that’s good. She beat me out on TIME magazine,” referring to Thunberg TIME’s person of the year win last year.
The president, who previously dismissed climate change as a “hoax”, also suggested that Thunberg’s call for urgent climate action was “unrealistic to a point you can’t live your lives”.
“Fear and doubt is not a good thought process because this is a time for tremendous hope and joy and optimism and action,” he said at Davos on Tuesday. “To embrace the possibilities of tomorrow, we must reject the perennial prophets of doom and their predictions of the apocalypse.”
Thunberg later responded by referring to “empty words and promises” by world leaders. “You say children shouldn’t worry... don’t be so pessimistic and then, nothing, silence,” she said.
Mic drop.
