Strike outside the UN
If you want to hang with Greta Thunberg, make America Greta again, do your bit to protest inaction on the climate crisis, etc, etc, then midtown Manhattan is where you need to be this Friday.
She’s going to be taking part in a general strike outside the United Nations headquarters.
Asked just now on the dockside, after disembarking from the yacht that carried her across the Atlantic, what she was going to do for the rest of the day/week, after spending 15 days at sea, Thunberg said first she was going to have a little rest.
“I’m going to just relax first and walk around and just land, in a way,” she said.
Then she added: “This Friday I’m going to join the strike outside the UN, and then more events of course, and meeting people.”
Appropriately, the famous “knotted gun” sculpture outside the UN building is the work of Thunberg’s fellow Swede, artist CarlFredrik Reuterswaerd.
And with that, we close this special live blog. Greta is giving Guardian environment reporter Oliver Milman an interview right now, so do catch up with that story on the website in a few. And for all the US political news of the day, ongoing, the daily politics live blog is still....live! Do take a look, still plenty of news to come.
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'Trying to clean up after them'
OMG do NOT ever try to condescend to Greta Thunberg! Listening in on a conversation she just had with some journalist or other (not the Guardian, I hasten to add, that comes later, keep an eye on the website for her interview!), dude asks her: “Don’t you just want to be a kid?”
Thunberg says: “I would love not to have to do this and just go to school, but I want to do this because I want to make a difference.
“The older generation are the ones who are causing this problem [of the climate crisis] and they should not be saying to us ‘just be a normal kid’. Because they are the ones that caused this and we are just trying to clean up after them.”
TKO, end of interview. Greta, out.
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Big picture
Greta Thunberg has finished talking and taking questions at a short, open-air press conference next to the dock, where her transatlantic yacht just tied up 15 days after she left Britain.
She’s arrived in America to address the United Nations general assembly next month on the issue of the climate emergency, as well as to attend other meetings, and also travel to Chile for an environmental event.
At one point, she stumbled over her words and said: “I’m sorry, my brain isn’t working correctly” after a rough crossing, during which she did not feel seasick, she said.
She appeared tired but happy and managed her usual succinct summing up of the climate crisis.
“We have to take responsibility and see the big picture,” she said.
Thunberg has now walked back to the yacht, where she said she was going to collect her belongings.
She just told a journalist: “I didn’t feel bad at all, I felt good even though it was a bit rough sometimes. I was extremely lucky. For me it was really good.”
“The best moment of the trip, it’s so hard to pick because there are so incredibly many. But...leaving and to see all the people waving and to arrive and see all the people - and just doing nothing [out at sea].”
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Sea legs
After more than two weeks at sea, Greta Thunberg is being very much herself. After admitting that she was looking forward to a wash and rest, she talked of what she’ll miss about being out in the Atlantic “sitting for hours and staring at the ocean, doing nothing, I’m going to miss that a lot. To see the beauty of it, that I’m also going to miss. Peace and quiet.”
Amazon rainforest fires
Greta Thunberg said that while she was out at sea she heard about the fires raging in the Amazonian rainforest, principally in Brazil.
“Even on a boat I heard about the fires in the Amazon, the rainforest. It’s devastating,” she said.
“It’s so horrible. It’s hard to imagine. The war against nature must end.”
‘Listen to the science,’ Thunberg tells Trump
“Everyone always asks me about Donald Trump,” Greta Thunberg just said in her press conference after arriving in New York on a yacht across the Atlantic.
“I say ‘Listen to the science’ and he obviously does not do that. If no-one has been able to convince him about the climate crisis and the urgency, why would I be able to?”
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Thunberg addresses the public
“This is a fight across borders, across continents,” Thunberg just said about her battle to persuade the world to take action quickly to reverse the climate crisis, “to save the Earth.”
She pointed out that she “shouldn’t have to cross the Atlantic to take a stand” against the climate emergency, on a yacht, but she stresses that it was a necessary journey for her.
“The ground is still shaking”
Greta Thunberg is addressing the public at a press conference at the marina in New York.
Her first words were: “Well, all of this is very overwhelming.”
She added that, having just got off the boat: “The ground is still shaking.”
She is saying the climate crisis is the biggest calamity humankind has ever faced.
“We need to stand together and take action because otherwise it might be too late. Let’s not wait any longer, let’s do it now.”
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Greta Thunberg arrives in the Big Apple
To cheers and applause, 16-year-old Greta Thunberg disembarked moments ago from the yacht that carried her across the Atlantic and she is now getting ready to address the public.
A small platform has been prepared for her near where the boat tied up at the marina in lower Manhattan, amid light rain.
Her official arrival was later than expected mainly because the wind dropped. But she’s here now!
Greta on dry land
She’s on dry land. New York arrival - official!
Go Greta!
She close enough that she’s waving to people on shore now, amid encouraging shouts of “Go, Greta!” and cheers from the gathered crowd.
She’s docked. She’s here. Still on board.
It’s a fact
One of Greta Thunberg’s pithiest points on the environment is: “Many people think that climate change is an opinion. But it’s not an opinion, it’s a fact.”
Paging Donald Trump, who skipped the climate crisis and Amazon rainforest talks at the G7 meeting earlier this week in France.
Office distracted by today’s view - sight of teenage climate activist @GretaThunberg’s yacht arriving in New York #GretaThunberg pic.twitter.com/PkA0auNtpT
— Michelle Fleury (@BizFleury) August 28, 2019
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Big Apple backdrop
Here’s a cool pic, despite the murky conditions prevailing in New York today.
@GretaThunberg wonderful!!! pic.twitter.com/dytglG7BRc
— CONJURO TEATRO A.C. (@ConjuroTeatro) August 28, 2019
Almost there
Greta tweets:
Now we sail up the Hudson River to North Cove Marina. Thank you to all that greeted us on the water!! pic.twitter.com/uDl9WMdOL1
— Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) August 28, 2019
Pricking the conscience
Even as pro-environmental types cheer Greta Thunberg’s arrival in New York ahead of addressing the United Nations general assembly meeting next month, climate and water scientist Peter Gleick of the Pacific Institute, in Oakland, California, is prodding consciences.
He tweets:
A committed young woman, after inspiring a huge movement to raise awareness & promote action on the #climatecrisis, has just sailed the Atlantic in a small boat to come address #climate at the Sept UN meetings. What have you done lately? #GretaThunberg @GretaThunberg
— Peter Gleick (@PeterGleick) August 28, 2019
(AP photo) pic.twitter.com/dGDseqMVRC
Gin palace
Here’s a yacht tied up next to where Greta Thunberg’s sailing boat will dock shortly, per a reporter’s tweet.
Quite ironic: this massive boat is anchored on the same dock where #gretathunberg is expected to land in less then an hour now. It has one small solar panel on the roof though... pic.twitter.com/DlFGFRSQAS
— Herbert Bauernebel (@bauernebel) August 28, 2019
One small dot
Here’s an even better pic that shows a diminutive Greta Thunberg on the prow of the yacht that’s carried her across the Atlantic, prominently showing it’s message that the climate crisis must be addressed immediately: “A race we must win”.
Sustainable development goals
As Thunberg’s yacht rounded the Statue of Liberty it was met by a flotilla of 17 support boats, each with its sail printed with a message spelling out a recommended sustainable development goal, as promoted by the United Nations in its “blueprint” for a better future for the planet and humankind.
These include combating discrimination and promoting peace, as well as using less plastic, not wasting food or water, using public transportation and vaccinating children against diseases, and similar aims.
Here is Greta’s tweet about it:
The @UN has sent out one boat for each of the 17 sustainable development goal to greet us! Thank you! pic.twitter.com/AU5ZSVj5vD
— Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) August 28, 2019
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Press conference
After she steps ashore, Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg is expected to give a press conference. As expected, there are lots of journalists waiting at the marina in lower Manhattan for her yacht to tie up.
But there are also lots of fellow activists, too, young and old, lining the railings of the nearby promenade overlooking New York’s harbor and crowded in the area where she will sail in the last few feet and set foot on dry land after two weeks on the ocean wave.
She is good with pithy messages as well as longer-form reasoning on why people and their governments need to take comprehensive action to tackle the climate emergency. She’s accused world leaders of acting like irresponsible children.
And she didn’t get seasick, apparently, despite heavy weather and ferocious swells in the Atlantic on her way to the US. So we’ll see what New York makes of her, as well as the United Nations as it gets ready for its annual gathering here, the general assembly.
'Never too small to make a difference'
In August 2018 Thunberg began a solo climate protest by striking from school in Sweden when aged 15. She has since been joined by tens of thousands of school and university students in Australia, Belgium, Germany, the United States, Japan and more than a dozen other countries.
'Irresponsible children'
Speaking at the United Nations climate conference in December 2018, she berated world leaders for behaving like irresponsible children. And in January 2019 she rounded on the global business elite in Davos: “Some people, some companies, some decision-makers in particular, have known exactly what priceless values they have been sacrificing to continue making unimaginable amounts of money. And I think many of you here today belong to that group of people.”
Inspiration
Veteran climate campaigners are astonished by what has been achieved in such a short time. Thunberg has described the rapid spread of school strikes for climate around the world as amazing. “It proves you are never too small to make a difference,” she said. Her protests were inspired by US students who staged walk-outs to demand better gun controls in the wake of multiple school shootings.
Family
Her mother, Malena Ernman, has given up her international career as an opera singer because of the climate effects of aviation. Her father is actor Svante Thunber. Greta has Asperger’s syndrome, which in the past has affected her health, he says. She sees her condition not as a disability but as a gift which has helped open her eyes to the climate crisis.
Thunberg rounds the Statue of Liberty.
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Sailing into New York
In Greta’s own words.
Sailing into New York. pic.twitter.com/SlC1IA8R0h
— Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) August 28, 2019
Asperger’s
Thunberg, 16, is very up front (ie it’s part of her Twitter bio) about the fact that she has been diagnosed with Asperger’s, which is on the autism spectrum.
In this piece, the British writer Ian Birrell says the Swedish teen is teaching the wider world as much about this condition as she is about the climate crisis.
Past the Statue of Liberty
The Guardian’s reporter on the spot in lower Manhattan, Oliver Milman, tells me Greta Thunberg’s yacht has just rounded the Statue of Liberty.
Weather conditions are pretty murky in New York today, but she’s on her way in.
A flotilla of supporting boats has gone out to meet her.
Greta Thunberg announces she's within sight of lower Manhattan
The teenage climate activist is on the brink of setting foot in the US after her voyage across the Atlantic.
Manhattan! pic.twitter.com/8SxPYk2WRk
— Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) August 28, 2019
Meet the parents
Before Greta Thunberg’s activism gave her international recognition, she was best known as the daughter of Swedish entertainers, my Guardian colleague here in New York, Lauren Aratani, writes.
Her mother, Malena Ernman, is a popular Swedish opera star. Malena has performed internationally, including in Moscow for the 2009 Eurovision competition, representing Sweden. For the competition, she sang “La Voix”, a song with mostly French lyrics, which she wrote herself.
Ernman is married to Svante Thunberg, Greta’s father. A former actor, Svante Thunberg said that he gave up his acting career to raise his two daughters and accommodate his wife’s traveling for her career.
Here’s a family pic of Greta as a young girl.
Thunberg’s grandfather, Olof, is also a Swedish actor. Svante was reportedly named after Nobel Prize winner Svante Arrhenius who was the first scientist to calculate how carbon dioxide emissions lead to greenhouse gas effects.
Greta’s parents say their daughter’s persistence about the climate crisis completely changed their lifestyle.
When Greta was nine, she started to learn the extent of the problem and became depressed. She turned to her parents with her frustration that people seemed simultaneously concerned about climate crisis but did not do anything to change it.
Convinced by their daughter’s arguments, Svante and Malena changed their lifestyles, going vegan and refusing to take flights – a surprising announcement for Malena who often flew for performances.
Svante said the changes were natural, given that the family has always care about human rights.
“While we were saying all these things about taking care of our fellow men, we were flying around, eating meat, buying things, driving a car, having two homes,” Svante said at the 2018 UN Conference on Climate Change in 2018.
“Then we realized that we of course are a huge part of the problem, in fact, we were part of the problem. Greta could not get around that, and it made her upset. … She told us we had to change.”
Running Dry
Water, water everywhere around New York City, where we are waiting for Greta Thunberg’s arrival breathlessly (literally, actually, as the wind has dropped, my colleague downtown tells me, which will affect her ability to enter the marina in lower Manhattan under sail).
But not so much water in many other parts these days, especially Central America. Xiye Bastida, who was talking earlier to the Guardian’s environment reporter Oliver Milman, as both hung out on the dock near New York harbor waiting for the yacht, told him that her family fled here from Mexico as a result of severe drought in that region.
She is now a passionate climate activist and has been inspired by Thunberg’s focused campaigning. Bastida said she wants Thunberg’s message to “wake people up” in the US to the climate emergency.
But not just worldwide, here in the US, too, where no amount of climate crisis denial will diminish the effects of ever-stronger hurricanes, crippling south-west drought, repeated flooding and ever-rising temperatures that are more than just weather fluctuations, experts say.
“The problem is that the climate crisis follows you around everywhere,” Bastida said.
Here’s the Guardian’s recent series on the effect of climate-change affected water shortages in Central America, Running Dry.
Photo: Oliver Milman for the Guardian Photograph: Oliver Millman
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Waste of time to meet Trump - Thunberg
When Greta Thunberg was setting sail from Plymouth (in England, not New England) on August 14, my colleague on the spot that day, the Guardian’s global environment editor Jonathan Watts, reported that the activist didn’t intend to talk to with US president Donald Trump, even were the opportunity to present itself.
The teenager said it would be a waste of time because Trump hasn’t been persuaded by the experts he has already spoken to, on the topic of the climate crisis, which he has declared a hoax.
“I’m not that special. I can’t convince everyone,” Thunberg said at the time. Here’s Watts’s full report from that day.
The voyage has been a demonstration of her declared values, he wrote, which revolve around reducing emissions. A flight to New York from Europe would have been much quicker, but it would pump close to 1,000kg of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Conventional cruise ships often have an even bigger footprint.
Instead, Thunberg – along with her father, a cameraman and a two-man crew – are taking a zero carbon option.
The Malizia II is a 60ft (18 meter) racing yacht that was built for round-the-world challenges and has just completed the Fastnet race, which runs every two years off the British coast.
The yacht generates the power for lighting and communication through solar panels and underwater turbines. The racing team have removed sponsorship logos from the hull and emblazoned Greta’s slogan “Unite Behind the Science” on the mainsail.
Who’s she?
While enthusiastic crowds line the dock in the US where environmental activist and Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg will shortly arrive and disembark, some New Yorkers are non-plussed.
One passerby just asked my colleague on the spot, Oliver Milman, if she’s a solo round the world yachtswoman.
Here’s our swift Guardian Greta guide.
'Never too small to make a difference'
In August 2018 Thunberg began a solo climate protest by striking from school in Sweden when aged 15. She has since been joined by tens of thousands of school and university students in Australia, Belgium, Germany, the United States, Japan and more than a dozen other countries.
'Irresponsible children'
Speaking at the United Nations climate conference in December 2018, she berated world leaders for behaving like irresponsible children. And in January 2019 she rounded on the global business elite in Davos: “Some people, some companies, some decision-makers in particular, have known exactly what priceless values they have been sacrificing to continue making unimaginable amounts of money. And I think many of you here today belong to that group of people.”
Inspiration
Veteran climate campaigners are astonished by what has been achieved in such a short time. Thunberg has described the rapid spread of school strikes for climate around the world as amazing. “It proves you are never too small to make a difference,” she said. Her protests were inspired by US students who staged walk-outs to demand better gun controls in the wake of multiple school shootings.
Family
Her mother, Malena Ernman, has given up her international career as an opera singer because of the climate effects of aviation. Her father is actor Svante Thunber. Greta has Asperger’s syndrome, which in the past has affected her health, he says. She sees her condition not as a disability but as a gift which has helped open her eyes to the climate crisis.
Excitement grows
The Guardian’s environment reporter, Oliver Milman, is at the North Cove Marina in lower Manhattan waiting for Thunberg to arrive.
It’s within sight, theoretically, of the spectacular Statue of Liberty and the nearby historic processing center for immigrants of yore, the striking Ellis Island (now a museum), although Ollie reports that it’s drizzling at the moment and these iconic landmarks are part shrouded in some light mist.
There’s a large glass-domed shopping mall next to the marina, which is stereotypical of America but not specifically of New York City, which on the whole eschews such emporia. Can’t see Greta visiting that, somehow.
There are also enormous yachts lining the marina. And it’s all just a spit from what was known after September 11, 2001, as Ground Zero, ie the site of the World Trade Center that was felled by hijacked passenger jets in a terrorist attack that cost almost 3,000 lives.
Crowds waiting for Thunberg’s arrival are dominated by young, enthusiastic activists standing on the dock.
Milman points out that “It’s quite a remarkable reception for a teenager virtually unknown in the US when she started her school walkouts about a year ago” in Sweden.
Waiting for the tide
More on that reference by Thunberg to “tide allowing” in terms of the exact time she’s expected to tie up at one of the marinas in lower Manhattan.
Low tide today is expected at 2PM local time (7PM BST in the UK). Conditions currently are rather murky, with visibility just 10 miles, although there is the prospect of some sunshine shortly, around the time she arrives, so let’s hope that happens and keeps all the photographers and videographers happy as their images whizz around the world.
Sea conditions are moderate, waves at just over a foot, with a light wind of just around 8mph, blowing out of the north-east out to sea and closer to SSE on land right now.
The air pressure is falling, it’s quite muggy actually, and the air temperature is a very warm 80F (26C). Compared with the weather the crew of her yacht have been contending with out in the Atlantic, this is - ahem - plain sailing.
“Greta has a posse”
Greta Thunberg tweeted earlier today, after anchoring off the Brooklyn seaside resort of Coney Island before dawn, that she would sail into a marina in Manhattan at 14.45PM local time (2.45PM BST in the UK) “tide allowing”.
So that could obviously fluctuate forwards or backwards in time, and crowds gathering at the tip of Manhattan, where the city cedes to the harbor and the benign eye of the Statue of Liberty, are excited.
My colleague Oliver Milman just talked to 17-year-old Xiye Bastida, there, who said she is originally from Mexico (Mexico, climate crisis, Greta - three topics guaranteed to upset Donald Trump) and is a big fan of Thunberg.
“Everyone knows Greta, we like that she’s humble, she’s just a child who wants a better future, who is basically like us, too,” Bastida told Milman moments ago.
Bastida was inspired by Thunberg’s activism to organize her own climate strike, involving 600 fellow students at her New York City school.
“She has a moral aspect to her message, that our generation will suffer the most. I hope she will raise the consciousness of climate change in the US - help wake people up,” she said.
Bastida’s mobile phone carries a sticker saying: “Greta has a posse”.
Greta Thunberg prepares to arrive in New York
Hello to Guardian readers around the world. A brisk but excited New York welcome to our special live blog that will cover the imminent arrival in the Big Apple of Sweden’s teenage environmental campaigner Greta Thunberg.
This is Joanna Walters helming the blog from the Guardian’s US headquarters in Manhattan while my colleague and environment reporter, Oliver Milman, has the salty breeze in his face at the tip of the island waiting for Thunberg to set foot on dry land after her zero-carbon crossing of the Atlantic.
For the last few hours the yacht she sailed on has been anchored off southern Brooklyn, going through customs and immigration procedures, and “tide allowing”, it’s expected to approach the city past the Statute of Liberty soon.
A flotilla of supporters under sail are expected to intercept her near Liberty and escort her to a marina just on the west side of the tip of Manhattan, where the harbor meets the Hudson River.
