Greta Thunberg compares coronavirus to global warming: ‘We need to tackle two crises at once’

Battling the novel coronavirus has become the world’s top priority, but teen climate activist Greta Thunberg on Wednesday compared the pandemic to the “climate crisis” and insisted that “we need to be able to tackle two crises at once.”

The 17-year-old Swedish activist’s comments came in a video conversation hosted by the Nobel Prize in Stockholm for the 50th anniversary of Earth Day.

“Today is Earth Day, and that reminds us that the climate and environmental emergency is still ongoing,” she said. “We need to tackle both the corona pandemic, this crisis, at the same time as we tackle the climate and environmental emergency because we need to be able to tackle two crises at once.”

At such times, she said, “it is even more important that we listen to scientists, science, and to the experts.”

“That goes for all crises, whether it’s the corona crisis or whether it’s the climate crisis, which of course is still ongoing and is not slowing down even in times like these,” she said.

Ms. Thunberg, who has been nominated twice for the Nobel Peace Prize, was named Time magazine’s Person of the Year in 2019 for her global-warming activism, including her Fridays for Future protests, in which she encourages students to skip school to engage in protests.

Climate Depot’s Marc Morano said Ms. Thunberg and other climate activists are “perplexed as to why people are not taking their ‘climate emergency’ seriously but are taking COVID-19 seriously.”

“Greta is now trying to link climate change and the virus as a common cause for humanity to battle,” he said in an email.