Jeremy Clarkson brands Greta Thunberg a 'spoiled brat' and tells her to 'go back to school'
British broadcaster Jeremy Clarkson, best known for his 'Top Gear' series on BBC wrote a column for The Sun on Sunday, September 29, targeted towards climate change activist, Greta Thunberg.
Clarkson was responding to Thunberg's speech at the United Nations where she chastised world leaders on their lack of action to combat anthropogenic climate change.
In 2015, Clarkson was dismissed from 'Top Gear' over his reported fracas with one of the show's producers. He and the BBC were sued by the producer for racial discrimination and personal injury and settled the claims for £100,000.
Thunberg's speech at the UN gained a lot of traction, and the specific part of her speech that Clarkson mainly referred to in his column was this: "You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I'm one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying."
"Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!" Thunberg had said at the UN.
Clarkson wrote, "How dare you sail to America on a carbon fiber yacht that you didn't build which cost £15million ($18million), that you didn't earn, and which has a back-up diesel engine that you didn’t mention."
The back-up diesel engine Clarkson mentions is an emergency combustion engine on the Malizia II sailboat. This is in accordance with the International Monohull Open Class Association (IMOCA) Class Rule 2019 V.1.1, number C.6.1 (a), a safety measure rule that states "a motor (engine) shall be permanently installed, permanently attached to the boat and not moved".
However, it was stated that the engine was not used at all during Thunberg's trip across the Atlantic Ocean and would only have been used in the case of an emergency situation.
In his column, Clarkson continues to take credit for the achievements of his and previous generations, asking Thunberg, "What about the pills you take when you have a headache? What about the clean water that comes out of your tap? What about the food you can buy at any time of the day and night?"
"What about the aid missions currently being run in some of the poorest countries of the world, or the drugs that help keep Aids at bay? Think about all the movies you’ve enjoyed. Movies made by grown-ups. And all those comedians who’ve made you laugh," he continued.
He also went on to call Thunberg a "spoiled brat" and though he agreed that the "world is heating up" and implied that US President Donald Trump "has something to do with it", he tells her to get back to school and "work hard in your science lectures. Because science is what will solve the problem eventually".
In a press conference amidst the Montreal Climate Strike on September 27, where Thunberg had said Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was "not doing enough" to fight climate change, she had also urged world leaders that "This is a system that is wrong. My message to all the politicians around the world is the same. Just listen and act on the current best available science".
On the same day, Clarkson's daughter, Emily Clarkson had responded to a tweet by comedian John Bishop praising Thunberg by tweeting "Wouldn’t it be nice if all middle-aged blokes could talk to and about Greta, the ballsy af teenager out there changing the world, like this".