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Noami Seibt: 'Anti-Greta' who is eschewing 'climate alarmism' and calling for 'climate realism'

The German teen has called Greta Thunberg an "utterly immature and uneducated girl that is shamelessly being taken advantage of for a perfidious agenda of climate hysteria"
PUBLISHED FEB 28, 2020
Naomi Sebit (The Heartland Institute)
Naomi Sebit (The Heartland Institute)

"I don't want you to panic. I want you to think."

This is the message Naomi Seibt, a 19-year-old German influencer from Münster in western Germany who is being dubbed the 'anti-Greta,' wants everyone to hear, and which seems to have struck a chord amongst many conservatives. 

Seibt, who describes herself as a "climate skeptic" or "climate realist," is on the payroll of the Heartland Institute, a think tank closely allied with the White House and which has, in the past, lobbied on behalf of the tobacco and coal industries but is currently challenging the scientific consensus on climate change.

Her appearance is by no means sudden. She's been around for a while. Last December, as Greta Thunberg addressed the United Nations' Cop25 global warming summit in Madrid, Seibt was giving a keynote speech at a rival conference organized by the Heartland Institute a few miles away.

Before that, she was making waves because of her essay that was published by the "anti-Islamisation" blog Philosophia Perennis and praised by Martin Sellner, leader of the Austrian Identitarian Movement.

The renewed interest in Seibt stems from a press release from the Heartland Institute dated February 14 where it was announced she had officially joined the Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy and would work on "communicating the climate realism message to her generation."

The press release also featured a low-budget video where Seibt, seemingly speaking from her home, tells listeners she had "very good news" and that "the world is not ending because of climate change."

"We are currently being force-fed a very dystopian agenda of climate alarmism that tells us that we as humans are destroying the planet," she says. "And that the young people, especially, have no future – that the animals are dying, that we are ruining nature."

"Many people are now actually developing mental disorders and referring to them as eco-anxiety and eco-depression," she continues. "I believe it’s important that we act now and change this entire mainstream narrative of fear-mongering and climate alarmism because it’s basically just holding us hostage in our own brains."

"Don’t let an agenda that is trying to depict you as an energy-sucking leech on the planet get into your brain and take away all of your passionate spirit. I don’t want you to panic. I want you to think."

So, what is her argument in favor of climate skepticism?

Addressing Thunberg's calls for action against climate change, Seibt has asked that people around the world "not create an ideology out of something that a young girl has to say, regardless of the political side she's on."

She has singled out the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and said that none of their findings were based on evidence. To support her argument, she pointed out that the organization's hypotheses were based on "climate models supported by climate-related variables" that could not describe the climate processes accurately because "climate is too complex to be depicted by a computer model."

She said the "scientific skepticism of climate alarmists fails in the face of even the most simple questions" and that their premise wasn't about science, but about politics and the "oppression of skepticism, free science, and free speech."

The 19-year-old called Thunberg an "utterly immature and uneducated girl"  who is "shamelessly being taken advantage of for a perfidious agenda of climate hysteria" and has asked that she not be referred to as 'anti-Greta,' but as 'pro-human.'

Seibt has caused quite the stir in the media since the Heartland Institute heralded her arrival earlier this month, with some even going to suggest that her rise in popularity was the birth of a Gen Z rivalry between her and Thunberg.

Many have questioned her credibility and her motive as well. Why is the Heartland Institute, a think tank that goes out of its way to deny science that humans are causing irreversible harm to the planet, hiring a 19-year-old German influencer? What is in it for her?

Seibt addressed those questions and more in a seven-minute video where she slammed the "mainstream media" for their "misrepresentation" of her and the institute.

"I'm probably being instrumentalized as an 'anti-Greta' for the right-wing conservative opposition to the climate change mainstream to satisfy the financial desires of some big, greedy American corporations," she says.

Seibt pointed out that, in November 2019, she attended both, the EIKE climate change conference in Munich, as well as Heartland Institute's realism conference in Madrid, and had given impromptu speeches at both without any financial incentive whatsoever.

"My intention behind all this is not to become famous or make a lot of money," she says. "I couldn't care less about that kind of stuff."

The 19-year-old insists they do not simply "resort to the next right-wing conservative news source just because it fits our agenda" and says, "What we do have is science, and that is exactly what makes us stronger and more authentic."

She implies climate realism is not the same as climate change denial and thanked those willing to "challenge their brain just a little" and is "willing to listen to arguments from the other side."

"I hope that we can live in an era of productive discussion again. Because discussion is what keeps the philosophical spirit of our society alive. It's what keeps our freedom alive," she says.

And it looks like she's just getting started. The teen is set to speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), which is being held at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in Maryland between February 26 and February 29, in what will be her biggest stage yet.

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