Greta Thunberg's announcement that she is travelling to New York by boat in order to attend climate conferences made me smile, "Good news! I’ll be joining the UN Climate Action Summit in New York, COP25 in Santiago and other events along the way. I’ve been offered a ride on the 60ft racing boat Malizia II. We’ll be sailing across the Atlantic Ocean from the UK to NYC in mid August." What's so great about this form of hitching is that it's so eco-friendly, unless you consider the carbon footprint of the hi-tech yacht itself.
Malizia II, probably owned by yacht and car racer Pierre Casiraghi, is a carbon fibre wonder which cost around £4M when it was built. I suspect that it consumed rather more of earth's resources than did the sail boats that XR used to block traffic in London a couple of months ago. Thinking about it, I'd have been little more impressed if Greta had thumbed a lift on one of those boats thereby promoting repair and maintain. Even better, couldn't Greta stay at home and use Skype rather than providing free publicity for Monaco, a city better known for hosting 4mpg race cars.
I'm pretty sure that Pierre wouldn't offer just anyone a ride on his boat and his offer to Greta is evidence of her elevation into the suburbs of the global elite, a situation which has attracted some negative commentary on RT . To underscore the point, Malizia II was originally built as the 'Edmond de Rothschild' which may give you an inkling into the boat's funding and heritage. You can see a great video of the boat's construction here but no information about the carbon cost of its construction.
The saddest aspect of this is that Greta could have encouraged attendees at the various conferences to stay home and use Skype but then everyone would miss out on a freebee. In the meantime, you will be able to follow Greta's journey and 'Team Malizia' here (additional sponsorship from BMW amongst others).