And then came Greta.
My dream was to live sustainably and Radu’s dream was to travel. We found the SV Imagine and combined our dreams. We pushed off the dock three years ago and I started writing while sailing into Mexico, in the cockpit, typing into my cell phone. I still write like that, what has changed in these three years is that we have learned to live sustainably. I thought that sailing on an ocean is challenging and it is (crossing an ocean will be another big one for sure), but unplugging from the world of constant consumption and stimulation is way more difficult.
With my blog I try to inspire people to think about their lives, their ways and their consumption, and hopefully to turn away from fast gratification to more sustained pleasures. After years of teaching within green building councils and building sustainable outdoor spaces and landscapes, I didn’t want to talk or lecture about it anymore, I wanted to live like that.
All we could afford was a small and old but sturdy and fast sailboat and we first started sailing off the coast of Southern California, then down the Baja California and into the Sea of Cortez. Our boat turned out to be the perfect learning ground. We learned how to produce our own energy and to use way less of it (‘Electricity Junkies’ link), to make our own drinking water and how to conserve as much water as possible (A little bit of water can go a long way link), food preservation with a tiny fridge (‘Ice, ice baby’ link) how it is to use a composting head (toilet, ‘The Airhead Story’ link), to sail more and motor less (we still have a diesel engine), how to live in a tiny space and how to live with less of everything. We learned while sailing and in anchorages, amongst the small fishing villages on the Baja California and within the sailing community in Mexico. Lots to write about, the interest and blog subscriptions grew, but let’s be honest, none of my blog posts went viral. I was writing in a vacuum.
And then came Greta. A fierce and fearless teenager from Sweden, who sharply formulates what we all know to be true: that we have failed our children and the planet for not stopping this madness of global environmental disasters when we first heard about global warming 30 years ago. We failed for believing the politicians we elected into power that commerce must come first and that environmental solutions are too expensive to consider. For years, I heard all of the arguments of profit over environment until I couldn’t hear it anymore. Nobody seemed to care. Companies green washed their brands for advertising purposes and only a handful of international NGOs attacked culprits to defend the environment on land and at sea.
Until Gretas voice cut through all the bullshit. With her now trademark minimal mona-lisa-esque smile (or is it a stare?) and deceptive, pig-tailed innocence, she told a room of world business leaders at the Davos Summit in the beginning of 2019 that their enormous profits came at the highest price possible: they cost her generation the future. Greta breathes activism and her Aspergers uniquely helps her to focus her message. She only talks when she feels it’s important. She lobbies for the environment and the planet, humbly and with sincerity. Activism is what she does, not less, not more.
She is inspiring millions of people around the world, from kids her age and to middle aged women like me. I want to tell her: Good for you. Stay focused. Don’t let them get to you, because you know they will try. They will try hard to undermine your truth. They will try to take your moment, your power, your influence. Because you have them by the balls.
Greta chose to attend the UN Climate Action Summit on September 23rd 2019 in New York City only, if she could get there by sailboat in a carbon-neutral way. She found a way and will be crossing the Atlantic with a German professional skipper and crew, the boat owner grandson of Rainier of Monaco, her father and a documentarian. It will take two weeks on SV Malizia II, a with solar-panels, wind -and hydro-generators outfitted boat, dedicated to spreading awareness about climate change and ocean pollution. Team Malizia had already joined the UN Initiative Sports for Climate Action before the fated meeting of the skipper and Greta very recently in France link.
I wish her luck, this involuntary new sailor, fearlessly on her mission, taking a year off from school to travel and meet the world, while choosing her actions as deliberately as she crafts her speeches. I am so glad that the world woke up and noticed, and is listening to her crystal clear voice!
Update
Greta crossed the Atlantic in 15 days and made it alive and well to New York City on 28 AUG 2019 while the haters had wished her the worst along the way. But no, the oceans didn’t part to swallow the SV Malizia II she traveled on nor did Trump tip the Statue of Liberty down to drown the boat when she entered NY harbor (great article on the psychology behind haters link).
Leave it to the NY Times to beautifully sum up the symbolism of Greta’s journey with ‘The boat’s black sails had come into sight just blocks from Wall Street, the heart of the global financial system whose investments in fossil fuels are one of the main targets of climate protesters — and an area that climate change threatens with sea-level rise.’ link
*This blog’s title photo shows a 15 meter high mural of climate activist Greta Thunberg created by Jody Thomas in Bristol/Great Britain, May 2019. Photo: Jody Thomas.