Greta Thunberg Calls Meeting With Trump A 'Waste Of Time'

Greta Thunberg was a guest on this week’s ‘The Ellen DeGeneres Show’ and had some words about Donald Trump

Environmental activist and 16-year-old global legend, Greta Thunberg, was a guest on The Ellen DeGeneres Show this week, and she was asked, among other things, if she thought meeting with President Donald Trump would help him understand the severity of the climate crisis we are facing. Her response was as straightforward and perfect as she is.

DeGeneres was clearly ecstatic to host the Swedish climate activist, noting it took them over two months to get her on the show because of her busy schedule. She mentioned the “not kind” tweet that Trump, an outspoken nonbeliever of climate change, posted about her last month, one that seemed to mock the teenager. “Would you sit down with him to help him understand climate change?” DeGeneres asked. “I don’t understand why I would do that,” Thunberg responded. “I don’t see what I could tell him that he hasn’t already heard, and I just think it would be a waste of time, really.”

Not long after Trump was elected president, he made it clear climate change was not on his list of priorities. The page dedicated to our climate disappeared from the White House website, and in its place, “President Trump is committed to eliminating harmful and unnecessary policies such as the Climate Action Plan and the Waters of the U.S. Rule. Lifting these restrictions will greatly help American workers, increasing wages by more than $30 billion over the next 7 years.”

DeGeneres was also interested in asking Thunberg how she became interested in what’s happening to our planet. Thunberg talked about how she learned about greenhouse gases around the young age of 7 and realizing the importance of what she was hearing. “I just couldn’t believe it, because I thought if this was really true, then surely, someone must’ve done something,” Thunberg said. “Then, surely, we would take it seriously. But no one took it seriously.”

“Once I fully understood, I couldn’t just look away anymore,” Thunberg added. DeGeneres also pointed out that after her single-person strike, more than 11 million people have joined in, protesting for international cooperation in reducing greenhouse gas emissions globally. “It shows you what one voice can do, right?” DeGeneres said.

Thunberg spoke at the UN several months back, calling out the world’s governments for turning a blind eye to what is happening to our planet. “You say you hear us, and that you understand the urgency, but no matter how sad and angry I am I do not want to believe that,” Thunberg said in her speech. “Because if you really understood the situation and still kept on failing to act you would be evil, and that I refuse to believe.” She later joined forces with 15 other children to file a complaint to the U.N., stating world leaders have violated children’s rights because of inaction on climate change that has their futures in question.

Thunberg was recently the keynote speaker at Friday’s youth climate strike in Los Angeles. While there, she took to the streets in protest and addressed the current wildfires. “The situation is just getting more and more absurd for every day that goes by without something real and drastic happening,” she said. “We should listen to the science that has been ignored for too long.”