Stephen Colbert interviews Greta Thunberg about climate change and coronavirus

Last night, Stephen Colbert interviewed Greta Thunberg On Environmental Activism In The Time Of Coronavirus. Watch and listen.

Greta Thunberg is alarmed that most countries have been much faster to move on combating the coronavirus pandemic than they have the existential threat of climate change.

Thunberg echoes much of what Dr. Katharine Hayhoe said in the videos I embedded in Coronavirus response reducing air pollution updates climate change and the environment for the ninth year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News. While the COVID-19 pandemic is reducing air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, the effect is only temporary and is diverting energy and attention from long-term efforts to fight climate change. The other experts quoted in The effect of the pandemic on the environment for World Environment Day expressed the same concerns. After all, the climate crisis will still be an issue long after the pandemic is over.

Speaking of which, it's time to return to the first half of the interview, Greta Thunberg: Humanity Is "Setting Fire To The Boat" Instead Of Facing The Climate Crisis.*

Environmental activist Greta Thunberg describes the world's current response to the climate change crisis as being stuck in the middle of the ocean and "setting fire to the boat."

Colbert was right to include Thunberg being the youngest Time Person of the Year in his introduction. It is her greatest claim to fame so far in her young life. I'm looking forward to more from her and her "gifted children's crusade" on both the climate and social justice as time goes on.**

Finally, I have an explanation for why governments are not treating the climate as a crisis. Watch Vox's Why humans are so bad at thinking about climate change from 2017.

The biggest problem for the climate change fight isn’t technology — it’s human psychology.

I've been holding onto this video for three years until the right opportunity came along. It finally did.

*I placed the second half of the interview first because I was more interested in her take on the pandemic and thought it made for a better preview image. I've done that before.

**I searched for "gifted children's crusade" on Google and found no results for that exact search string, so I'm using it and claiming to be the first. I am calling the Youth Climate Strike that because when I watched the videos in Thousands of U.S. students strike for the climate, it struck me that the highest achieving middle and high school students were all there. They understood what the science meant for their futures and it scared and outraged them. May more of their generation catch up to them as they grow up. I just hope that the movement's opponents don't use my name for the movement against them.