Davos forum founder thanks Trump for optimism, Thunberg scowls

President Trump was billed as the keynote speaker at the opening of the Economic World Forum in Davos. Trump struck a positive tone in his opening remarks to the world leaders and other movers and shakers. Klaus Schwab, the founder, and chairman thanked Trump for “injecting optimism” with his speech. “We have many problems in the world, but we need dreams,” he said.

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Thanks to a good economy at home, President Trump is able to spread the word at Davos that the American economy is thriving and open for business. He took a well-deserved victory lap and was welcomed by a receptive crowd, according to reports. Specifically, Trump cautioned the others to not succumb to the fearmongering “prophets of doom”, which was a shot at the climate alarmists.

“This is not a time for pessimism. This is a time for optimism. Fear and doubt is not a good thought process because this is a time for tremendous hope and joy and optimism and action,” Trump said in his opening address at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland.

“But to embrace the possibilities of tomorrow, we must reject the perennial prophets of doom and their predictions of the apocalypse,” he continued. “They are the heirs of yesterday’s foolish fortune tellers. And I have them, and you have them, and we all have them. And they want to see us do badly, but we don’t let that happen.”

The annual gathering in Davos was once a renowned world economic forum but in recent years has devolved into a politically correct event advancing social issues like climate change. Trump was there to state in no uncertain terms that he is not allowing that agenda to tank the U.S. economy. Past predictions of doom and gloom were wrong, whether activists want to admit that or not. He called himself a believer in the environment. It’s all about how to deal with economic progress while addressing carbon emissions and greenhouse gases. Excessive environmental regulations and ideas like carbon taxes are economic killers.

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Teenage Greta Thunberg is also an attendee. She took a winter break during the Christmas holiday time and is now back and ready to scold adults again. After last Friday’s weekly climate protest known as Fridays for Future in Lausanne, Switzerland, she told the crowd, “To the world leaders and those in power, I would like to say that you have not seen anything yet.” “You have not seen the last of us, we can assure you that.” She will participate on two panels. She voiced impatience with the lack of existance of progress, according to her, on curbing climate change in the new decade. We aren’t even a month into the new decade, but, whatever.

At the Lausanne rally, Thunberg bemoaned a continued lack of progress. “So, we are now in a new year and we have entered a new decade and so far, during this decade, we have seen no sign whatsoever that real climate action is coming and that has to change,” she said.

She has taken the message that nothing is being done about climate change to Davos. It’s a childish exaggeration but no doubt the audience was receptive to her. She has a report, you know, and she’s going to talk about its findings whether you like it or not.

“Pretty much nothing has been done since the global emissions of CO2 has not reduced,” Thunberg said. “[I]f you see it from that aspect, what has concretely been done, if you see it from a bigger perspective, basically nothing … it will require much more than this, this is just the very beginning.”

Asked what she wanted to see in the future, Thunberg said “that we start listening to the science and that we actually start treating this crisis as the crisis it is.”

Thunberg said she’s spent a year trying to publicize the findings of a 2018 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report that shows countries can only release another 420 gigatons of carbon dioxide in order to have the best chance at keeping the rise in global temperatures to under 1.5 degrees. At current levels, that amount will be emitted within roughly eight and a half years.

“I don’t think I have seen one media outlet or person in power communicating this or what it means,” Thunberg said. “I know you don’t want to report on this. I know you don’t want to talk about this. But I assure you I will continue to repeat these numbers until you do.”

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Earlier this month, Greta and other young activists penned an op-ed demanding an immediate end to investments in all aspects of the fossil fuel industry. This is where the absurdness of the demands of climate alarmists comes in. It is completely unrealistic to promote an end to fossil fuels when the U.S. and the world, in general, are not equipped to live without them. It is as though the alarmists wish us to live as in the pre-industrial revolution days. The inconvenient truth is that oil companies have been working on alternative sources of energy and innovations for many years now. Nothing happens overnight for such big changes.

We demand that at this year’s forum, participants from all companies, banks, institutions and governments immediately halt all investments in fossil fuel exploration and extraction, immediately end all fossil fuel subsidies and immediately and completely divest from fossil fuels.

We don’t want these things done by 2050, 2030 or even 2021, we want this done now – as in right now.

Meanwhile, the important message being delivered by President Trump is one made possible with the help of fossil fuels – America’s economy is thriving. He advised world leaders to do what is best for their citizens.

“America is thriving; America is flourishing and yes, America is winning again like never before,” Trump told an audience of billionaires, world leaders and figures from academia, media and the kind of international organizations and think tanks for whom Trump’s “America First” nationalism is anathema.

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Sorry, Greta.

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Ed Morrissey 10:00 PM | November 20, 2024
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