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Greta Thunberg Hitches a Ride on a Catamaran, Destination Spain

After spending most of the summer in the U.S., Greta Thunberg was more or less stranded when the next round of U.N. climate talks was relocated from Chile to Madrid, Spain. Having pledged to ditch flying for a more carbon-neutral means of transportation, she had none to rely on to get her back to Europe.
Greta Thunberg hitches a ride on solar-paneled catamaran, heading for Spain 11 photos
Photo: Twitter / Greta Thunberg
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That changed thanks to social media and people who are fighting for the same cause as she is. Faced with the possibility of not making it to Madrid in time for the December 3-12 COP25 annual climate conference, she reached out on Twitter with a plea: would anyone else sailing from the U.S. to Europe be willing to take her across the Atlantic?

Luckily, it didn’t take long for someone to respond to Greta’s plea: two Australians and one Brit agreed to have her and her father on board the catamaran La Vagabonde, EuroNews reports. The journey is expected to last anywhere between 2 and 4 weeks, since the Vagabonde is weather-dependent.

Fitted with solar panels and hydro-generators, the Vagabonde has minimal carbon footprint, which is ideal for Greta, who has promised to try and travel the world without doing more damage to the environment. She doesn’t expect everyone else to do the same, since she knows not all people have the luxury of spending weeks in a row at sea, just to get from point A to point B. But since her mission is to raise awareness on climate change, she aims to live by her word and do just that with minimal impact on the environment.

Greta will be sailing with Riley Whitelum and Elayna Carausu and their baby boy. They’ve been living on the catamaran for almost a year, documenting their #boatlife on YouTube, for their 1.1 million subscribers. Greta will be featured on the series, now that she’s traveling with them.

For her trip to the U.S., the teen activist hitched another ride, on a zero-emissions racing yacht called Malizia II. Leaving the country, she urged Americans to vote.

“We must realize this is a crisis, and we must do what we can now to spread awareness about this and to put pressure on the people in power,” she is quoted as saying. “The U.S. has an election coming up soon, and it's very important that for everyone who can vote, vote.”



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About the author: Elena Gorgan
Elena Gorgan profile photo

Elena has been writing for a living since 2006 and, as a journalist, she has put her double major in English and Spanish to good use. She covers automotive and mobility topics like cars and bicycles, and she always knows the shows worth watching on Netflix and friends.
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