German teen climate change 'realist', known as the 'anti-Greta', slams 'alarmists' at conference
The German teenage national who's been dubbed the anti-Greta Thunberg defended her support of a white nationalist and took aim at 'climate alarmists' in her first appearance at the biggest annual meeting of grassroots conservatives in Maryland on Friday. Naomi Seibt, 19, when asked if she was still a fan of white nationalist Stefan Molyneux, a Canadian vlogger she called an 'inspiration,' in a YouTube video, answered she still was. 'I am still a fan absolutely,' she told a reporter at the Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Maryland. Seibt was asked about comments Molyneux made in 2018, in which he praises white nationalism and claims Poland was 'peaceful, free, easy, civilized and safe' because it is 'essentially an all-white country.' Seibt defended the comments in response to the reporter's question, saying they only sound racist when 'taken out of context.' 'He's not comparing other races, not at all,' Seibt said of Molyneux. 'He is just describing his experience in Western countries and I know that to the extent, for example, if I was in a country where Sharia was present, I know that I would not be able to speak as freely as in Western countries. ... It's not that we are better in any way in Western countries. We still have freedom of speech and I'm very happy that's the case.' She also spoke to about 100 conference attendees during a panel sponsored by the Heartland Institute, an Illinois-based think tank that advocates free markets and questions climate science. It was Heartland that headlined Seibt at its December forum at the UN climate conference in Madrid, where she was described as 'the star' of the show, and which hired the youth as the young face of its campaign to question the scientific consensus that humans are responsible for global warming. 'Naomi Seibt vs. Greta Thunberg: whom should we trust?' asked Heartland in a digital video, referring to the 17-year-old Swedish environmental activist who has championed the cause of acknowledging the role humans have played in raising global temperatures. During her discussion at CPAC, Seibt called herself a 'climate realist' and delivered a rebuke of those sentiments, without naming Thunberg specifically. Seibt charged that 'climate alarmists' are 'fear mongering and using panic as a tool to restrict our freedoms,' Bloomberg reports. 'The climate has always been changing, and so it's ridiculous to say we deny climate change,' Seibt said. 'Man vastly overestimates his power if he thinks he can, with CO2 emissions, destroy the climate.' Heartland staff handed out black T-shirts with Seibt's image and her signature catch phrase: 'I don't want you to panic. I want you to think.' Seibt dismissed the criticism that she is being used by climate skeptics to woo young people and counter Thunberg. 'I am not the puppet of the right wing or the climate deniers or the Heartland Institute either,' she said. Seibt said she would welcome having a 'casual conversation' with Thunberg. 'I wouldn't want to debate her on the science,' she added, 'because I don't want to destroy her.'