When climate alarmists first presented their poster-child advocate, then-15-year-old Greta Thunberg, she was taken by realists with the appropriate grain of salt. While the MSM rushed to gush all over this "brave" little girl who had somehow mustered the temerity and selflessness to skip school in the service of humanity, many dismissed her "how dare you?" message as yet another banal alarmist slogan.

So when news hit of 19-year-old Naomi Seibt, the so-called "anti-Greta," I must admit to being more than a bit skeptical. After all, is the proper response to an opponent's deployment of a preposterous puppet (she really is a hoot) a rush to Maestro Geppetto's workshop to acquire a marionette of your own?

Hardly. But, as I soon learned, unlike Greta, Naomi is nobody's puppet. And she knows it. She made that quite clear when she explained to Rebel News in December (video), "The reason I don't like the term 'anti-Greta' is because it suggests that I myself am an indoctrinated puppet, I guess, for the other side."

Ouch. But there's so much more to like here.

You see, while Greta deliberately incites panic with words such as those she spoke at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland last year ("I want you to panic"), Naomi takes a decidedly different, more rational, approach ("I don't want you to panic").

Stark contrast, indeed, as further apparent in the girls' respect for their followers. While one pushes devotees deeper into obedient alarm ("I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. And then I want you to act."), the other's guidance is less visceral, more cerebral, less dictating, more empowering — more mature ("I want you to think" before you act). Nice.



YouTube screen capture.

Come to think of it, I suppose that does sound a bit "anti."

Still, the similarities can't be denied. Beyond their youth, sex, European origins (Greta: Swedish, Naomi: German) and hair length, there's also the not so coincidental timing. Indeed — while Thunberg addressed the United Nations' COP25 conference in Madrid in December, Seibt stood only a few miles away, delivering the keynote at a rival conference — Heartland's Climate Realist Forum (video) (known in alarmist parlance as The Denier's Summit).

Naomi, who decries climate alarmism as "a despicably anti-human ideology," has a personal revulsion to the brand "climate denier," a particularly odious term we first dissected here in 2007. As she explains in the YouTube video she created with our good friends over at the Heartland Institute, "especially as a German, it is so rude to refer to someone as a climate denier because obviously there is a connection to the term 'holocaust denier', which carries a lot of weight in Germany."

She prefers the term "climate realist," a phrase first coined by James Taylor at Heartland's International Climate Change Conference III back in 2009. As it happens, Naomi has just joined the free-market think-tank, which recruited her talents based primarily on her previous YouTube efforts. Theirs was a natural union, with her "Don't Panic — Think First" message aligning perfectly with the institute's "There IS no Climate Crisis" slogan, the latter dating back to the very first International Climate Change Conference in 2008.

Taylor, Heartland's director of the Arthur B. Robinson Center for Climate and Environmental Policy, recently discussed the partnership with the WaPo: "She's a fantastic voice for free markets and for climate realism."

That she is. And contrary to antithetical claims by the über-alarmists at DeSmog, Naomi's Heartland videos are not produced primarily to "[ask] viewers to consider one teen versus another teen." That's to the alarmists' fortune, indeed, as head-to-head, there's little contest in either the credibility or charm departments, as immediately apparent in Heartland's video, "Naomi Seibt vs. Greta Thunberg: Whom Should We Trust?"

To be fair, Naomi's brushes with the "science" of climate (AGW in particular) are no more appropriate than those of her scowling alarmist adversary. Indeed, statements such as "manmade CO2 emissions having that much impact on the climate" is "ridiculous to believe" invite certain credentials challenges and would be better avoided. By far, she's at her delightful best when doing what YouTube phenoms do best.

From the video "I Want You to Think":

I've got very good news for you. The world is not ending because of climate change. In fact, 12 years from now we will still be around, casually taking photos on our iPhone 18s, tweeting about the current president on Twitter and ranting about the latest celebrity gossip. However, we are currently being force-fed a very dystopian agenda of climate alarmism that tells us that we as humans are destroying the planet. And that the young people, especially, have no future — that the animals are dying, that we are ruining nature.

Beautiful. Does that force-feeding menu sound at all familiar? It should.

Unlike her unlikeable counterpart, Naomi questions neither the motives nor the honesty of her young challengers — the "left-wing environmental groups" that are "genuinely scared of the world ending." Watching her, one gets the immediate sense that her sorrow that the generational blame game is "breaking up families" is genuine — as is her belief that the fear-mongering that depicts humans as "energy-sucking leech[es] on the planet," causing "eco-anxiety and eco-depression," robs youth of their "passionate spirit" and is meant to "control [them]."

In a world where young minds ferment for years in a marinade of climate alarmism and other "progressive" silliness (see the Green New Deal) formulated by schools, politicians and media (both mainstream and social), there's no denying that this intellectually impressive and immediately likeable young lady her due. Other children (e.g., Sandy O) may have bigger mics and broader pulpits from which to preach, but none a more mature yet youth-palatable message to convey.

That's important. Here's why.

As Naomi correctly notes, many young people are "actually scared" by the tactics of alarmists and the antics of her Swedish foil. They "don't know anything about the science behind [climate change]," yet they hear predictions "that the planet is going to end like 12 years from now," and many believe. Scary stuff – especially to a child unaware that it's pure crapola, too.

Now, to hear mainstream news tell it, climate change has become a top-tier voting issue this election cycle, particularly among Democrats. Some actually have the cojones to claim it second only to health care, conveniently disregarding President Trump's greatest strength: the economy.

While that's a great lede for my next piece, the point at present is that bad policy responses to the AGW scam are what remain a serious threat to the planet, not AGW itself. Moreover, the battles for most future voters' climate change beliefs will be waged not in the science or political arenas arguing climate sensitivity and heat budgets, but rather in the blogo-Twitter-sphere, where ideas are seeded and nurtured by those who dare to think. The front lines of those virtual skirmishes will be manned by soldiers looking and sounding a lot more like Naomi and Greta than Christopher and Albert.

This week, Naomi brings her message, her maturity, and her charm to CPAC 2020, billed as "the largest and most influential gathering of conservatives in the world."

It's a world, all of which will be her stage.

I expect this player, this "anti-Greta" and so much more, to make a grand and memorable entrance to it, as Greta exits, stage Left.

Marc Sheppard is a data analyst, software engineer, and writer. He's been a frequent contributor to American Thinker and welcomes your feedback.

Image: Naomi Seibt via YouTube.