Albertan buttholes tighten as Greta Thunberg visit looms

Teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg has her eyes on Alberta.

The 16-year-old Swede, who last month caught world leaders off-guard at the United Nations Climate Action Summit for revealing to have a spine in confronting global warming, will make her way north after relishing the Mountain States. Wait till she sees the Canadian Rockies!

Thunberg has not disclosed her agenda for the visit. Leaders of the province and economy have nevertheless reacted with delightful insecurity.

“We trust that Ms. Thunberg will recognize Alberta’s leading human rights and environmental standards, especially in comparison to oil-producing dictatorships such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia, and Venezuela — which she will presumably visit next — as well as major growing emitters like China,” said Christine Myatt, a spokeswoman for Alberta Premier Jason Kenney.

Hell of a standard we’re upholding. 

It should be noted that Canadians produce more greenhouse gases and use more energy per capita than Saudi Arabians, Russians, and the Chinese. And all other G20 countries, for that matter.

Alberta Minister of Energy Sonya Savage was not stoked to hear of Greta’s sojourn to Oil Country. “If she is coming here to lecture in the middle of a federal election, it won’t be appreciated by the hundreds of thousands of hard-working people in our oil and gas sector who are proud of the work they do to provide growing world demand for energy with the most responsibly produced energy anywhere on the planet,” she wrote, pointing also to Saudi Arabia and Iran as places Alberta Is Better Than.

That’s a lot of angst about a child coming to check out the local attractions.

Warmer welcomes are expected from those who aren’t aggressively pro-fossil fuel. Lee Crowchild, Chief of the Tsuut’ina Nation, called Thunberg his guest and promised he “will do what we need to do to have you speak to the province with the voices of the Alberta Nations.”