Why shouldn't Greta Thunberg speak at CNN's coronavirus town hall?
Shortly after CNN announced yesterday that 17-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg would join a panel of experts discussing the coronavirus, the backlash began. “What place does Greta Thunberg have in this town hall?” asked the New York magazine journalist Yashar Ali. On the other side of the spectrum, Fox News pundits and Donald Trump Jr also took issue with Thunberg’s name being on that list.
It is worth noting that Don Jr frequently takes the stage with no qualifications other than being his father’s son. Fox News, meanwhile, has a rotating roster of non-experts debating people whose job it is to know better than them. We’ve seen climate-deniers who debate scientists about climate change; unlicensed health practitioners who debate what actual doctors have told us; and commentators who have compared Black Lives Matter to the KKKdebate civil rights activists on what racism is. We are hardly in expertland here. Even if letting “people with a view” challenge experts can sometimes produce good debate, it can also run the risk of creating a false equivalence between the two.
So is CNN right to have Thunberg on? Thunberg is hardly a coronavirus expert, but she is world-renowned climate activist – and has already spoken about how the pandemic should inform our response to climate justice in a post-pandemic world.
Thunberg’s activism also gives her an undeniable platform which she has used to inform people about the pandemic. After showing mild symptoms of Covid-19 in late March after a trip around Europe, Thunberg chose to quarantine away from her family for two weeks and encouraged other
young people to do the same.
Without Thunberg, the panel for “Coronavirus Facts and Fears” – which includes the CNN broadcasters Dr Sanjay Gupta, 50, and Anderson Cooper, 52; Kathleen Sebelius, 71, the former health secretary; and Richard Besser, 60, the former Centers for Disease Control