Teen environmental activist Greta Thunberg schooled Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin Thursday after he said she needs a college degree in economics before heâll condescend to take her seriously about climate change.
âIt doesnât take a college degree in economics to realise that our remaining 1,5° carbon budget and ongoing fossil fuel subsidies and investments donât add up,â Thunberg, 17, tweeted in response to Mnuchinâs dig.
At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Thunberg and other young climate activists called on corporate and world leaders to divest from fossil fuel exploration and extraction to save the planet.
âIs she the chief economist or who is she? Iâm confused,â Mnuchin mocked Thunberg, later claiming he was joking and that it was âfunny.â But he added: âAfter she goes and studies economics in college she can come back and explain that to us.â
Thunberg snapped back:
Thunberg was hardly the only one to pile on Mnuchin after his smug remark. Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman berated Mnuchin for so poorly understanding his own purported area of expertise â the economy â that he claimed the Trump administrationâs massive corporate tax cut would âpay for itself,â instead of breaking the US budget, as it has.
âHaters gonna hate and deniers will deny ... logic, science and environmental consensus,â tweeted Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who has an economics degree, in Thunbergâs defense.
The Earth just suffered its hottest decade ever on record.