Listen: Climate Activist’s Interview Was Such a Disaster that Her Mom Wrote a 600-Word Rebuttal

A teenage climate activist made herself look like a fool on New Zealand radio late last month, and the incident made the girl’s mom so mad she wrote a 600-word rebuttal to blast the radio host for the interview.

On Sept. 23, 16-year-old Izzy Cook appeared on New Zealand’s NewstalkZB with host Heather du Plessis-Allan to talk about the teen’s climate change campaign. But the whole interview came to a crashing halt when Plessis-Allan rolled out a gotcha against the teen that turned the girl’s whole campaign into a joke, Australia’s News.com reported.

One of the teen’s planks in her wonderful new climate change program was for people to apply for permission to take long flights that would eat up fossil fuels and pollute the atmosphere. She proposed a fascistic program that would give the government the power to allow flights only for things that are “approved.”

But the radio host had an important question for the girl. “Am I allowed to go to Fiji? Is that necessary?” the radio host asked.

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The teen, who like Greta Thunberg needs to go back to school, piously informed the radio host that given the “current climate crisis,” flying to the Fiji Islands should be deemed “unnecessary.”

But host Plessis-Allan was prepared for the teen’s proclamation. She asked Cook about the last time she flew off for a vacation. The teen admitted that she went on a vacation “maybe a few months ago.” But the radio host knew exactly where teenaged climate expert Izzy Cook went, and coyly asked Cook just where she went.

After a few seconds of silence, the teen climate hero answered, “Fiji.”

The radio host was fully expecting the answer and burst out laughing when the teenager made her admission.

“Izzy! Don’t you care about the climate, Izzy?” Plessis-Allan laughed, mocking the teenager. And when Cook said that she did care, du Plessis-Allan laughed even harder and said, “Not enough! You went to Fiji! Izzy, c’mon mate — are you serious?”

After more laughing and mocking, Cook admitted that, yes, her going to Fiji was “pretty ironic.” But Cook had a reason. Her family made her do it.

“But to be honest it’s not really a trip that I wanted to go on, but I can’t really get out of it because my parents wanted to go,” Cook tried to explain.

The teen also rose to defend herself saying, “Of course I’m not embarrassed” over the flight to the very place she said was an “unnecessary” flight that would not be “approved” in her climate change scheme.

The radio host then ended the interview still laughing and saying the teen is “such a champion” with a “brilliant future ahead,” and they would have her back on again sometime.

While you can bet that Plessis-Allan’s audience thought the interview was a hilarious expose of hypocrisy, Izzy Cook’s mother was not amused at all that her global warming-pushing darling was made to look like a fool.

Rose Cook was so incensed that she wrote a 600-word rebuttal posted to The Spinoff to take the radio host to task for the sneaky gotcha against the teenager, saying that “Heather du Plessis-Allan should be ashamed of how she bullied my daughter.”

Hmmm.

NO, Mrs. Cook, your daughter should be ashamed of being a teen who is presenting herself as some sort of climate change scientist. Further, the media establishment in New Zealand should be ashamed for turning to teenagers and puffing them up as experts from whom people need to hear how to “save the earth.”

“On Friday evening, I listened in horror as my 16-year-old daughter had a phone conversation with someone who appeared to be bullying her, laughing at her and talking over her,” Rose wrote scathingly. “As soon as she got off the call, I demanded to know who the hell was speaking to my child in this way.”

Clearly Rose is similar to Greta Thunberg who has cried to Facebook with demands that the social media giant censor all her critics.

Rose explained that while her daughter’s climate campaign has offered “some experience with dealing with the media,” the girl “wasn’t prepared for Heather du Plessis-Allan.”

“Commentators like du Plessis-Allan don’t give a sh*t about climate change,” Rose blared.

“They seem particularly keen to go after our youth, whose future is most at stake,” the incensed mom continued. “These sorts of commentators use ad hominem arguments and ‘gotcha’ moments for point-scoring and discrediting their opponents. We saw it when Mike Hosking opined that Greta Thunberg is ‘the world’s most annoying kid’ and when Duncan Garner said she was ‘too dramatic’ to take seriously,” Rose sneered.

It appears not to have occurred to mother Rose that the cure to all this is to stop putting teenagers at the head of serious policy discussions. The fault isn’t Heather du Plessis-Allan’s. It is yours, Mrs. Cook, for putting your unprepared, immature daughter in a position to be mocked where she is unable to rise to a reply.

Rose tried to defend her daughter adding, “Yes, Izzy took two flights in three years.” She added, “She also lives a low carbon lifestyle: she’s vegetarian, uses public transport and buys second-hand.”

“Our young people are genuinely terrified about the world they are inheriting. That is what matters,” Rose cried.

Rose Cook ended her screed saying, “Heather du Plessis-Allan became a mother this year. I hope that no-one ever speaks to her child the way she did to mine.”

Let’s hope Plessis-Allan is smart enough not to put her child in such a position before they are mature enough to make the effort a success.

Indeed, even teenaged media darling Gretta Thunberg has proven to many that she really isn’t as informed as she pretends to be with her climate change fame.

In 2021 she accidentally posted a document on Twitter that was written to instruct her on what she was allowed to post and how she should perform her activist duties. The accidental posting proved to many that she is just a puppet and others are pulling her strings.

Another of Thunberg’s associated efforts made fools of themselves in Auckland, New Zealand, where a high school climate club disbanded because it was “racist” since too many white kids belonged to it.

All of this shows that relying on blabber from “the mouths of babes” is an error and makes our society into a confederacy of dunces. Kinds belong in school, not on TV and the radio engaging in serious policy discussions.

Contributor, Commentary