GRETA Thunberg has been awarded a gold Blue Peter badge for having ‘accomplished great things, inspired a nation, saved a life or shown bravery and courage’.
As a thank-you for the honour, the 18-year-old Swedish climate warrior has compiled a DIY project for viewers of the BBC children’s magazine programme, which will be broadcast soon. However, the script has already been leaked . . .
CUE GRETA
Hälsningar from Greta to all my young eco-pals in Britain!
Today, I will now show you how, with a few simple household bits and pieces, you and your friends can build a 200ft wind turbine.
A good time to do it would be the Fridays when you’re on strike from school (if you’ve been allowed back to school, that is).
Remember though, that in case of difficulty, you should get an adult (preferably a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) to help you.
Right, here’s how we build it:
1. Take a spade and dig out a 50ft x 50ft x 50ft hole in your back garden (don’t bother getting your parents’ permission before you start – they’re probably climate-change deniers – but do remember to be kind to the earthworms).
2. Because concrete is environmentally unfriendly, make the foundations with papier mache pulped from unsold copies of The Guardian. These are plentifully available.
3. Take half a million empty Heinz OrganicBaked Beans tins (be careful not to cut yourself on the sharp edges) and bind them together with sticky-back plastic, building them into a 200ft tower.
4. Glue together five million ice lolly sticks in a lattice pattern to make your turbine blades. If you can get sticks from Magnums, so much the better. But make sure there is no chocolate residue on them, which could affect the aerodynamics.
5. Construct a reduction gearbox with the cog from your grandfather’s old football rattle and the rotor mechanism from a salad spinner (best not to tell Mum about that bit).
6. Obtain a magnet and wire coil and build a simple generator. (A friend who has not skipped physics lessons – which are held on Fridays – may be able to help here).
7. Buy sustainably-harvested bamboo sticks and use natural plant-fibre twine to tie them into a 200ft length, forming a connection rod from the gearbox to the generator.
8. Watch the turbine blades turn in the wind, giving you free, clean, sustainable electricity.
Now, I admit, there may not be much voltage coming through. But if the whole thing doesn’t collapse and crush your house, there should be enough power to keep your television going so you can watch my next Blue Peter project … hydro-electricity from your kitchen tap.
Skål from Greta!
CUE CLOSING MUSIC AND CREDITS
