Greta Thunberg sails into New York waters after crossing Atlantic – live news | Environment

Waiting for the tide

More on that reference by Thunberg to “tide allowing” in terms of the exact time she’s expected to tie up at one of the marinas in lower Manhattan.

Low tide today is expected at 2PM local time (7PM BST in the UK). Conditions currently are rather murky, with visibility just 10 miles, although there is the prospect of some sunshine shortly, around the time she arrives, so let’s hope that happens and keeps all the photographers and videographers happy as their images whizz around the world.

Sea conditions are moderate, waves at just over a foot, with a light wind of just around 8mph, blowing out of the north-east out to sea and closer to SSE on land right now.

The air pressure is falling, it’s quite muggy actually, and the air temperature is a very warm 80F (26C). Compared with the weather the crew of her yacht have been contending with out in the Atlantic, this is – ahem – plain sailing.

“Greta has a posse”

Greta Thunberg tweeted earlier today, after anchoring off the Brooklyn seaside resort of Coney Island before dawn, that she would sail into a marina in Manhattan at 14.45PM local time (2.45PM BST in the UK) “tide allowing”.

So that could obviously fluctuate forwards or backwards in time, and crowds gathering at the tip of Manhattan, where the city cedes to the harbor and the benign eye of the Statue of Liberty, are excited.

My colleague Oliver Milman just talked to 17-year-old Xiye Bastida, there, who said she is originally from Mexico (Mexico, climate crisis, Greta – three topics guaranteed to upset Donald Trump) and is a big fan of Thunberg.

“Everyone knows Greta, we like that she’s humble, she’s just a child who wants a better future, who is basically like us, too,” Bastida told Milman moments ago.

Bastida was inspired by Thunberg’s activism to organize her own climate strike, involving 600 fellow students at her New York City school.

“She has a moral aspect to her message, that our generation will suffer the most. I hope she will raise the consciousness of climate change in the US – help wake people up,” she said.

Bastida’s mobile phone carries a sticker saying: “Greta has a posse”.

Hello to Guardian readers around the world. A brisk but excited New York welcome to our special live blog that will cover the imminent arrival in the Big Apple of Sweden’s teenage environmental campaigner Greta Thunberg.

This is Joanna Walters helming the blog from the Guardian’s US headquarters in Manhattan while my colleague and environment reporter, Oliver Milman, has the salty breeze in his face at the tip of the island waiting for Thunberg to set foot on dry land after her zero-carbon crossing of the Atlantic.

For the last few hours the yacht she sailed on has been anchored off southern Brooklyn, going through customs and immigration procedures, and “tide allowing”, it’s expected to approach the city past the Statute of Liberty soon.

A flotilla of supporters under sail are expected to intercept her near Liberty and escort her to a marina just on the west side of the tip of Manhattan, where the harbor meets the Hudson River.