Thunberg accuses authorities of “cementing over” the area instead of cleaning it up, and calls for strike action.Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg has thrown her weight behind residents of Bagnoli, the working-class Naples district where a long-running dispute over the clean-up of a toxic industrial site is escalating.  Thunberg spent three days in Naples as a guest of Marea Village, a festival held in the former Nato base at Bagnoli. Before leaving the city by train, she recorded a video message at Posillipo’s Parco Virgiliano, overlooking the former Italsider steelworks site.   She had been billed to appear at the northern pier in Bagnoli but chose the viewpoint instead, newspaper Corriere della Sera reported.   Why Bagnoli? Thunberg, 23, said the district had been "ravaged" for decades by toxic, carcinogenic contamination from heavy industry and had also hosted a Nato base.   “The climate crisis is global but it manifests locally,” she said, adding that residents knew their community had been devastated by a "global systems of oppression".   She said local people had fought for decades for the right to a cleaned-up coastline and a sustainable future for their children. “Instead of cleaning up the coastline, she claimed that authorities had covered the coast with concrete, instead of cleaning it up, "to bury their crimes rather than cleaning up their mess,” she said.   Corriere della Sera said the remark referred to the covering of the “colmata”, the landfill platform built out into the sea. Battlefield Activists argue that work now under way on the former Italsider site will not restore the environment and will worsen an already critical situation. Thunberg described Bagnoli as being like "a battlefield" but said the community was resisting.Thunberg called on Bagnoli residents to rise up on 16 October, the date of the international climate strike, saying: “We will together stand up for a future for all, where social justice and climate justice go hand in hand." Italsider Founded in 1905, the Italsider steelworks in Bagnoli grew into a massive industrial complex that spanned two square kilometres and employed roughly 8,000 workers at its peak in the late 1970s.   After its blast furnace was permanently extinguished in October 1990, the facility officially closed its doors in 1992, ending nearly a century of steel manufacturing.   Photo credit: Stefano Guidi / Shutterstock.com