The cult of Greta Thunberg

This young woman sounds increasingly like a millenarian weirdo.

By Brendan O’Neill writing at Spiked Online

Anyone who doubts that the green movement is morphing into a millenarian cult should take a close look at Greta Thunberg. This poor young woman increasingly looks and sounds like a cult member. The monotone voice. The look of apocalyptic dread in her eyes. The explicit talk of the coming great ‘fire’ that will punish us for our eco-sins. There is something chilling and positively pre-modern about Ms Thunberg. One can imagine her in a sparse wooden church in the Plymouth Colony in the 1600s warning parishioners of the hellfire that will rain upon them if they fail to give up their witches.

Greta Thunberg in front of the Swedish parliament in Stockholm, August 2018
Image: Wikipedia

It actually makes sense that Ms Thunberg – a wildly celebrated 16-year-old Swede who founded the climate-strike movement for schoolkids – should sound cultish. Because climate-change alarmism is becoming ever stranger, borderline religious, obsessed with doomsday prophecies.

Consider Extinction Rebellion, the latest manifestation of the upper-middle classes’ contempt for industrialisation and progress. It is at times indistinguishable from old fundamentalist movements that warned mankind of the coming End of Days. I followed Extinction Rebellion from Parliament Square to Marble Arch yesterday and what I witnessed was a public display of millenarian fear and bourgeois depression. People did dances of death and waved placards warning of the heat-death of the planet. It felt deeply unnerving.

It struck me that this was a march against people. Most radical protest and direct action is aimed at officialdom or government or people with power. This macabre schlep through London was aimed squarely at ordinary people. Banners and placards made no disguise of the marchers’ contempt for how the masses live. We were told that ‘Meat = heat’ (that is, if you carry on eating meat, you fat bastards, the planet will get even hotter) and that driving and flying are destroying Mother Earth.

Of course, it’s okay for them to fly – Emma Thompson jetted first-class from LA to London to lecture us plebs about all our eco-destructive holidaymaking. It’s only a problem when we do it; it’s only bad when we take advantage of the miracle of mass food production and the expansion of flight to make our lives fuller and more pleasurable. They detest that. They detest mass society and its inhabitants: the masses.

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Thingadonta
April 22, 2019 4:06 pm

3 children’s crusades set off for the holy land, most of them were sold off into slavery and never returned.

One of them was led by a 12 year old.

On one, only one ever returned home. These were probably mixed in with the Black Death and rats to become The Pied Piper.

Sara
Reply to  Thingadonta
April 23, 2019 3:58 am

The so-called Children’s Crusade of 1212 CE, was a popular, double religious movement led by a French youth, Stephen of Cloyes, a shepherd who claimed to have a letter from Jesus Christ directing him to go to Jerusalem, and a German boy, Nicholas of Cologne, who gathered two armies of perhaps 20,000 children, adolescents, and adults with the hopelessly optimistic objective of bettering the failures of the professional Crusader armies and capturing Jerusalem for Christendom. The Pope rejected them as he was the one who called for Crusades. Many of the children were persuaded to board boats “to the Holy Land” and were sold into slavery.

There is NO difference between this misguided, obsessed girl and what happened in the 13th century.

John Bell
Reply to  Thingadonta
April 23, 2019 4:16 am

I got a BIG LAUGH about Extinction Revolution’s Roger in this video, because he drives a CAR around to get the word out, what HYPOCRISY!

Reply to  John Bell
April 23, 2019 1:00 pm

Hi John,
I watched this video and was amused, saddened, dismayed when the amatuer interviewer from about 13:30 minutes starts interviewing the useful idiots who’ve answered the call (no direct mention of being inspired by little Greta):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWISiJJUHpU&feature=share%E2%80%8B
Every one of these ‘volunteers’ is singing from the same hymn sheet about ‘governments should tell the truth about gullible warming’, ‘government should START introducing policies to make Britain carbon neutral by tea-time next sunday’ and ‘we must get a citizen’s assembly to lord it over government and make sure they do what we say’, plus the usual, predicatble blethering about thermeddon in twleve years and how it’s obviously worse than we thought.
Brain washed automatons with narry an individual thought or even spark of residual sentinent activity between them. This is no ‘movement’ (although it could fairly be likened to a bowel movement), it’s a cult.
Once they get off piste, it rapidly unwinds and all of them have the same back-pedalling response when asked whether they’d be happy if their pension funds were raided to help pay for the unicorn fart harvesters and scream energy canisters that are apparently needed; which is along the lines of ‘…erm, ahhh, i can’t answer that because I’m not qualified…’
Funny that they’re not qualified to tell us if they’re happy about their pensions being urinated up a wall, but they apparently feel qualified to evaluate climastrology and all these indescernable ‘worse than we thought’ effects well enough justify jay walking through London on a public holiday.
The comment of the interview is the dowager boasting at 34:55 about how the movement has ‘grown like a mushroom…’; good analogy, a bunch of vegies kept in the dark and fed a diet of horse manure.
The biggest mystery of the march is why a few dozen coppers on horseback and a water cannon weren’t rustled up to wash the rubbish off the road.
…At least Greta can point out that she is a manipulated minor and an aspbergers suffer, although there are a couple of dope smokers featured here, you’d think most of them should have grown up a few decades ago and learned to tell the difference between shite and Shinola .

B
Reply to  John Bell
May 1, 2019 1:28 am

It’s pathetic that the utterly ridiculous “mass starvation in 10 years” statement went unchallenged. Although, it could have been edited out or the interviewer could have been instructed on what he could and could not ask.
Some of them look like bored public servants who took retirement early and are now looking for something – anything – to break the boredom and give them a sense of purpose in life. Why didn’t they just join a walking club or take art classes.
And, of course, the age old question: how many of them have made the sacrifices they want everyone else to make?

Carl666
Reply to  B
May 4, 2019 12:29 am

As a retired public servant, I for one certainly don’t indulge on this mass stupidity. I have no intention of conforming to the great man made climate change lie. I intend to continue driving a petrol fueled sports car, eating meat, putting my thermostat above 19c & having 20 min + showers & baths, If this bunch of sheep were really bothered about the myth of man made climate change they would be campaigning for a cut in the worlds population.

Latitude
April 22, 2019 4:10 pm

Who’s REALLY behind 16-year-old Greta Thunberg? Ugly feud between her opera singer-turned-climate-activist mother and the green PR man who she accuses of exploiting her
Reports claim Swedish teen’s rise to fame is more orchestrated than first thought

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6946815/Whos-REALLY-16-year-old-Greta-Thunberg.html

“It was also revealed earlier this year that Miss Thunberg’s school strike coincided with the launch of a book about climate change written by her mother, well known opera singer Malena Ernman, according to Swiss magazine Die Weltwoche. “

southerncross
Reply to  Latitude
April 22, 2019 7:33 pm

Gotta love the typo in that article, “Existence Rebellion”… Very apt.

Bryan A
Reply to  Latitude
April 22, 2019 7:47 pm

16?? Sorry Greta but you could easily pass for someone far younger. She does have a certain look about her of someone with a mildly underdeveloped slightly autistic mind

RG
Reply to  Bryan A
April 23, 2019 10:32 am

I thought she is known to be autistic as a matter of fact. The monotone voice and closed off expression are classic autism spectrum. I once heard a recording of myself speaking, and have worked ever since to not speak in a monotone. Had to learn to make eye contact too. That is really hard. I use eye contact as a way to remind myself not to drift away mid conversation.

Whether she is autistic or not, she has been used by the people who should have protected her from this abuse.

Gentle Tramp
Reply to  RG
April 23, 2019 3:17 pm

Asperger autistic people are excellent for being quickly canonized, according to the Gospel quote of Matthew 5-3:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Consequently, the Swiss weekly “Weltwoche” recently published a perfectly fitting cover of Sancta Greta:

See e.g. here:
http://klimatsans.com/2019/04/10/helgonlika-sancta-greta/

jeff
Reply to  Latitude
April 22, 2019 7:56 pm

A little digging and there is always a climate activist parent or teacher using their children for publicity.

Loydo
Reply to  jeff
April 22, 2019 9:43 pm

jeff, perhaps if you did some actual digging you’d realise that is incorrect.

robert
Reply to  Loydo
April 22, 2019 11:58 pm

Really? Show us o wise one!

bit chilly
Reply to  Loydo
April 23, 2019 3:06 am

Jeff is absolutely correct Loydo.Her parents are typical upper middle class luvvie activists.They should be charged with child abuse.Given the fact their daughter has aspergers i think the way she has been raised is disgusting.

Loydo
Reply to  bit chilly
April 23, 2019 4:27 am

You might want to do a bit of digging yourself bit chilly instead of being so judgemental.

MarkW
Reply to  bit chilly
April 23, 2019 9:45 am

If he’s wrong, what’s right?
Please provide your evidence instead just whining over and over again.

Medina Cheatle
Reply to  bit chilly
April 26, 2019 7:59 pm

I believe Al Gore’s Climate Reality Organization is behind this.

John Endicott
Reply to  Loydo
April 23, 2019 4:54 am

Loydo, since you’ve obviously (/sarc) done the digging your self in order to make the assertion that jeffs statement is incorrect, why don’t you share the fruits of your digging and enlighten everyone. If you can’t then perhaps it is you that need to do some digging after all.

Reply to  Loydo
April 23, 2019 12:18 pm

Loydo, before making a charge like this, perhaps you should have done some actual digging, because the claim Jeff makes IS correct.
I did some digging of my own yesterday wondering what could trigger a few hundred useful idiots to gojaywalking in London and following a link dug my way to this six part article by an investigative journalist examining “The Manufacturing of Greta Thunberg”:
http://www.wrongkindofgreen.org/2019/01/17/the-manufacturing-of-greta-thunberg-for-consent-the-political-economy-of-the-non-profit-industrial-complex/
Don’t be alarmed, once you’ve followed this link you will land ‘behind the lines’, in the mad world of an indignant journalist whose biggest gripe is that Greta Thunberg et al are all puppets being duped by the big club into helping create new markets to stimulate renewed growth of evil, greedy, imperial, capitalist economies.
But unlike the copy-paste peddlers of the Gauniad, BBC, New York Times et al, who regurgitate the official line from press-releases, perhaps varnished with some insightful personal opinion like ‘why can’t we all just get along?’ or a fist full of illiterate ‘responses’ from Twit-duhh, Cory Morningstar has actually remembered the ‘investigative’ part of investigative journalism and done some digging. Beneath the overlying varnish of her ‘capitalists are bad, the planet is dying’ world view, the evidence she uncovers does indeed indicate that behind Greta Thunberg there are climate activist parents using their children for publicity.
I’m not sure what’s sadder, Greta’s manipulation by arseholes who are supposed to protect and nurture her, the disappointment she’ll suffer when her rockstar bubble bursts (especially when it becomes known that none of her shennanigans is her own idea), or that there are so many useful idiots that have been suckered in by it and honestly believe the groomed brat is some kind of hero or role model. Actually the saddest thing is she’s a human sheild, because anyone with a brain who calls her out on her naivity will instantly be branded as ‘a bully who is mean to kids’; so there really is no arguing with the dogmatic cowards behind her pulling the puppet strings.
…and yes, it really is a six part article, so when you’re done digging through all six ‘acts’ and their references, why not tell us if you still believe Jeff is incorrect.

anorak2
Reply to  Loydo
April 24, 2019 4:22 am

@Loydo Gretas’ father is a television actor and her mother is a singer who has previously even starred in Eurovion for Sweden. You can find interviews with both of them from many years back when Greta must have been a small child, where they both preach climate activism. There’s also a connection between the parents and an “activism” PR company who basically launched Greta’s fame.

Here is one source (in Swedish, use Google Translate):

https://uvell.se/2018/12/11/pr-spinnet-bakom-greta-thunberg/

Reply to  Loydo
April 24, 2019 8:24 am

Loydo, are you griff? Even griff tries to (lamely) back him/herself up sometimes.

Mathilda
Reply to  jeff
April 23, 2019 2:32 pm

Poor girl. At this age, children haven’t mastered critical thinking yet. They also ignore the low reproducibility rate and messy methodologies of some climate studies. She posted on her Facebook page a study dating 2014, with alarming graphs screaming of eco-hysteria. The study is 5 years-old. A lot have changed since then. Moreover, the predictions of doom made by the so-called scientific community have started 30 years-ago. In another field, I worry about the psychological health of all the children who join her end-of-the-world thinking. I, myself, suffered from deep anxiety as some my teachers showed us, many years ago, data and dangers of climate change. I don’t agree with stressing kids out with this, no matter how bad it is. I do believe in climate change, but showing horrible pictures and holding frightening speeches in the classroom is not the right way. Children already have a lot to live with.

Loydo
Reply to  Latitude
April 22, 2019 9:37 pm

“Reports claim…”
“It was also revealed…”

Not even slightly skeptical?

How about an actual quote from Greta Thunberg, referring to her parents. And yes it comes from here https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/11/greta-thunberg-schoolgirl-climate-change-warrior-some-people-can-let-things-go-i-cant

“They just told me everything will be all right. That didn’t help, of course, but it was good to talk. And then I kept on going, talking about this all the time and showing my parents pictures, graphs and films, articles and reports. And, after a while, they started listening to what I actually said. That’s when I kind of realised I could make a difference.”

So it turns out she corrupted her parents. But lets focus on The Guardian because that’ll be less inconvenient.

David Guy-Johnson
Reply to  Loydo
April 22, 2019 10:23 pm

Loydo, You automatically believe everything a teenage kid says!!!!??? her already activist parent told her to say that. If they’d told her not to worry then they would have been good sensible parents.

Loydo
Reply to  David Guy-Johnson
April 22, 2019 10:44 pm

No I am sceptical, I don’t automatically believe anything. I cited a direct quote, something I’d have a little more confidence in than tabloid weasel phrases like “reports claim…”.
Ironically, you seem to automatically believe the opposite.

It doesn’t seem anyone here has checked the veracity of any of these “claims”, they just get regurgitated… automatically. So lets lynch her parents.

Nylo
Reply to  Loydo
April 23, 2019 6:00 am

Loydo, you are right, neither this nor the opposite are proven facts beyond doubt. However one thing is certain: if you were an activist of the eco-alarmism kind and you wanted to fabricate a eco-hero out of your asperger kid for a publicity stunt while you use the fame to sell your own book, like so conveniently seems to have happened, you would definitely tell her to tell this type of story, where she goes on her own process of discovery and convinces her own parents. You would definitely NOT tell your kid to go around saying “all I know I learnt from my activist parents”, which doesn’t sound so heroic and is far from even looking right.

Nylo
Reply to  Loydo
April 23, 2019 6:04 am

OTOH, her parents having been non-activists and then having been convinced by her asperger kid is even more unbelievable than this scientist behind the BEST temperatures data set having ever ever been a skeptic who later became a warmist.

Reply to  Loydo
April 27, 2019 4:44 pm

I’m skeptical, too, and that’s why I don’t just jump to believing whatever the richest and most powerful people in the world tell me to believe, for example, when they tell me that I have to pay higher taxes and trade in my car for a bicycle in order to fix Climate Change.

Phoenix44
Reply to  Loydo
April 22, 2019 11:58 pm

Yeah yeah. Because “actual quotes” are never made up.

Hivemind
Reply to  Phoenix44
April 23, 2019 5:26 am

There was an aboriginal woman in South Australia, that spoke very effectively about the needs and aspirations of her people. Reporter after reporter (all print media) went bush to interview her and came back with eloquent statements of her people’s plight.

Until a TV journalist interviewed her & we discovered that she was so illiterate that she couldn’t even string two sentences together.

Mariano Marini
Reply to  Loydo
April 23, 2019 2:41 am

And I will give a children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them. (Isaiah 3:4)

Loydo
Reply to  Mariano Marini
April 23, 2019 4:32 am

And, and a women too, its an outrage.

Gerald Machnee
Reply to  Loydo
April 23, 2019 6:27 am

You read The Guardian???

roger
Reply to  Gerald Machnee
April 23, 2019 2:58 pm

No doubt Loydo is a Pinko.

MarkW
Reply to  Loydo
April 23, 2019 9:47 am

On one hand, we have the girl states that her parents just told her everything would be alright.
On the other hand, her mother publishes a book about the horrors of climate change.

A little digging does reveal the lies, however it isn’t us skeptics who are doing the lying.

Reply to  Loydo
April 23, 2019 10:54 am

She has said her Asperger syndrome is a gift, this usually comes from a carer or parent rather than the person themselves. Asperger syndrome people tend to take one viewpoint and it is almost impossible to get them to change that viewpoint.

John Finn
Reply to  Loydo
April 23, 2019 11:24 am

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malena_Ernman

Ernman has been politically active supporting the Paris Agreement against climate change, including writing a debate piece[19] in Dagens Nyheter with seven other researchers and artists, at the same time announcing she will personally stop using air travel for climate reasons. Her daughter Greta Thunberg also is a climate activist. Ernman has also been politically active supporting immigration and the right of asylum.

She has co-authored, with her husband, a book Scener ur hjärtat (Scenes from the heart) about her family, the environmental crisis and sustainability.[20]

WXcycles
Reply to  Latitude
April 23, 2019 5:07 am

What’s really behind her are the rat-bag teachers and sub-viable parents who ‘taught’ her that this way of comprehending Earth and human civilisation was valid, ‘accurate’ and not only acceptable, but downright ‘enlightened’, plus to be praised and encouraged.

Reminds me of Victoria.

PaulH
Reply to  Latitude
April 23, 2019 11:06 am

Reports are G.T.’s supervisor, someone called Luisa Neubauer, works for a well-funded organization called one.org. This is hardly a simple 16-year old with a heartbreaking story to tell. Nicely manipulative, though: anyone critical of G.T. is immediately branded as someone wanting to attack a defenseless young girl.

B
Reply to  Latitude
May 1, 2019 1:16 am

“Reports claim Swedish teen’s rise to fame is more orchestrated than first thought”
Well, that it was orchestrated WAS my first thought.

PeterGB
Reply to  B
May 1, 2019 3:02 am

How stupid do you have to be for that NOT to have been your first thought?
Was it Carlin? (My memory fades): “Think of the average stupid person. Then realise that half of all stupid people are more stupid than that”.

AndyE
April 22, 2019 4:19 pm

She is a brain-washed child – there ought to be laws about abusing children that way. There probably are laws about that sort of abuse. The problem is the difficulty of proving it in a court of law.

Reply to  AndyE
April 22, 2019 4:35 pm

I think it would very simple to prove she was manipulated without her consent with a series of comprehension tests involving various arguable scenarios and omitting one side or the other . It then just remains to prove it is child abuse – which I believe it is.

Loydo
Reply to  AndyE
April 22, 2019 6:25 pm

According to Greta her mother actually tried to talk her out of it.

MarkW
Reply to  Loydo
April 23, 2019 9:49 am

Was that before or after her mother wrote a book about the horrors of climate change?

Adam
Reply to  AndyE
April 22, 2019 6:54 pm

My understanding is that she’s got some form of autism which may account for her unusual demeanor.

If so, it’s downright cruelty’s borderline deranged to exploit an autistic child for political purposes.

Bryan A
Reply to  Adam
April 22, 2019 7:49 pm

My daughter does and also has a very similar demeanor

AndyE
Reply to  Adam
April 22, 2019 7:59 pm

Yes, if she has some sort of diagnosed, mental abnormality it is all even worse. And then we, i. e. her family, friends and doctors, become culpable by letting her carry on like that. So probably her mother is to blame.

Reply to  AndyE
April 23, 2019 3:34 am

blimey!
how can you claim such stuff without proof?
Without proof you make depicable comments like
“If so, it’s downright cruelty’s borderline deranged to exploit an autistic child for political purposes” despite the statements she made saying that she influenced her parents.

For once the Daily Mail has better reporting than some here:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6946815/Whos-REALLY-16-year-old-Greta-Thunberg.html

“PR consultant Ingmar Rentzhog’s We Don’t Have Time climate change PR agency used Miss Thunberg’s image to gain funds for his firm, according to Climate Change Dispatch.
But the publication said the teenager’s family deny being aware that she would be used in this way, and have since cut ties with Mr Rentzhog’s organisation.”
“‘It turns out they used my name as part of another branch of their organisation that is a start up business. They have admitted clearly that they did so without the knowledge of me or my family. ”
“Writing on Facebook, she said: ‘My family has written a book together about our family and how me and my sister Beata have influenced my parents way of thinking and seeing the world, especially when it comes to the climate. And about our diagnoses.
‘That book was due to be released in May. But since there was a major disagreement with the book company, we ended up changing to a new publisher and so the book was released in August instead.”
————
this video seems to show very few people seated at her speech delivery to UN:
https://www.svtplay.se/klipp/20387255/15-ariga-greta-thunberg-klimatmotets-unga-superstjarna.
so this seems to be true. The important thing is it made a profound impact on all who have seen it.

roger
Reply to  ghalfrunt
April 23, 2019 3:03 pm

There are few if any profound people in the UN.
So many years so little effect.

April 22, 2019 4:19 pm

The world will end and all life will perish. Just not soon and probably not by excess heat.

Reply to  Shoki Kaneda
April 22, 2019 4:57 pm

In about 4 to 5 billion years, the Sun is supposed to expand and become a red giant. That will be a real global warming event–with lots of excess heat that can’t be blamed on CO2 or society’s excesses.

Jim

Jon Salmi
Reply to  Jim Masterson
April 22, 2019 5:59 pm

In my readings I have come across physicists who say the Sun will start flaring out and pulsing in about one billion +/- 1/2 billion years and that will wipe life out on Earth.

SMC
Reply to  Jon Salmi
April 22, 2019 6:31 pm

1 billion years, 5 billions years, pretty soon we’ll start talking about real years.

Tom in Florida
Reply to  Jim Masterson
April 23, 2019 5:01 am

“That will be a real global warming event–with lots of excess heat that can’t be blamed on CO2 or society’s excesses.”

You would think so but you could be wrong.

April 22, 2019 4:27 pm

I kind of feel sorry for GT. Although she appears to know (to some), and thinks she knows what she is talking about, she has no idea about what she’s talking about. You have to admit it’s a bit sad and kind of pathetic.
But those who have manipulated her are inexcusably appalling and those inspired by her, woefully shallow minded as history will show.

R Shearer
Reply to  Mike
April 22, 2019 4:37 pm

Plus we are all going to perish in under 12 years.

Frenchwiz
April 22, 2019 4:40 pm

According to her Wikipedia page: “Thunberg said she had been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD), and selective mutism”. I only share this as it may explain some of her demeanor and single-minded focus…

leowaj
Reply to  Frenchwiz
April 22, 2019 5:05 pm

Frenchwiz, whereas OCD and Asperger Syndrome would ordinarily be treated with therapy or rehabilitation, Ms. Thunberg was catapulted into the limelight and, therefore, it is her character that she has a single-minded focus. We must accept this. Psychology be damned.

Curious George
Reply to  Frenchwiz
April 22, 2019 5:05 pm

Asperger: “restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior and interests”. Right on.

Crispin in Waterloo
Reply to  Curious George
April 22, 2019 6:45 pm

Otherwise known as very well-focused. Many breakthroughs in science were made by people with a highly focused mind.

Hivemind
Reply to  Crispin in Waterloo
April 23, 2019 5:32 am

But high functioning; think the ADHD level, not Asperger level. Einstein, for instance.

Rocketscientist
Reply to  Frenchwiz
April 22, 2019 5:24 pm

Perhaps then, when she has actually learned some real science, studied physics and thermodynamics, she will be a useful and wiser commentor on these subjects. High functioning Asperger syndrome individuals make some of the finest engineers I know.
Until then I suggest she not dig her hole any deeper.

Meticulous single minded compulsion for detail is actually quite useful useful when real life matters.

Greg Cavanagh
Reply to  Rocketscientist
April 22, 2019 5:38 pm

Agree. Engineering and music are heavy with Aspies, and they do a great job at it. The thing with Greta is she is too young to understand she’s been manipulated with lies. Lies are hard to understand by Aspies, especially when you’re young.

This isn’t her fault, she’s been used by her mother, that much is clear. She’s got a hard road ahead of her I think. I just hope she is a high functioning Aspie and can realise what’s happening with her.

Paul Penrose
Reply to  Greg Cavanagh
April 22, 2019 7:37 pm

Greg,
I have a son with Asperger’s and I can attest that you are correct. They aren’t good at reading people and knowing when they are being lied to. Over time they can become quite guarded and skeptical to an unhealthy level unless they have someone in their life that they can trust to always be honest with them. The world is a much more confusing place for these people. To them, we look like photo realistic avatars with faulty logic in our programming.

April 22, 2019 4:43 pm

Ignorance is her excuse, but too many who should know better are just as wrong and confused as she is. Most even want CO2 to have a large effect and will be mad once forced to accept the truth of an imperceptible temperature effect, a large boost to agriculture and enabling our modern world. Many are the same people who were mad when they found out that Mueller report concluded that Trump was not in cahoots with Russians. Aren’t these are all good things?

Neville
April 22, 2019 4:51 pm

But is the 16 year old GT any sillier than the adult (?????) AOC?
Or any sillier than the Bill McKibben donkey?

Tired Old Nurse
Reply to  Neville
April 23, 2019 4:16 am

No. She isn’t silly she is tragic.

Johann Wundersamer
Reply to  Neville
April 23, 2019 5:20 am

A tragic 6teenager gathering e.g. tired old nurses to block highways, bridges, parliaments and whole city districts.

April 22, 2019 4:53 pm

That’s right, if we only have 12 more year to go, then live it up while
we can. Don’t worry about the far future , things like paying off the
mortgage, so lets enjoy what is left of our miserable lives .

MJE VK5ELL

CD in Wisconsin
April 22, 2019 4:54 pm

Reminds me of the Twilight Zone episode with child actor Billy Mummy (from “Lost in Space” fame). “You’re a bad man…you’re a very bad man….”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jocI_R8lMpM

We need to put children in charge of the world.

Goldrider
Reply to  CD in Wisconsin
April 22, 2019 5:27 pm

Reminds me of The Exorcist, actually. As in, “in need of . . . ”

Reality Check: NYC radio station did a “man in the street” poll live the other day. “What do you think of AOC?” Would you believe about 3/4 of the people in her own district didn’t even know who the heck they were talking about?

I doubt there is one American in 5,000 who could tell you who GT is. I’ll sleep pretty well tonight. Next year’s Earth Day will be the 50th, so big hoopla, and even bigger opportunity to trot out all the dire predictions that never came true. After next year, I expect it to fade into obscurity. . . along with AGW.

Craig from Oz
Reply to  Goldrider
April 22, 2019 5:39 pm

Didn’t Nancy make the comment that a glass of water could have won AOC’s district it was so rusted on Democrat?

Yes, I am an outsider looking in, but there doesn’t seem to be a lot of love within that party at the moment.

Greg
April 22, 2019 4:59 pm

I don’t think you appreciate the sacrifice made by Emma Thompson to be there.

She flew commercial.

Toto
Reply to  Greg
April 22, 2019 5:43 pm

Video on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/itvnews/videos/does-green-campaigner-dame-emma-thompson-fly-economy-class/381282259126366/

The reporter asks, “Do you fly Economy to reduce your carbon footprint?”
Her reply, “I bloody don’t, no!”

Being rich means never having to say you’re sorry.

Reply to  Toto
April 22, 2019 5:55 pm

how many tree plantings does it take to mitigate a round trip across the atlantic?

how many tree plantings does it take to mitigate that dye job?

Margaret Smith
Reply to  Toto
April 23, 2019 3:45 pm

She didn’t fly economy, she flew Business Class. Fly amongst the plebs? Perish the thought!

eyesonu
April 22, 2019 5:23 pm

Is she an aspiring Olympian? If so she gets a pass from some.

Young and yappy, gets a pass from some.

“Climate Ugliness”, better not go there least someone be triggered.

Start swinging their sword, well I’m a bit of a deplorable and not very PC and feelings are off the table.

April 22, 2019 5:37 pm

She’s using the Jedi voice – to manipulate the simple minded.

Craig from Oz
April 22, 2019 6:03 pm

The Spiked article being referred to here is an interesting read, mainly when you dig down into the comments.

Spiked seem to have a more… flexible moderation policy for comments, and once you get past the ‘I made $2million an hour working online’ spam you get to the real elites of debating. In between calling the piece’s author a word that rhymes with don’t-use-this-word-in-public, the core argument is that Miss Greta is not only a GIRL, but has Asperger and hence must not be questioned, mocked or debated and by extension, this is not a carefully stage managed cult.

Right…

Got to love Leftie Logic. Put up an argument that Miss Greta was deliberately selected as the figurehead for a movement because she was young, female and has Aspergers and hence hard to debate without being accused of victimising women, youth and Aspergers, and the Left counter you by accusing you of victimising women, youth and Aspergers.

In all honesty I also feel that society needs to decide if Aspergers is a disability or a super power. Either it makes you one of societies victims, or gives you the mental focus to process data in ways common mortals simply cannot. I put it that most of the problems with society are not the ‘sufferers’ failing to fit in and becoming victims, but ‘society’ being unable to have them fit in to their perfect vision and becoming uncomfortable that they are no longer in control.

Reply to  Craig from Oz
April 22, 2019 6:47 pm

Obama and his circle frequently used the race card against those who honestly objected to his policies. It’s Identity politics. It’s purpose is to shut off dissent. Silence free speech, and when they can control what you say, they can control what you think.
It eventually eats its own. Just ask any of multitude of Liberal professors on today’s college campuses. They are scared stiff at what they have created. The only way for them to survive now is be “More woke” than their “wokest” students. It is a scary time on many campuses.

Joe Campbell
Reply to  Joel O'Bryan
April 23, 2019 8:38 am

Joel: I am on a campus, and you are absolutely correct…

Fanakapan
Reply to  Craig from Oz
April 22, 2019 7:00 pm

Her diagnosis of Selective Mutism rules out any kind of debate 🙂

climanrecon
Reply to  Craig from Oz
April 23, 2019 1:30 am

Spiked used to use Discus for comments, but sadly they switched recently to Faceache, hence the many keyboard SJWs, … and the many lost readers such as myself.

Michael S. Kelly LS BSA, Ret
April 22, 2019 6:03 pm
Reply to  Michael S. Kelly LS BSA, Ret
April 23, 2019 3:38 am

so her appearance makes all she said worthless?

Hivemind
Reply to  ghalfrunt
April 23, 2019 5:39 am

Um, no. What she said makes all she said worthless.

roger
Reply to  Hivemind
April 23, 2019 3:08 pm

QED

Kone Wone
Reply to  Hivemind
April 23, 2019 4:57 pm

The best response I’ve seen; well done!

April 22, 2019 6:03 pm

At a TED talk In November 2018, Greta Thunberg said she had been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD), and selective mutism.

Asperger’s, is a developmental disorder characterised by significant difficulties in social interaction and nonverbal communication, along with restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior and interests
So she sees life in a totally different way to the rest of us.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asperger_syndrome

Dan S
April 22, 2019 6:04 pm

I don’t think we should take GT lightly. This is a very dangerous movement. It is morphing into a global cult and history may repeat itself.

Reply to  Dan S
April 22, 2019 11:41 pm

Do you mean Nongqawuse?

Hivemind
Reply to  Ben Vorlich
April 23, 2019 5:41 am

More like Jonestown on a global scale.

KO
Reply to  Ben Vorlich
April 24, 2019 10:29 am

If only.

jolan
Reply to  Dan S
April 23, 2019 12:56 am

I take my GT with a slice of lemon. Lovely!

Johann Wundersamer
Reply to  Dan S
April 23, 2019 6:05 am

Nongqawuse, leapfrog action, Übersprungshandlung.

The medieval child crusaders where “alone and to much in this world”. So they went to search their missing fathers fighting in Palestine.

Lot’s of children in the same situation joined them.
_____________________________________________________

Modern crusaders followed the elders to Syria to join in the ISIS.

And there’s the other “rebels” gathering in the west to block against mainstream thinking – finally becoming mainstream themselves.

_____________________________________________________

Needs 1 charismatic person “other than the others”.

April 22, 2019 6:16 pm

My plea is to not attack or make fun of Greta; if is well documented that although brilliant in many respects, she is, today’s terms, a “special child” with some challenges. She truly believes the nonsense fed to her and she is an articulate communicator.
The blame goes first and foremost to her parents who are using her for their “cause” and then secondarily to the behind the scenes activists, who have no ethics.

Derg
Reply to  George Daddis
April 23, 2019 1:43 am

George it’s child abuse

Crispin in Waterloo
April 22, 2019 6:29 pm

I think words are important. This is a cult, not a “religious movement” we are seeing on the streets.

The fact that it has “beliefs” doesn’t make it a religion. It is an “end times” “extinction” cult which will rise and morph and die with its self-appointed “leaders”.

As it’s lunacy becomes ever-more obvious, the people behind it will attempt a coup or move the target. I am warning you that the next Big Thing is air pollution and that will be followed by water quality.

Be prepared to pay, or be boarded.

Phoenix44
Reply to  Crispin in Waterloo
April 23, 2019 12:03 am

Air pollution is already a big thing in London where our idiot mayor has introduced zones where many ordinary people will have to pay large amounts to drive. Despite air pollution being a third of what it was in the 1970s.

So now the poor are off the roads and the rich have less congestion.

April 22, 2019 6:32 pm

Wouldn’t like to give her power over anyone or anything.

Robber
April 22, 2019 6:35 pm

She is as intelligent and expert as most climate “scientists”.

roger
Reply to  Robber
April 23, 2019 3:12 pm

She is just sixteen and a great exemplar of why enfranchisement should be restricted to twenty one.

April 22, 2019 7:10 pm

Her playbook is straight out of The Village of the Damned movie.

John the Econ
April 22, 2019 7:10 pm

Is it just me, or doesn’t it seem like Greta Thunberg and David Hogg would make the perfect Progressive dream power couple?

Tom Abbott
Reply to  John the Econ
April 23, 2019 4:11 am

I can’t see Greta going for an angry fellow like David Hogg.

Betapug
April 22, 2019 7:35 pm

Climate Greta is the creation of the same highly skilled PR professionals behind Extinction Rebellion. She presents a different face, harder to counter than the disrupters blocking traffic and vandalizing. Her Autism is an inherited trait as her younger sister, Beata also suffers from it. She is quite aware of the condition, denies that is is a “gift”, but the tunnel vision obsession does not allow her to condider options or interact with others.
She was frightened into speechlessness by an 8th grade teacher with the melting ice, drowning polar bear meme. The growing number of similar age, obsessive young women in photos of climate protests almost makes one wonder whether this condition is contagious.

https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/02/whats-behind-climate-change-activist-greta-thunbergs-remarkable-rise-to-fame/

Paul Penrose
April 22, 2019 7:42 pm

If this climate hysteria gets much worse, those of us that know better may have to take some time off our jobs and participate in some counter demonstrations. If it comes to that, I have some ideas for placards:

“Reliable Energy = Health & Prosperity”
“Green Energy = Poverty & Death”
“CO2 Is Life”
“The Internet Needs Reliable Energy”
“You Give It All Up First”

I’m sure some of you have much better ideas.

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