On Greta, Regrettably

Some thoughts on the Left’s new messianic figure, Greta Thunberg.

By now most of you would have heard of her and seen her – the ever-angry and rather sour-faced activist lavishly praised in the lamestream media, treated like a hero by most progressives, and hailed as a young new messiah by the left. I refer to Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old climate activist from Sweden.

Her recent stint in the US where she offered us her melodramatic and hyper-hyped message of gloom and doom was dutifully run with by the media the world over. Some are now even wondering if the Second Coming has already taken place.

Of course using children for the purposes of political activism and indoctrination is not new. The Communists and the Nazis were both happy to use children to serve in their indoctrination programs. And now we have young Greta being used in the same way.

I have heard some folks who are rightly concerned about her and her Chicken Little scare tactics saying things like, ‘While I disagree with her views, I admire her passion.’ Um, why admire passion when it is wrongly directed and even dangerous passion? Eugenicist Margaret Sanger was passionate about what she did – why would anyone admire her passion?

Radical greenies who burst into farms and cause damage and mischief are also quite passionate – I sure do not admire that. There is nothing praiseworthy about being passionately wrong. And young Greta is about as wrong as you can get, as she denounces the free market and informs us that we are on the eve of destruction, to use the title of an old Barry McGuire song.

The leftist elites are of course happy to use her for their purposes, and one wonders how long she can keep it up. I suppose as long as hyper-left adults keep heaping praise upon her and encourage her along in all this, she will keep going until she burns out.

Uber-socialists like Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn of course absolutely love the young Swede. But not everyone is so taken with her. Consider this interesting juxtaposition:

The older brother of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has labelled 16-year-old environmental activist Greta Thunberg an “ignorant brainwashed child”. Piers Corbyn, 72 and a climate change sceptic who runs forecasting firm WeatherAction in south London tweeted: “listening to an ignorant brainwashed child is deranged.” https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/jeremy-corbyn-s-brother-labels-teen-climate-activist-greta-thunberg-an-ignorant-brainwashed-child-a4125046.html

And we need to bear in mind that Greta is not well, as she has admitted herself: “I became ill. I fell into depression. I stopped talking and I stopped eating. In two months, I lost about 10 kilograms of weight. Later on, I was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome, OCD and selective mutism.”

Such people need love and care, not exploitation. But the militants were never too bothered about child abuse – as long as it serves the cause. Back in April Paulina Neuding wrote a piece on this wunderkind, and how she is being used and abused by others. She closes with these words:

I am also not questioning Greta’s role as a public speaker, nor the power of hundreds of thousands of protesting school children, nor that climate change is an existential threat to humankind. But adults have a moral obligation to remain adults in relation to children and not be carried away by emotions, icons, selfies, images of mass protests, or messianic or revolutionary dreams. Greta was recently named ”Woman of the Year” by a Swedish newspaper. But she is not a woman, she is a child. It is time we stopped to ask if we are using her, failing her, and even sacrificing her, for what we perceive to be a greater good. https://quillette.com/2019/04/23/self-harm-versus-the-greater-good-greta-thunberg-and-child-activism/

Others agree. David Harsanyi editor of the Federalist sent out this tweet: “The idea that they can use a kid as a political shield, give her immense coverage, and then no [one] is allowed to talk about the substance of her arguments because she is a kid … is just silly. It’s the same with the gun-control kid. He says tons of ridiculous things that are then amplified by media. Yet, people get mad when you point it out. Hey, don’t use kids for your political causes. I hate when either side does it.”

And Black American conservative Candace Owens tweeted: “One day, #GretaThunberg will realize that she is a victim of child abuse, not climate change. I genuinely find the video circulating of her to be sad. The Left is stooping to new lows with this blatant example of child exploitation.”

Matt Walsh agrees:

It is possible to say “trees are good and we shouldn’t wantonly destroy them” without adding “and soon all the trees will be gone and you will suffocate.” But the environmental alarmists always choose to tack on the apocalyptic bit at the end, undermining the validity of their message and creating unnecessary panic.

Once again, we must call this what it is: Child abuse. It may be a smart political move to traumatize children with these End Times prophecies, but it is morally abominable. Yes, tell kids to recycle, pick up trash, plant trees — all fine and worthwhile pursuits. But the hysteria is entirely unjustified. Let kids be kids. They shouldn’t have to wake up every morning with hallucinatory fears about the planet’s demise. https://www.dailywire.com/news/52151/walsh-greta-thunberg-child-abuse-victim-matt-walsh

Yes, all the alarmism and the constant distortion of facts and truth are the real worries here. And new polls in her home country show that only 36 per cent of Swedes buy her man-made global warming hype. As Monica Showalter says about this:

It actually suggests a trend, given how badly Scandinavia in general has previously bought into the myth.  At some point, the bee ess becomes clear after the elites keep drumming it in.  It’s nothing but a disguised scam for intensifying government power and fostering crony capitalism. It points out a sorry reality: that the cute and sincere Swedish kidlet is a pawn of a consortium of greedy green venture capitalists and investors whose agenda is to get in on government-contracts green action based on legislated green priorities, same way Al Gore did, and make themselves a crony-capitalism killing. Greta is being hailed as persuasive in her global warming activism.  In reality, she’s a Hail Mary pass from a rearguard jurocracy hell-bent on institutionalizing global warming to its own benefit.  Sorry, Greta. https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/09/sorry_greta_even_your_fellow_swedes_arent_buying_the_climate_change_claptrap_anymore.html

Dennis Prager reminds us that using hysteria and doomsday scenarios is standard fare for the left. It is as often used as it is often wrong. He writes:

It is critical to remember that hysterias — such as Russian collusion with the Trump campaign, “endemic and systemic racism in America,” the heterosexual AIDS “crisis” in America and the “rape culture” on American college campuses — are to the left what oxygen is to biological life. No oxygen, no life; no hysteria, no left. Apparently, however, the left-wing hysteria about global warming leading to the virtual extinction of life on Earth has not moved enough adults.

Many adults who do not deny that the Earth is getting warmer — such as Danish writer and environmentalist thinker Bjorn Lomborg – do deny that the threat is “existential” and do believe that the left’s solutions, such as the Green New Deal, will damage the world far more than will carbon emissions. Proof that the left is hysterical is its unwillingness to promote nuclear power – a completely clean, non-fossil fuel-based source of power. It provides France with 70 percent of its energy. Anyone who really believes life on Earth is endangered would grasp at the nuclear power lifeboat. That they do not proves what many of us have believed from the beginning: The “existential threat” scenario is another left-wing falsehood used to whip up hysteria that will lead to the left’s control of the economy and society. https://townhall.com/columnists/dennisprager/2019/09/24/if-you-cant-sell-your-hysteria-to-adults-try-kids-n2553546

Another Scandinavian, Kathrine Jebsen Moore, also cites the Danish Lomborg to try to bring some sense into the debate:

Bjorn Lomborg, author of Cool It and The Skeptical Environmentalist, tweeted: “Thunberg’s solution to ‘just say no’ is not only naive and impossible. Trying to attain it will incur tens or even hundreds of trillions of dollars of net costs.” Those costs would have a dramatic impact on the way of life these protesting schoolchildren presently take for granted. Lomborg argues that instead of ploughing more money into inefficient solar and wind power, more should be invested in innovating green energy to make it so cheap it eventually undercuts fossil fuels and halts climate change for good. https://quillette.com/2019/03/21/when-children-protest-adults-should-tell-them-the-truth/ 

And a brand-new piece by David Harsanyi is worth highlighting here. He reminds us of the real world that we – and Greta – live in:

Sixteen-year-old Swedish climate change activist Greta Thunberg lives in the healthiest, wealthiest, safest, and most peaceful era humans have ever known. She is one of the luckiest people ever to have lived. In a just world, Thunberg would be at the United Nations thanking capitalist countries for bequeathing her this remarkable inheritance. Instead, she, like millions of other indoctrinated kids her age, act as if they live in a uniquely broken world on the precipice of disaster. This is a tragedy.

He concludes:

And Thunberg’s dream for the future means technocratic regimes will have to displace capitalistic societies. We can see this future in the radical environmentalist plans of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal, one supported by leading Democratic Party candidates. It’s authoritarianism. There is no other way to describe a regulatory regime that dictates exactly what Americans can consume, sell, drive, eat, and work on. One imagines that most Americans, through their actions, will continue to reject these regressive ideas. One reason they should is so that Greta Thunberg’s generation won’t have to suffer needlessly. https://thefederalist.com/2019/09/23/the-tragedy-of-greta-thunberg/

We need to pray for young Greta. With so many selfish adults trying to use her and cash in on her fame and drawing power, one fears for her long-term health and safety. And let’s hope that she sheds the alarmist ideology and becomes a bit more conversant with the facts. That would help a lot as well.

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27 Replies to “On Greta, Regrettably”

  1. Thanks Bill for this article. I was hoping you would address this “climate emergency” hysteria. The thing is, at least from my observation about how the Left works, even if the governments gave in to all their demands, it would never ever be enough. We have seen this already in the aftermath of the gay marriage legislation.
    God Bless,
    Peter.

  2. Many have adverse opinions on climate change and or global warming and may we have opinions on those who have opinions whether young or old, the fact is that there is a problem which must be dealt with as opposed to being ignored. A case in pointy is the young person you mention in your recent article and then there is Sir David Attenborough who is neither young or impressionable – so maybe we should listen carefully and find a solution. God gave us this planet as a dominion to enjoy its fruits but to be responsible for it and learn that if we fail to look after it it will not look after us for that is God’s will.
    The answer is simple – God gave us the means to manufacture energy for our enjoyment and growth and one of those sources is coal which came from trees. As such, the answer is self perpetuating: trees make coal that avail us of the energy we need and trees breathe carbon dioxide. So all that remains to be done is to use our maths and calculate as to how many more trees we need to absorb the extra carbon dioxide we need to purify the atmosphere. A simple solution for a major problem. Also, this will keep the loony left in their place everyone happy!
    John Abbott

  3. Sadly young Greta is being used for this “climate change” fiasco like many young children are for transgender change also as examples for the greedy and the elite who want the poor and marginalized to be less of the nations population so they get more of the nation’s wealth. Thank you for your article Bill. If only all men and women would subscribe to the bible’s teachings in Genesis on both Transgenderism and Climate change by seeing God gave us information, intelligence and knowledge of how to look after our earth in certainty of who we are both Male and Female as well as living in God ‘s idea of who we each are; designed and created by our Creator, Almighty God and Father though faith in Jesus Christ.

  4. The climate cult has become desperate. They know that the GSM (Grand Solar Minimum) has already begun:
    https://electroverse.net/author/cap/
    Unfortunately most Australians and the West have been brainwashed by the Main Stream media and Cultural Marxist institutions (Universities, CSRIO, BOM, arts, schools, colleges, etc.), supported by the government who is working with and for the Chief cultural Marxist institution: the UN.

  5. Greta has Asperger’s syndrome. What to say about this? She has been stigmatized because of her autism. Others have said that Greta has been exploited. Perhaps her emotive speeches are a by-product of Asperger’s. I don’t know. I live with someone who has Asperger’s. People with Asperger’s do have intense and highly focused interests. They can get argumentative if others do not agree with them.

  6. Thanks Scott. I did mention her various issues in my article – all the more reason why she should NOT be exploited, used and abused by activist adults.

  7. It is true that Greta has been brainwashed. It is wrong to use children for political gain. The media has been trying to brainwash everyone for years. It must have been inevitable for children to be influenced like this. The media wants everyone to be alarmed. When the Climategate scandal broke out the WWF said that climate researchers should be more dramatic. Maybe parents should not let their children watch news and current affairs shows when the children are very young.
    In the 1970’s the BBC had a program where they said that the world is heading into an ice age. They interviewed an expert who stood in front of some very obliging icebergs. This video is on YouTube. So why did they change from ice age to global warming, etc?
    Climate Change is studied by climate research institutions. They rely on government funding. They will not receive funding unless they go along with Climate Change. The research institutions have to agree with Climate Change. They have been caught manipulating data.
    The UN is behind a lot of the climate change hoax. The IPPC is a UN organisation. The UN has organised the Global Warming/Climate Change hoax for a long time. The Secretary-General is Anto’nio Guterres. He was President of the Socialist International from 1999 to 2005. He is a communist. The Climate Change Hoax is being used to implement communism. This is a crafty plan. If the majority wanted communism then communist parties could just get elected in an election. The communists are using Climate Change to bring in communism. To control the global climate according to Climate Change theory the only way to do it is to control every tree, factory, home, all agriculture, all land and all humans. The only way to do this is to have a world government controlling everything we do. There is no other way to force people to follow Climate Change policies and rules. The UN wants to be a world government. Climate Change hysteria and panic is a means to a world government. All the pieces fit together. You can look up Agenda 21 on the internet. Agenda 21 is a plan for the 21st Century. The UN will use Agenda 21 to control the whole world. They want people to not own private property especially land. Does that sound familiar? If anyone does not believe me then just look up Agenda 21 on the internet. Everything is there.

  8. unfortunately she and most of her generation, and mine, are, to borrow from the matrix, slaves born into educational bondage into a prison they cannot taste, see or touch. A prison for their minds.

    we don’t educate we indoctrinate and this is the result. by time they realize they have been used it will be too late. this always happens when government replaces God in the people hearts and minds.

  9. Thanks Bill,
    Francois, thanks also for that link.
    I am considering the possibility that our church might put on a session about the GSM and NASA’s data, for our children (and others).
    The kids and the parents need some data and encouragement to stand against the hype that is ambient.

  10. A last days prophesy.
    Isaiah 3:4-5
    4 “I will make mere youths their officials; children will rule over them.”

    5 People will oppress each other, man against man, neighbor against neighbor. The young will rise up against the old, the nobody against the honored.

  11. What we are seeing, in part, with the advent of young “activists” and school strikes and so-forth is the stirring up of that age group in preparation for the next lot of elections in the western countries. If they can involve enough naive 15 to 16 year olds in this new environmental “religion” then they (Marxists) will have a sizeable increase in their vote. Although just a few years ago one could not imagine the possibility of Marxism taking over our country (legally), after the advent of so-called Sodomite “marriage”, anything it seems is possible, if not inevitable.

  12. As Ray Evans used to say, “Worse is better”.
    I think the climate alarmists have ‘jumped the shark’ this time.
    It’s the beginning of the end for them.

  13. I like how you quoted David Harsanyi who said “…Greta Thunberg lives in the healthiest, wealthiest, safest, and most peaceful era humans have ever known. She is one of the luckiest people ever to have lived.” I can add to that electricity, hot & cold running water, flushing toilets, all the food, fruit/vegetables available all year round, the fact in the Western World at least many won’t face a violent death, flat screen televisions, internet etc. I need to remind myself how lucky I am, never mind Greta Thunberg. I myself, while not officially diagnosed, may suffer from Asperger’s Syndrome.

  14. “Many adults who do not deny that the Earth is getting warmer — such as Danish writer and environmentalist thinker Bjorn Lomborg – do deny that the threat is “existential” and do believe that the left’s solutions, such as the Green New Deal, will damage the world far more than will carbon emissions. ”

    Except that it is NOT getting warmer it is getting colder. TOP RUSSIAN SCIENTIST: “WE SHOULD FEAR A DEEP TEMPERATURE DROP — NOT GLOBAL WARMING”
    https://electroverse.net/top-russian-scientist-we-should-fear-a-deep-temperature-drop-not-global-warming/

  15. One silver lining out of all this may be that people after watching Greta will start to wake up to just how much there is hysterical brainwashing, emotional blackmail and Goebels-level propaganda at the heart of climate hysteria.

  16. Did Gretta Thunberg bring up the details of the Anti Moral folks, wanting to live as legal murderers, legal whores, legal liars, legal pedophiles , legal Baby Organ Harvesting for profit, women who get pregnant to make money out of their baby’s body parts, legalizing forced sex acts & opposing DNA proof of gender , on innocent school children, while encouraging violence and extreme hate towards God fearing people.
    Gretta needs to see where the real problem lies, there is no voice from MSMedia coming through for Godly righteous principles which can bring life and progress and great weather to any nation.

  17. I feel very sorry for her and fear things will not end well. The Climate Change Alarmists would be attacking the right wing if they used a vulnerable mentally ill child in this manner.

  18. Hi Bill,

    Mark Rabich, who responded to your article ‘Greta again’, has got it right in his comments on this abused and duped climate change alarmist: “She is well fed, has access to medical services, shelter, modern conveniences, can be entertained by any number of amusements, is able to communicate with people across the globe instantly and can even travel to the other side of the world in about a day, yet she has a ‘stolen childhood’?

    “Objectively, no. Also, how insulting to the millions of poor children that still exist, and the centuries of children in human history who could not have dreamed of what she has available to her.”

    This poor, fooled, hatred-spitting Greta should feel grateful for being well nurtured and protected as a young citizen of a Western democratic country, enjoying every kind of welfare in her motherland. But sadly, she doesn’t seem to appreciate that. Does she realize that half a globe away in the east, hundreds of thousands of juveniles her age (or even younger, at as low as 14) are right now putting their youth and lives on the line struggling for liberty, democracy, human rights and social justice in my former home city where people are dying, social systems collapsing, and the HongKonger species in danger of extinction from communist oppression (NOT from carbon dioxide emission)? These suffering ones – the truly victimized – have much much more to complain about than Greta has. It’s not mere armchair critics that we see in HongKong protests but brave warriors that are undauntedly confronting an evil Behemoth – the biggest totalitarian entity in human history – on the streets.

    Compared to Greta, her counterpart – one who also gave speech at the U.N. recently, the 22-year-old H.K. pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong, didn’t have to resort to hate-filled, emotional harangue but presented his case mildly yet cogently and forcefully. Maybe it’s because of his Christian background that makes the difference.

    Can’t deluded Greta Thunberg do something more constructive than peddling [for the radical greenies and the hyper-left socialists] irrational panic to the youthful ignoramuses of the world? Can’t she contribute a little bit to the genuinely noble cause that the HongKongers are pursuing? Can’t she direct her zealotry and hysterical passion towards bolstering up the youngsters over there in this beseiged and imperiled island city?

    It’s deplorable that this miserable Greta has been so brainwashed that she has unawarely become a votary of a Gaia-worshipping religion.

    Paul from across the ditch

  19. The group of people who think that it’s acceptable to kill human babies certainly would have no qualms about using a sick child as a spokesperson to advance their evil agenda

  20. ‘…there’s always been people that have to cause fear…’ (Bob Dylan, in one of his earliest songs, commenting on the Fallout Shelter Alarmism that he grew up with).

  21. The question is HOW should we pray for her:
    That the Lord changes her, or that He as part of His testing plan for humanity uses her to the fullest?
    I think sometimes we pray wrongly.
    Scripture says if we pray according to the will of God, it will be.
    We feel sorry for her.
    But is it not a humanistic love we have?
    She is a willing instrument of indoctrination, most of it might be unknowingly, or must be.
    We can pray yes that the Lord open her eyes.
    If she is a destined part of the reprobate, our prayers should be in accordance.
    But we do not always know due to lack of discernment on our part.

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