Dear Readers,
You know I cannot remain silent on topics that touch my analytical brain and try to de-calibrate my sensitivity for ethics and common sense, especially those that turn masses hysterical and make the front pages (yes, I know, an article on Brexit is long overdue, but I will wait for October 31st to write) . So at the risk of a bunch of naturally rotten organic tomatoes, expired free-range eggs and locally-sourced non-GMO tofu being virtually thrown my way, I am going to write a very critical piece about Greta Thunberg today – and fry a steak later. Yes, I dare to speak my mind and eat meat and that doesn’t mean I am best friends with Jordan Bardella and certainly don’t agree that assimilation requires the parents to give a national first name to their child. But I do believe in freedom of thought, speech and food.
A warning in advance: This article is not a jump on the climate-change-bandwagon but rather a typically critical approach. Once you continue reading, you cannot unread.
Undoubtedly, understanding our planet’s fragile ecological system and current state is highly important. There are many instances where I have written about sustainability and I embed it in my own life and teaching at universities. However, here climate issues are the backdrop or facilitator of a bigger and far more dangerous issue: A misled, instrumentalized child with mental and emotional issues who is actively causing mass-hysteria and shutting down the freedom of speech (and criticizm). A red flag for human kind, just as a polluted world is.
What made me even more suspicious of Greta Thunberg is the international hype that is growing around her. History has shown us over and over again that hype is an indication of mass-hysteria and collective obsessional behavior leads humanity down dangerous, unethical and unjustifiable paths. It was here where I researched the background of this child who is making the headlines with disruptive, calculated and highly publicized activism and is possible missing out on a sane childhood.
After some careful research, several of my suspicions on Greta Thunberg were justified.
Instrumentalization and manipulation:
She is being instrumentalized by (perhaps the only) adults she trusts. Her parents are superstars in their own right. With Greta and her younger sister they went through some difficult times of Greta’s eating disorders, mutism and anxieties until she resurfaced with climate activism. Her parents are her biggest PR spokesmen, orchestrate all the activities, find sponsors and collect the money. They have the best connections to make this profitable and hype it up. Around Greta are various interested supporters from political parties, to business men and most importantly a venture capital investor. Are they in it for the sake of the planet or for a profit? Is this really ethical?
By the way, on board her yacht were Boris Herrmann, the boat’s owner Pierre Casiraghi (the grandson of Monaco’s late Prince Ranier and actress Grace Kelly), Greta’s father Svante and cameraman Nathan Grossman. You can read up on Team Malizia here.
Quite evidently, Greta is socializing with the crème de la crème of royalty and people in power. Or are these the parents who are benefiting from the social mobility?
Exploitation of mental health:
My suspicion of Greta having emotional and mental issues was also soon justified. She has had a very difficult childhood and this has been written about extensively, again I would argue, as a PR anchor. It is unclear (not reported) if she is being supported by medical professionals while she puts herself into a very vulnerable position of the public. It is also unclear if her parents have had any influence on her issues and what they are doing to improve them. Even in the book which the mother published, Greta’s and her sister’s Beata’s emotional and mental struggles are kept brief and unemotional.
The Swedish original Scener ur hjärtat was released in August 2018 with Greta Thunberg’s mother on the cover, an opera singer who represented Sweden at the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest. Malena Ernman toured the world with her family in tow being the family’s superstar. She still is collecting brownie points of fame, but now through her daughter. Are Greta’s mental and emotional health needs being met at all?
She’s clearly skipping science class but not powerful friends:
Daniil Gorbatenko from Medium.com and several other critics found little science behind the ecological war fare: “I would wager that it would be pointless to ask Thunberg any serious questions about the actual science underlying the climate change issue. To ask her how much the Earth has warmed so far since 1979 compared to computer model predictions. That the bulk of the recent warming occurred during the El Ninho stages of the ENSO climate oscillation. Or whether she is aware that the doubling of CO2 can only in itself cause only about 1°C of warming and that to postulate alarmist scenarios one needs to postulate uncertain positive feedbacks, whereas, in reality the net feedback may be zero or negative. That a lot more people die from cold temperatures than from hot ones, and that it is not the extreme cold temperatures that are the most deadly. That increased CO2 concentrations are good for plant life, and so on.”
If Greta spent time with scientists, went to school, went to university and acquired extensive knowledge in climate change, she could no doubt make a huge contribution to the field in her own right. But for that, she needs to stop skipping class. She could start conducting research now, so as not to waste time. Perhaps if she had researched the climate impact of the carbon-fibre yacht which she sailed on, she would know that it’s footprints outnumber any air travel by far.
As “Boris Herrmann Racing” admits on it’s FAQ website dedicated to Thunberg’s trans-Atlantic crossing: “To build this type of race boat, 3 tons of carbon fibre, moulds for hull and deck, a number of construction materials and various resins (baked at 120° during the construction process) are needed.” – in short, and through primary research with experts of the maritime industry, making carbon-fibre yachts is highly damaging to our environment. The entire calculation does not add up.
What does add up are the powerful sponsors behind the project: EFG private banking, BMW, and The Shack Blue which is a communications and PR company specializing in publicity about maritime endeavors are just a few to name. And then there is also a fashion brand such as performance wear maker MUSTO. MUSTO uses highly unsustainable techniques to weather-prof their clothing. Greta, did you know that?
Shaming of critics:
Most disturbingly, online and offline Greta and her allies are the only ones who are permitted free speech. Any critics, any reasonable debate on climate change which looks at evidence, ecological history of the planet and various sets of data is met with aggressive bullying to shut up. This is undemocratic and not productive at all.
Scaremongering:
My suspicion that as a result her public figure induces collective illusions of doomsday fears and perceived threats, whether real or imaginary, was also justified.
Jules Gomes from Frontpage Mag put it perfectly into words:
“What does the United Nations have in common with the Jehovah’s Witnesses? The Jehovah’s Witnesses predicted the world would end in 1975. The United Nations foretold how “entire nations would be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000.” Both forecasts failed the test of prophetic fulfillment.
A religious person who says the world is coming to an end is a crank. A secular person who says the world is coming to an end is an eco-warrior. A religious organization that says the end times are nigh is an apocalyptic cult for suicidal weirdos like the Branch Davidians of Waco, Texas. A secular body counting down to the apocalypse is an environmental organization worthy of millions of dollars of government funding.
Welcome to the brave new cult of climate change alarmism where secular eco-warriors unabashedly embrace religious apocalypticism! I was poised to pen an essay on this new religious sect when I stumbled across Greta Thunberg—the Joan of Arc of environmentalism—and realized that apocalyptic hysteria was only part of the canonical narrative of climate change.
Sixteen-year-old Thunberg is the Swedish saint of the Church of Climate Change. Like the three godly Portuguese shepherd children Lucia, Jacinta and Francisco who saw an apparition of the Virgin Mary and sparked a global Marian devotion to Our Lady of Fatima, godless Greta had her “end of the world” revelations after her teachers showed her class the Al Gore genre of films—plastic in the ocean, starving polar bears and so on.
“I cried through the movies. Those pictures were stuck in my head,” she tells The Guardian. Like the pious fruitcake with his “JUDGEMENT DAY IS COMING!” sandwich board and bargain-basement bullhorn, Thunberg adopted the avatar of an Old Testament exilic prophet and skipped school every Friday to parade outside the Swedish parliament last August.
In six months, the pigtailed teenager who has the “look of apocalyptic dread in her eyes” has more devotees than a 14-handed Hindu goddess. Greta has become the pin-up poster girl for climate crusaders from Pope Francis and Jean-Claude Juncker to Britain’s Environment Secretary Michael Gove and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. She was even invited to address the Mother of all Parliaments and the Extinction Rebellion protests in London.
“We just want people to listen to science,” Greta tells politicians with pom-poms cheering for the child prophetess. “You don’t listen to the science because you are only interested in solutions that will enable you to carry on like before,” she told Britain’s mesmerized Members of Parliament, in a gloom n’ doom speech not unlike Ezekiel’s prophecy of the Valley of Dry Bones.
But Greta doesn’t do climatalogical science; her speciality is eschatological scare mongering. “I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day,” she preached to the billionaires of the Davos Milky Way at the World Economic Forum.
Greta’s fear of nature is humanity’s oldest phobia. Thor, the Norse god of storms, has her terrified. This grand warrior with his insatiable appetite and his arsenal of nature’s weapons could unleash Mjollnir, his mighty hammer, capable of harnessing thunder and lightening. Ms Thunberg is terrified of Thor.
Climate alarmism is rooted in a pre-scientific mythological view of the world. It has an end-time eschatology, but it also has a cosmology colored with the fear-ridden creation stories of pre-biblical cultures where the forces of nature are divinize and demand to be placated.”
Gomes then continues to re-tell the mythological Norse sagas and tales and if you want to refresh your knowledge of classical global mythology you can read the full article here.
Image source here.
Hopelessness is a sign of teen depression:
A hopeless outlook into a doomed future, depression, anxiety, eating disorders and skipping school are well-known elements of teen depression. Below the surface of a (plastic-filled) ocean of cunning public relation there floats the real issue like a giant ice-berg made of Greta’s frozen tears: A child’s cry for help. This is a child who is highly disturbed and is screaming for the world and the adults to help her overcome her deep traumas. Her cry is so loud that she is willing to let herself be instrumentalized by those adults she is seeking help from. Those adults who must have let her down in the past and will keep letting her down. Because immediate effective measures agains climate change is not something they can realistically help with (many reasons for this including politics, economy, biology and common sense) and the ones that do want to help, cannot deliver the 180°C change she is asking. She will be disappointed.
But perhaps this is not what she is asking for? Just like a teen who runs away from home is crying for help to improve that very intolerable home, perhaps Greta is subconsciously crying for home-improvement. It might be as simple as that.
I dare to postulate that what this child needs is therapy to de-frost her frozen tears, let them flow and release all fear and hopelessness. Someone or something destroyed this happy little child and her sister and there was no quaint childhood. Just look at this photo of when Greta and Beata were little! They had smiling faces and eyes of hopeful, lively, joyful and balanced children.
For Greta to feel OK with this world, even if her mission is that of improving it, what that she first and foremost needs a loving home and friends. She needs to be protected not exploited.
Perhaps she would enjoy a hearty meal of her favourite food and the return of a sense of humour!
As Russian-Swedish musicologist and genious Michail Kazinik said: “The civilizations who could not joke about themselves all vanished.” Being able to laugh at yourself, is a sign of emotional health. By the way, Kazinik opened a school for highly gifted children and his brief bio is The author of the complexity school idea, the professor of the Stockholm drama college and the Higher School of Business of Scandinavia, the expert of the Nobel concerts, art critic, teacher, violinist, the author of the film about M.K Čiurlionis.
So, for laughs, to keep our sense of humour and come down from the hysteria spike, I want to re-post this brilliant humourous take on the Greta Thunberg hysteria by the Spectator USA: Her arch-nemesis Matilda Olofsson. Enjoy.
So, Greta Thunberg has declared her intention to sail to New York for the UN climate summit on a hi-tech eco-friendly racing yacht. The boat is owned by German property developer, Gerhard Senft, is based in Brittany and sponsored by the Yacht Club de Monaco. It has been fitted with solar panels and underwater turbines to generate zero-carbon electricity on-board.
Greta’s transport will produce zero-emissions and is the ultimate carbon-neutral solution to long-distance journeys…or so she hopes. Greta has long been a foe of mine ever since she messed with my plans to wreak havoc by insisting that my school take part in a strike for climate change awareness. From that day forth I swore vengeance. For every positive eco-friendly change Greta introduces, I have dedicated my time to balancing it out with an equally negative action.
For instance, when Greta encouraged my school canteen to replace plastic drinking straws with cardboard ones, I filled my mouth with cold vegetable soup and fake-puked all over the floor so much the janitor was forced to put down disposable plastic sheeting which was the equivalent of at least 2,000 plastic straws.
When Greta announced on TV that the world was in crisis and demanded that climate change be declared an emergency, I went around my town handing out laminated flyers on how LED lightbulbs can make you go blind and that drying your clothes individually one-by-one in a tumble-dryer makes them not only last a lot longer, but makes them more fashionable.
This time, however, I feel I have excelled myself. Greta is being so very smug about her eco-friendly voyage, but once she sees me following her in my chosen form of transport that sanctimonious look will be wiped from her face. I intend to shadow Greta’s yacht with an old oil tanker I won using my mom’s credit card on eBay. It’s amazing the bargains you can obtain on eBay when you search for stuff purposefully using the incorrect spelling. By putting ‘0il tinker’ into the search bar, I won an auction for an ancient rusted petroleum tanker for a bid of just 50 krona. It was in a bad way, but after my uncle Jörgen set about it with some Freightliner roof panels and a soldering iron, it’s just about still seaworthy. Luckily for me, Uncle Jörgen used to work for Exxon Mobil and via the use of a few connections, we’ve managed to vastly increase the speed of the tanker’s engine but also made it 78 percent less efficient.
My plan is to follow Thunberg’s prissy little ship in my own vessel; Greta’s Downfall, dropping five oil drums into the sea every three hours, while Uncle Jörgen shoots at them with his hunting rifle. Using Google Maps I’ve calculated that it will take us 12 days to get to New York from Gothenburg, and so for every one tonne of fuel oil Greta saves, I shall be using at least 126 tonnes.
I cannot describe how excited I am to be contributing to the end of days. The world will burn, and I am the kindling.
Look upon this Greta and despair: Every move you make. Every breath you take. Every bond you break. Every step you take. I’ll be thwarting you.
FASHIONBLOGGA 
As far as frying a steak, Brazilian Beef is one reason the fires are set to clear the Amazon rain forest.
Sherry Temple, Michael Jackson and now Greta Thunberg is the latest fad, Hype is the world we live in. Now kids getting exercise instead of glued to a screen, or screaming at opposing fans during a sports match and getting zonked, and bonged. It’s clean fun not conspiracy and may accomplish something,
Greta Thunber is sweeter than Shirley Temple was,
But I agree if we want real change we will have to get serious
https://readersupportednews.org/pm-section/27-27/58795-from-Green-child-activist-Greta-Thunberg-to-Renee-Juliene-Karunungan-or-Scapegoating-Venezuela
Thank you Richard!
There’s an old adage about a caravan traveling along on a very necessary and long journey , and several dogs bark loudly at the caravan. The dogs bark and yap, but the caravan moves forward regardless.
Your article (which is trying very hard to be hip, witty, and funny) reminds me of the barking dogs. FYI, about 95% of the world’s scientists concur that carbon dioxide emissions are fueling global warming of our earth’s atmosphere, which is resulting in climate changes all over the world, and our weather patterns are becoming more extreme and erratic. Climate change is occurring in real time whether or not you disagree, and if you don’t care to believe that, that’s your prerogative, but you are in the minority, and you are not paying attention. Sorry, I’m not impressed with your article, and I disagree with your viewpoints. My advice (not that you asked for it) is to wake up and pay attention.
Blue Skies, Thank you for taking the time to read and comment. I am happy to see that my article has provoked your thoughts.
However, you are wrong. I am not trying to be hip, witty and funny – I am hip witty and funny. Furthermore, you misunderstood the fundamental topic of my writing: I am not debating or deconstructing climate change at all. I am debating and deconstructing Greta – a child who is in need and who is being exploited by the adults around her.