She’s “freakish”.
She’s “deeply disturbed”.
She’s a “schoolgirl puppet” with “many mental disorders”.
According to Sam Newman, she’s an “annoying little brat”.
Now, in President Donald Trump’s words, in response to Greta being named Time’s Person of the Year, she needs to work on her “anger management problem,” and “chill”.
If you aren’t familiar with Greta’s name, it’s likely you’ve seen the Swedish teenager’s face. Before her appearance at the UN, you would have seen her in a windbreaker and waterproofs, pulling ropes at the helm of a trans-Atlantic yacht.
No, it’s not the kind of yacht Miley Cyrus spent her summer on. There are no waitstaff or a ship-to-shore tender to ferry you out to the club, nor a bottomless fruit platter or an Insta-worthy sun-baking deck.
No, Greta’s yacht is a small racing boat with a tiny professional crew, full-bore seasickness and the facilities for sleeping in shifts. And Greta was on it because it was the only form of transport she could use to get from Europe to New York that didn’t burn copious amounts of fossil fuel.
When you are the environmental spokesperson for a generation, that matters.
Then, she arrived in New York, and stared down Donald Trump, before taking a taunting tweet from the President and responding with utter class.
Her caption reads in part, “When haters go after your looks and your differences, it means they have nowhere left to go. And then you know you’re winning! I have Asperger’s syndrome and that means I’m sometimes a bit different from the norm. And – given the right circumstances – being different is a superpower.”
Perhaps, as Bolt said, there is a “cult” growing up around Thunberg and her crew of school-striking climate change activists. But maybe her influence and popularity is actually a symptom of the learned helplessness we’re experiencing daily, splashing around in our hyper-crowded news cycle and a climate of fear and division. Thunberg’s is a clear and confident voice, backed by striking science, calling us all out to be better.
“You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words,” Thunberg said in September. “And yet I’m one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!
Towards the end of her speech, she said, “Right here, right now is where we draw the line. The world is waking up. And change is coming, whether you like it or not.”
Tough words, Greta. No wonder you’re scaring the dinosaurs silly.
How do you feel about Greta Thunberg and the student climate campaigners?
Top Comments
She's a terrific kid and a wonderful role model for my own daughter with Asperger's. Not all girls with Asperger's are like Greta. The saying goes "If you've met one person with Asperger's, you've met one person with Asperger's".
I wonder if she were a boy, what the reaction would be. It's the job of right-wing pundits to attack people who hold opposing views no matter who they are. They would go after his Asperger's, I'm sure of it. They would complain that he's not in school. They would call him a self-righteous, meglomaniacal punk. A dangerous zealot cult leader and Americans would call him a Communist. They'd make fun of him getting emotional because it's not "manly". To be honest I doubt he'd get the same amount of attention. Boys are supposed to aspire to be leaders, girls are supposed to aspire to entertain and marry leaders.
But someone like Greta was bound to happen. She's a girl raised to not be ashamed of who she is. She's the convergence of a number of factors. Feminism, the far better understanding of neurodiversity, gender issues, and most importantly the first generation to have their whole lives affected by the planet's climate crisis. That's why we like her and they hate her. Right wing might-makes-right bullies don't even engage with issues like autism/Asperger's let alone know how to continue their job of defending the status quo against a girl who has it.
One again, those that cry the biggest doom, even if devoid of all logic, get the airtime (hi also Tim Flannery). So sad. All it does is push mainstream people away from the actual issues being faced (as it makes it all sound like some mad doomsday cult). The issue is much much more complex and the impacts being experienced much much more subtle than this form of fainting couch carry on dictates.
As someone said on social media the other day: Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luthier King were two of the most influential people of the 20th century for social change and recognition and improvements in human rights. They never thundered from a lectern, hectoring and bullying their audience. If a man had spoken to a theatre full of women that way, he’d be torn to shreds by the media.
These truly great men were intelligent and mature enough to realise that bullying, shouting in an aggressive manner and the use of inflammatory terms such as ‘How dare you!’, are counterproductive. They spoke TO people, not AT people. Their messages will live forever because they were truly wise, compassionate men with a message nobody could argue with.
C'mon, that's not a fair comparison at all, as the implication is she must be on their level to have a legitimate voice. They were fully grown men with plenty of life experience, full of failures and successes in both their private and professional lives.
Put it this way. Why are rich and influential politicians/companies feeling so threatened by a 16 year old teenager? Because her message does resonate with her young audience.
So what? Mainstream people are followers, not leaders. They'll come around eventually but if you wait for everybody to be on board you'll wait forever and we seriously do not have forever. People need a simple message and all the prevaricating and talk of nuance makes it sound far too much like a specialist's concern and nothing to do with the average people working longer hours than ever to pay their bills.
If a room full of powerful world leaders feel bullied by a passionate 16-year-old, they are too fragile for the positions they hold.
And if you don't think MLK ever "thundered from a lectern", you don't know MLK.