Andrew Bolt: Thunberg cult is over, but the damage remains

Taking advice from a 16-year-old extremist on how to power a 21st century economy turns out to be as disastrous as it was absurd.

Greta Thunberg was once hotter than Jesus Christ for young salvation seekers. But just like that, the Thunberg cult is finished.

Thunberg became an international star at just 16 after starting a “school strike for climate” movement in Sweden.

Politicians couldn’t get enough of her to show they were “in touch” with the global warming panic she’d helped unleash, and invited the unsmiling schoolgirl everywhere to scold adults for having “stolen my dreams”, and shout at them to “panic” as if the “house was on fire”.

Thunberg addressed France’s National Assembly, the World Economic Forum, the European Union’s environment committee and the 2019 United Nations Climate Action summit, where she famously raged: “How dare you!” For three years running she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Environmental activist Greta Thunberg at the 2019 United Nations Climate Action summit.

But then … phutt. It seems Thunberg is now a victim of her own success in scaring people into doing stupid things.

For instance, in 2019, at the height of the Thunberg mania, she told British politicians it was “beyond absurd” to allow fracking or any more gas, oil and coal projects.

The politicians must have thought so, too. Fracking was banned, no new coal mines were opened, and Britain’s Conservative Government pledged the country to net zero emissions by 2050.

But taking advice from a 16-year-old extremist on how to power a 21st century economy turns out to be as disastrous as it was absurd.

Britain now has an electricity crisis so serious that energy industry analyst Cornwall Insight predicts average electricity bills will reach nearly $10,000 a year by January. Many Britons will not be able to afford to heat their homes next winter, and many hundreds of the elderly could die.

Indeed, the whole world is suddenly desperately short of the fossil fuels Thunberg raged against, and many politicians who once courted her now don’t. They’re too busy desperately finding more coal and gas.

That means Thunberg’s biggest gig this year was an appearance at the Glastonbury Festival, but almost no newspaper bothered to report what she said.

Thunberg’s Twitter feed reflects her fall. In her latest post, she complains: “I started striking from school on August 20th 2018 ahead of the Swedish general election.

“It has now been 4 years since then, and a new election is on its way. We are still here, but the climate crisis is still absent from the debate.”

Ignored even at home. The Thunberg cult is over, but the damage remains.