Climate gospel of teen ‘saint’ Greta Thunberg

You have to hand it to Greta Thunberg, the ponytailed prophet of climate change. Whatever future the planet has, hers is assured.

Swedish teen climate activist Greta Thunberg addresses world leaders at the UN Climate Summit in New York. Picture: EPA

You have to hand it to Greta Thunberg, the ponytailed prophet of climate change. Whatever future the planet might have, hers is assured.

She was already the most ­famous 16-year-old in the world when she took centre stage at the UN Climate Summit in New York to berate her elders, but most certainly not her betters in her ferocious estimation.

“You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words,” she said, her bottom lip quivering with rage. “And yet I am one of the lucky ones. People are suffering, people are dying. For more than 30 years, the science has been crystal clear. How dare you continue to look away?”

The rise to fame of the young Swede is extraordinary, both in its scope and speed. No so long ago she was an unknown schoolgirl from Stockholm, albeit an unusual one. The daughter of a famous opera singer and an actor, Thunberg has Asperger’s syndrome, obsessive-compulsive disorder and a related condition known as selective mutism. She says: “This basically means I speak only when I think it’s necessary. Now is one of those moments.”

Her command of English, a second language, points to a precocious intelligence. Her passion, energy and commitment are not to be doubted. Last Friday, an estimated 300,000 Australians, many of them children ducking school, marched under the Extinction Rebellion banner she helped popularise. Prior to her showstopping performance at the UN, she had lectured world business and political elite at Davos, urging them to “panic” over climate change.

For all this, her new-found celebrity has led to some troubling questions about her parents’ motives. Thunberg says she developed her interest in climate change when she was nine. In 2015, she stopped flying on planes — a decision that was milked when she sailed to New York by yacht, trumpeting the carbon-neutral virtue of the trip.

Her mother, Malena Ernman, also disavowed air travel in 2016, giving up her international performing career. But the much-emulated “school strike” Thunberg staged in the lead-up to last year’s Swedish elections coincided neatly with the launch of her mother’s book on bringing up two children with special needs. (Greta’s youngest sister, Beata, has autism.)

The dogs were barking: could her leap into the limelight have had less to do with chance than a masterful publicity campaign?

Then there was the link to Ernman’s PR man in Sweden, Ingmar Rentzhog, who released the first images of her daughter “striking” outside the national parliament on the day of the book launch. He went on to found a business focusing on climate PR, and invited Thunberg to join the company’s youth advisory board. This allowed him to use her image ahead of a share issue that reportedly raked in more than $2m. The family has since cut ties with him.

As Wall Street Journal columnist Gerard Baker argues on page 11, there is a religious-like dimension to climate change conviction — down to the apocalyptic imagery of a world consumed by fire — and the revelation of universal truth to an innocent child is deeply rooted in Christian belief.

Think St Therese of Lisieux, St Bernadette of Lourdes and now St Greta of CO2. The worry for Thunberg’s worldwide army of admirers is whether her virtual canonisation presents the greatest gift to those who would dismiss her as a naive teenager, and reject her hectoring tone as much as the message she is delivering.