Greta Thunberg as “Autistic Climate Justice Activist.”

Thunberg as an “Autistic Climate Justice Activist.”

I take an interest in the public perceptions of autism following in the trail of the climate activism of Greta Thunberg. Sadly, these correlate precisely with whichever side of the political divide people are on. And Thunberg’s approach is divisive if it is anything. Her supporters are happy to praise her gift of autism with respect to her clear-eyed insight and objectivity; her detractors are just as happy to see her unresponsiveness when off-script as evidence of her autistic stupidity. None of this does the cause of autism understanding any good. It’s an issue because she and her handlers have put her autism at the forefront of her climate campaigning, with her supporters being happy to follow. She has nearly six million followers as an "autistic climate justice activist." Given that there is still precious little understanding of autism among the great public, its association with a very divisive form of political campaigning may serve only to reinforce stereotypes we can well do without. She has made many political enemies who cannot wait to subject her to questioning and cross-examination. She has been protected so far. Her pursuers clearly think she is a stupid stooge, a construct who can only repeat the lines she has been fed. They are intent on exposing her and the operation behind her. Should they succeed, we can expect an extreme swing from the identification of autism with genius to stupidity to occur - she has been set up so impossibly high that a fall is well-nigh inevitable (unless we do indeed move to the world of remote control exercised by planetary managers, Thunberg finding a safe space among the bureaucrats who order and organise one and all from above).

I’ll be as brief as I can. Because any comment that falls short of fawning adulation here tends to attract a braying mob accusing you of all manner of evils, in the mode of ‘how dare you, a white privileged male bullying and abusing a poor little autistic girl.’ As the graphics above indicate, that vulnerability doesn't stop some nasty abuse from being fired back. It's a way to waste your time to no productive end. A word of advice to all those who wield a sword - if you are going to be smart-lipped, then expect people to hit back – for every action, there will be a reaction.

It’s a perfect strategy for the short-game, with Thunberg launched into the public world as both sword and shield, advancing very contentious and highly political positions whilst being them insulated from critical scrutiny and debate. It’s not her that is protected, but the forces behind her.

I’ll begin with some very sharp words on the miserable state of contemporary politics.

There is a war on humanity, nature, and all life underway, all being recreated as so much cultural clay in the hands of the totalitarian potter. The process s accelerating in accordance with commercial imperatives, and goes unchecked as a result of the wilful blindness and misguided, diverted resistance of the many. Massive resources are being mobilised to manipulate youth into embracing and asserting ideologies held by the very worst in society.

Friends object to the phrase ‘climate porn.’ I appreciate the reasons behind their objection. Because there most certainly is a crisis in the climate system, and the politics we have is utterly inadequate to deal with it.

But… there is a clear difference between arguing that there is a climate crisis on the one hand and taking outliers in the science and normalizing extremes on the other.

Porn there is, in many forms. And perversion and pathology.

With respect to politics, the dominant form of environmentalism is the managerial, austerian, regulatory form which fits the hard fist of corporate capital like a glove.

Climate porn is part of a pervasive celebrity pathology and perversion. The more excessive the wealth, the more idolized the campaign and campaigner. This has swallowed leftist politics, and those inside the politically engineered cultural grid are too blinkered to see it. Truth is inverted and perverted through media and culture, with the complete destruction of standards normalized with the erasure of political and class consciousness. Tame conformists perfectly accommodated to the

latest transformations within the capital form are made iconic in the key media. How many of those who praise an “autistic climate campaigner” backed by a coalition of 24.8 trillion market capital support the people who make, move, build, and grow things whenever they are on the receiving end of instructions from members of that coalition, demanding, like the socialists of old, the restructuring

of power and resources in favour of ‘ordinary’ working class people? The Left is dead, socialism has been colonised, enclosed, incorporated along with everything else. And too few Leftists see it. They are cheering and jeering shadows on the wall, failing to see how various multi-stakeholder initiatives and partnerships (UN, World Bank, OECD, UN, WHO, WEF, philanthropic, not-for-profit organisations and NGOs are building a steel-hard cage that places the corporate form at the centre of global power. Many erstwhile radicals are sucked in by the ideal of the "global citizen." It’s a great idea, linked to the old ideal of political peace and world governance, but it has long since been expropriated, uprooted from particular places rendered prey to over to corporate forces proceeding according to their own commercial imperatives and power dynamics.

So where is the force with the structural capacity to challenge and uproot the corporate form and in the process reappropriate, socialise, and democratise power?

Far too many have abandoned the old socialist project of the practical restitution of social power to become ‘progressives’ and ‘reformers’ working hand-in-glove with the corporate form.

It seems that people see problems mounting but, having no idea how to challenge the corporations, throw their hand in with them, thus allying with the corporate form that looks set to consume the world. The extension and entrenchment of the corporate form proceeded apace as left and right fought it out at the level of nationalisation and privatisation. Neither socialists nor economic liberals hunkering after the return of free markets and free trade seem to have much idea, except that the latter seem to have the character of corporate ideologues and apologists. Privatisation was never about free markets and free trade, the liberalisation and globalisation of economic relations that came with it freed the TNCs to engulf the world and complete the enclosure of the global commons. It came to pass. The political options available to us are now so utterly puny as to be worthless to serve as anything other than giving us the pretence of making a difference.

I’m seeing another outbreak of Thunberg mania on social media, after omething of a quiet spell. I suspect another big media push for ambitious and expensive climate ‘action' is underway. Davos?

And, indeed, a meme in which Thunberg claims that ‘action’ generates hope was being widely shared.

Does this “trigger” me, in the way that Thunberg cheerleaders jeer in the face of critics? As someone who has argued for effective environmental action for a quarter of a century, it does indeed annoy me. Because all I see here is a deliberate and calculated vagueness that a) creates a sense of urgency; b) solicits an unreasoned response on the part of panicked citizens and politicians; c) paves the way for some very unecological corporate forces to appropriate climate politics to their own ends.

This is elementary marketing. It's effective. But I thought 'progressives' were smarter than 'the herd' (they tell us they are often enough).

Action. What action? Any action? It is beholden on those demanding ‘action’ to specify details, thrash out policies and programmes, explain costs and benefits, argue and engage, create consent and a sense of ownership and responsibility on the part of those charged with bearing he costs and consequences of climate action.

I see none of this being done. What I do see is a public being constantly ‘nudged’ by fear, crisis, and necessity into accepting austerian policies that will greatly reduce their standard of living whilst extending and entrenching the wealth and power of global corporate elites.

This is the wrong type of environmentalism, one that is perfectly fitted to the corporate capitalism that is the driver of the socio-ecological problems we face. Too many who see themselves as ‘progressives’ and ‘reformers’ have tailored their environmentalism to fit the contours of the clean green corporate form.

Is Thunberg a puppet, as some suggested from the first?

I don’t doubt that she is genuine. Whether she will be discarded depends on how sincere her environmental concerns are. I would never underestimate the capacity of people to convince themselves. I shall write more of this later when I come to autism. As an autistic person I know the tendency to become convinced that you can see things that others cannot, to relentlessly pursue your ‘special interest,’ to find meaning, purpose, and direction in a cause or campaign. All you want to do is save the world and save people from themselves.

I’ll come to this later. I’ll give a quick comment here. The strength of passion with respect to a cause or a topic is no proof of its truth or even its worthiness. I’m seeing Thunberg’s statement that climate

campaigning gave her a meaning in life being recycled by climate campaigners. It may well have done. But that’s no reason to believe that any of the campaign claims she advances and supports are true. They may be. I’ve campaigned long and hard for climate action, so cannot be accused of being a ‘denier.’ But as someone who argues for environmental action, I want to see the details, the policies, the costs and benefits, the specific change-agents, the institutional channels. When an end is strongly and repeatedly asserted in abstraction from means, there is a need to be sceptical and critical. Those with a modicum of historical and political knowledge will sense that we may well be being strategized, gamed, groomed, trolled, nudged, manipulated, managed, herded. Sadly, those who do know politics and history well will also know that people often succumb.

It’s basic branding and marketing, create a need, stimulate a demand, offer the solution.

I can see Thunberg "growing up" and becoming a fully paid up member of the corporate form. It's a better career option than being sincere but ineffective and irrelevant, and discarded.

I see a whole class of these classless managerialists tied to the corporate form. Many of them are often failed politicians who make their way to the UN or a top-NGO job, from where they promote the same policies, free from the need to win the support of that most awkward of beasts, the democratic electorate.

I don’t remotely trust the strategists of global environmental ‘politics’ one bit. They, not Thunberg, are my target. They are remote from politics, advancing pre-political climate truths for governments to enact without consent and deliberation.

The demand for ‘action’ is a calculated vagueness. The people sponsoring such ‘action’ have very definite things in mind. These are not to be publicly presented for debate, but withheld for governments who buckle to the pressure. The demand for ‘action’ is all about building that pressure.

There’s nothing more dispiriting than wasting energy (not to mention time, money, resources of all kinds) on the wrong ‘action.’ Action can often be a neurotic response to problems. Those who know about psychiatry and mental health will be aware of people who will do the same thing, day after day, repetitively and unproductively, to calm themselves in a chaotic world.

The fact that it is an autistic trait interests me in this context. I see a fixation on a ‘special interest,’ a relentless repetition in speech and action, and I see certain negative stereotypes with respect to autism being confirmed. Some refer to Thunberg’s autism as a ‘superpower,’ enabling her to see things others can’t. The way that autistic people can live at a degree of detachment from society and its everyday imperatives can yield a certain other-worldly objectivity. The problem is that Thunberg is repeating truths and insights developed by others. To be fair to her, she has said this herself. Further, she never claimed that autism is a superpower, only that is can be in the right conditions – within a supportive and nurturing environment. Praise be! That’s what we all want, autists and neurotypicals. It’s the nature and motives of the environment around Thunberg I would question.

‘Action’ is meaningless in itself.

This is just evasive.

It’s when we get to ‘action’ that the importand debates on policy and political economy start, debates that people asserting ‘the science’ do not address.

But if we are indeed happy to embrace stereotypes, thenI, as an autistic person can, with clear-eyed objectivity, see right through the political games being played here. I’m very sceptical of those who create a sense of urgency, put politics on a clock, and urge ‘action,’ not least when they advance claims and make demands from outside of the political sphere, beyond debate, deliberation, the creation of will and consent.

Politically, environmentalism is in a very bad place.

In my doctoral research, whenever academics would ask awkward questions, I would fall back on ‘praxis,’ with philosophically very contentious things coming to be proven true by action. The academics, rightly, saw this as an evasion on my part, and a dangerous one to boot. Smart people don’t buy a pig in a poke, although, sadly, they can quite often be found selling one to unsuspecting others.

There is a need to specify the action to be taken rather than simply demand it, and by ‘action’ I don’t just mean listing the off-the-shelf policies to be enacted from above by enlightened environmental despots. We know all of this, this isn’t the stumbling block. I mean ‘action’ in terms of policies and programmes that people will be prepared to support and pay for, voluntarily, as a matter of conscious will and choice. I am presuming that we are still talking a democratic politics here. I have grave suspicions that those seeking to engineer action care nothing for democracy. Tyrants will do fine for their truth. The problem is that once you have 'suspended' liberty and democracy, you have to fight to reclaim it. And rather than being used to good ends, the power conferred tends to proceed according to its own demands.

Those are the hard questions of political action.

And Thunberg? She’s the perfect sword and shield, able to advance highly contentious political demands which are simultaneously removed from scrutiny and criticism.

People tell us that Thunberg has written four books. They are word perfect, I don’t doubt, making me wonder why I and the various doctoral students I have worked with on political ecology bothered. People lap it up, for the reason she is saying things they already believe to be true and which they are happy to have confirmed. It is precisely the moment you agree with something that you should be most on your guard, seeking to check its veracity and cogency (I hope it is clear that I am not challenging the facts of climate change and global heating here, only ‘climate facts’ used as a surrogate politics and ethics, which is a very different thing indeed).

The strategy is plain. Put crisis on the clock, create a sense of urgency, shout ‘emergency’ and demand ‘action,’ and all the difficult bits of politics and policy – who pays for what – are all ignored, left to the extra-political realm of experts. And instead of the genuinely ecological transformation required, the corporate form cleans up.

In Thunberg, those advancing extensive and expensive climate policies have found the perfect sword and shield. Try criticising this most anti-ecological form of environmental managerialism and brace yourself for a whole heap load of abuse.

The abuse tends to be some variant of ‘how dare you, a triggered white male, abuse a poor little autistic girl.’

This is pernicious for many reasons.

The truth of any matter is independent of identity. A case stands and falls on its merits. Colour, sex, gender, ethnicity have nothing to do with it.

But it is the way that autism has been dragged into the fray that most concerns me here. Or, rather, the way that autism has been deliberately put into the political frame. It is almost as if Thunberg is being deliberately presented in stereotypical autistic identity in order to draw the critical attention of

those who, rightly, feel that the positions she is advancing ought to be subject to criticism. Present the autistic stereotype, invite criticism, shout abuse. It’s as sweet as a nut. And my view is that this will reinforce misinformed public perceptions of autism.

I monitor comments within the autistic community a lot, to try and make sense of my own views. On the rare occasion I see Thunberg mentioned, opinion is divided at extremes. Some see her as an inspiring figure who reveals the power of autism, showing autistic people the range of their abilities. OK. But if we are going to take this approach, then why not Elon Musk? Others see her as a puppet, a literal-minded autistic girl whose gullibility is being exploited by powerful elites.

I don’t see her as guileless at all. She strikes me as very knowing (or very comfortable). I think there is a climate crisis. I think powerful forces see the global shift underway, and are organising to ensure that when power relations are e-adjusted, they remain dominant.

I remember one heated debate on an autism site between pro- and anti-Thunberg voices that caused the post to be removed. Autistic people turn to such sites for comfort and community, not contention.

I need to make a comment on this Tweet from an autistic person:

“Person: Greta Thunberg is being manipulated she’s just a little autistic girl.

Me (autistic): pls don’t infantilize Autistics. If you’d met any you’d know how strong a special interest is & that it’s hard to manipulate someone in or out of one.

Person: *explains autism to me*”

There are indeed people openly saying that Thunberg is being manipulated and exploited. I have suggested, too, that her ‘vulnerability’ is being exploited, but in a quite different sense to the one described here. Her youth, her femininity, and her autism have all been used to screen Thunberg’s claims and demands from criticism. The people who have been infantilizing Thunberg have been her handlers, backers, and supporters. People who have criticised Thunberg have been condemned for bullying a child. They are still doing it now. Thus, journalist Natiq Malikzada writes against the reporters who harassed her in the street: “shame on you big fat old losers for ganging up against a teenage girl. She is just 20, leave her alone. At this age I am sure you were confused about what to [do] in your life while she’s leading an important movement.”

It is people such as this all over the climate movement who infantilize Thunberg in order to preserve her – and the cause she advances – from critical scrutiny.

The strategy is plain and barefaced. She is described as a teenage girl in one breadth whilst her actual age of twenty is revealed in the next. It’s still young but … she has entered or being entered into a very adult world of power and politics, where no one gets a free hit. People are trying to have it both ways:

On the one hand Thunberg is leading a world movement and it’s huge; on the other hand he is presented as just a “teenage girl” so she should be left alone.

It’s hard to credit that journalists, activists, climate campaigners et al can be so breathtakingly naïve as to think it possible to combine both in the political arena.

The autistic woman above who condemns those who “infantilize” Thunberg is missing her target – it’s her backers and handlers who seek to protect her from the rough world of politics and media, in the cause of simultaneously advancing the climate agenda whilst preserving it from direct questioning.

The comment on the impossibility of manipulating an autistic person in or out of a special interest also misses the point. Autistic people can be trusting, failing to read between the lines in human interaction and negotiation. It is simply a fact that autistic people can have their honesty, good will, and idealism exploited by those with ulterior motives. That’s a view you can find in any introduction to autism. Autistic people do often need to be protected, or learn to protect themselves. The presentation of Thunberg as an autonomous, knowing, confident agent may well be ‘empowering,’ to use the fashionable idiom of the age, but it is as dangerously misleading as the presentation of autism as a ‘superpower’ (‘in the right circumstances,’ circumstances that are rare rather than the norm. I have spent the past year in search of help and support and found that there is none for autistic people. The question, in financially straitened circumstances, will be – why should there be help and support, when autistic people are so smart, strong, and assertive?

The tweeter has this badly wrong. The issue of manipulation arises not with respect to Greta Thunberg’s special interest, the strength and sincerity of which is not in doubt. The question concerns the way this special interest is being channelled and to what end. Thunberg’s ends are simple enough – a civilisation that functions within planetary boundaries. I couldn’t agree more. As someone who has argued for the ecological civilisation for a quarter of a century, I know that the issues arise with respect to determining the means and mechanisms (political and motivational as well as technical) to the end. These issues are incredibly complex, involving different stakes, interests, policy, policy framework, everything on which human beings divide on. There is no ‘we’ following in light of a universal climate emergency. That supposedly politically neutral universal interest is a political construct put together by some very powerful players. It is here that the switch and sleight of hand will take place. Some consider Thunberg a pawn and a puppet, others suggest that she’s in on it. We shall see in time. Maybe the hard truth is that it is only the corporations and the technocrats who can ‘save the planet.’ Thunberg criticises the Davos participants as the people who created the climate crisis pretending to resolve it. Those are hardly the words of a globalist dupe. What transformative strategy does she have in mind – and where is the structural capacity to force it through? Beware overspill and appropriation. Pitch your goals and demands far beyond your capacity to deliver, you will be revealed as hopelessly utopian, your cause being taken over by realists with the power and resources to achieve the achievable. Its function seems to be restricted to raising the popular demand. After that, it is those with capacity within the system, and not without, who will take over.

The tweeter adds Person: *explains autism to me*

That is to warn people who don’t know about autism off. It is an attempt to claim privileged knowledge. So I shall make it clear that I say all of this as an autistic person who spent a quarter of a century in the green movement, only to find its dominant form decidedly inconsistent with ecological principles, especially with respect to its scientistic/technocratic character.

I admire inspiring figures who show the wide-ranging power of autism. I can see why people, including autistic people, could see Thunberg as an inspiration. She's everywhere, after all, whilst they are all too often nowhere.

But people need to be sure that it is the power of autism they are valuing, and not the power of a wider media and institutional setup.

Thunberg has had all the doors opened to her. Austistic people seeking help and support find doors closed to them. There is a disparity here. But Thunberg has climate insight? She’s saying nothing others haven’t said (myself included).

I'm autistic too, suffering two chronic illnesses grace of the relentless anxiety brought on by a then undiagnosed condition. You receive a diagnosis and are then told to spit in the wind. There is zero help and support, beyond advice as to what you can do for yourself. We all have different ways to find meaning, purpose, and certainty - they are not necessarily right. It’s in those special nterests that an autistic person finds meaning in a world s/he can control, offering a safe space in a chaotic world. I, too, thought I had found a meaning and a purpose and, also, a community and common cause with Green politics. I was a member of The Green Party, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and other such groups. The curious thing is that I never actually made many, or any, friends. My loyalty and support was assumed, but zero interest was taken in my views. Much of that can be explained by the fact I was a somewhat reserved and distanced participant. I was always concerned to preserve a space from others. But in time I was to find that the more I offered criticisms of my own, withholding automatic support, the more I was simply ignored. Worse, the more forceful I became in the attempt to get Greens to answer questions I felt needed to be answered, the more I was subjected to hostile criticism. My criticism of “the science” was abused as an “anti-science rant.” It comes as no surprise to me that such people can’t see the clear distinction between science and scientism. Wittgenstein identified scientism as one of the greatest vices of the age. Ludwig was right. Some characters, social media ‘friends’ of ten years standing, simply unfriended and blocked me without a word. Such people see themselves as “telling the truth” to others, they don’t take questions, don’t engage, don’t listen.

So, as an autistic person who has been ostracised for exercising his insightful superpower, I would caution other autistic people against the deluded belief that they have found friendship and community in the company of like-minded others. People are loyal to their causes and politics, they don’t give a damn about you. Stop being a supportive little puppet, and such people drop you and cut you out without a thought.

Were my criticisms too sharp, too pointed? Possibly, but they were pertinent. Was I overly blunt? It has happened. Can autistic people be construed as rude in the way they assert truth? Most certainly. Do people who celebrate autistic climate campaigners quickly cut their links with autists who refuse to sing from the same hymn sheet? They did with me.

It’s the anomalies that strike me as most odd. As an autistic environmentalist thinking outside of the dominant Green politics box and asking the awkward questions that come with that, I get ignored, cold-shouldered, and sidelined. An autistic supporter of Thunberg comments on Twitter:

“Ironically the thing people hate most about autists is that we have lower compliance / conformity levels, in my experience.”

A friend at school chided me for being a “non-conformist.” I remain somewhat unorthodox, not to say heretical. It doesn’t win me much support within the environmental community. It doesn’t make me wrong, though. Thunberg extols the virtues of autism for enabling her to think outside the box, only for her to recycle the arguments and facts of others and wins praise for never putting a foot wrong. As an autistic person, I have put my feet wrong many times. I am doing it now in daring to question a poor little autistic girl, that is, the hard-faced manipulation that is diverting and perverting a genuine environmentalism and using and abusing autism to its ends. And for that, I will most certainly speak out of turn. Because this weaponising of autism will do autistic people no good, merely reinforce the worst stereotypes. Unless you think Thunberg really is a genius.

My approach to climate action is very different to Thunberg's. The fact that I’m autistic doesn't make my approach right, no more than it makes hers right.

It doesn't make me a hater, either. Because I am indeed very different from the norm, should the day come when those who make a point of praising difference actually cease to be the dull conformists they are. When I first read a collection of Thunberg’s speeches and writings my reaction was to ask ‘is that all there is?’ There was little there I disagreed with (or didn’t know). It’s just that all the important, interesting, difficult, and contentious stuff was missing, especially with respect to capital, class, and the critique of political economy. I concluded that any environmentalism getting excited over this is a plain infantilism. I would say it is a manipulative cynicism above and an infantilism below.

In the past I criticised Thunberg for a lack of politics and political economy. At the time, the defence was that she is merely asking us to look at ‘the science’ and isn’t political. This is hogwash in relation to the persistent demand for climate action. Action is necessarily political, changing arrangement and distribution of power and resources. It is also so deliberately evasive as to give grounds for suspicion. It’s hard to credit naivety here so we are entitled to look for other motives. People are not so green as to be gullible. We’ve been looking at the science on climate change a long time now. It is when we come to acting in light of the science that major stumbling blocks are faced. If you have nothing to say on this then you have nothing to say. ‘Climate facts’ don’t do any work in themselves, a lesson that ought to have been learned by now. This is a failure of the part of the environmental movement as a whole and predates Thunberg. We are still having to suffer the laments of scientists to the effect that people don’t listen and don’t care. That’s not how the motivational economy of human beings works, a rather basic fact known to anyone with the faintest acquaintance with the humanities, social sciences, politics, and people. Any action taken to address the crisis in the climate system or any societal crisis is necessarily political. And it is here that we are confronted with the really difficult problems. The absence of practical reason or, worse, the attempt to substitute knowledge from the field of science and theoretical reason for practical reason, results in a deeply deficient politics. Far from being an original out-of-the-box thinker, this merely reproduces the dominant scientism of environmentalism. In the past couple of years Thunberg has added a more political dimension to her climate campaigning. She seems to attack capitalism but in truth focuses on industrialisation and fossil fuels – another common trope. When she finally, at long last, addresses the question of human agency with respect to climate crisis and its overcoming, she connects industrialisation to racism, patriarchy, and colonialism. Of course she does. Far from being original, this is straight out of the contemporary radicals’ handbook. Radicalism is being re-written and rewired in the most divisive and sectarian terms. And is thoroughly reactionary in addition to being completely wrong. The entire basis of the Left as a meaningful political force is a universalism and solidarity which is only incarnated and sustained by emphasising the commonality of human beings beyond structural, systemic divisions. These divisions are historically and socially specific and are subject to intervention and alteration. Dividing human beings into myriad fragmented ID groups created and endlessly recreated around race and gender is about the most stupid thing the Left could have done, effectively dissolving its universalist base. But that’s precisely what the politicians and intellectuals of the Left did. They are activists and ideologues who abandon principle and reduce everything to power and power struggles. This is not Leftism at all but a bastardised merging of the Hobbesian war of all against all and the Darwinian struggle for existence. This turns Marx’s critique of political economy into a morality play of good and evil, the cast of characters defined and endlessly redefined by what Marx dismissed as would-be universal reformers. There is no systemic and structural analysis. There is no sign of the working class, either, which is striking given the way that Marx made the labour-capital relation central to the contradictory dynamics of the capital system. Instead we have race, sex, gender. This is pitiful. It also has the character of an addendum, a grab-bag of currently popular radical tropes. Contemporary critical thinkers are criticising the false causality at work which leads the convinced and partisan to connect everything to climate change. They say that once you start looking for God you will find him everywhere. The same with respect to climate change. This is not critical non-conformist thinking but the very opposite. The absence of the working class is telling. The working class have been written out of radical politics. That deprives said radicalism of the transformative structural capacity possessed by the working class, meaning that it isn’t radical at all. The criticism of capitalism is really a criticism of a particular form of industrialism, what Lewis Mumford called ‘carboniferous capitalism’ nearly a century ago. That paves the way for a new, clean green industrialism. That’s something we can all agree with, surely? Let us see the details and small print in terms of precise social forms, the kind of things radicals used to analyse in depth. In its present state, there is nothing proposed that would uproot the accumulative dynamic of the capital economy, for all Thunberg’s call for an economy that functions within planetary boundaries, and plenty that facilitates the expansion of the corporate form. The only role that the people who make, move, build, and grow things is to be ordered and organised from above by the new overclass. Far from being out-of-the-box thinking, this is predictable, conformist, regressive, managerial, technocratic and takes environmentalism down completely the wrong path.

The people praising / defending Thunberg for her out-of-the-box thinking, connecting it with the lower compliance / conformity levels of autistic people, need to reassess, both for the sake of climate politics and for the popular perception of autism. More critical minds will see the environmentalism outlined in this thinking as conformist to the core and utterly predictable : it contains all the principal features of the scientism, nature romanticism, technocratic managerialism, and identitarianism of the age. That the working class have been supplanted by the main tropes of the cultural Left is significant. This is an environmentalism that knows that the working class is not with them, and is to be ordered, organised, and exploited by remote control by the managerial elites/experts. And people who think themselves radical cheer as they walk into the chains being forged right under their stupid noses.

As an autistic person as well as a socialist and critical thinker, I’ll be truly non-conformist and show some real bravery by departing from the script.

Rightness or wrongness here is determined by the quality and coherence of the argument. I don’t doubt that Thunberg would agree, should she ever present herself for questioning, in the manner of other public figures. So what role, then, is autism playing in her Twitter description of herself as “autistic climate campaigner”? The designation “climate campaigner” should be enough. I’ve been a “climate campaigner” for a quarter of a century. My website documents my efforts at spreading the climate message. It has never once occurred to me to add “autism” to my political identity. That still strikes me as an odd thing to do.

Autism is clearly playing a role in Thunberg’s description. What is it?

Thunberg says she has found meaning and a community in climate campaigning. Isn’t thatwhat all cult members say? So what? Lisa Marie Presley said she found exactly the same in Scientology. We can happily lose the identification of autistic people as sad inadequates who will clutch to any old thing in search of compensation for the ‘normal’ things they lack. I certainly argue for the necessity of meaning, purpose, and direction in a life well lived. The same with respect to community and friendship. I honour the search whilst remaining sceptical of the places where people claim to have found what they have sought.

But that’s not the role autism is playing here. That tale is told to create an emotional shield. The clear implication is this – anyone who dares criticise Thunberg’s community of friends and meaning is destroying everything that brought her back from the pits of depressive illness and are knowingly, with malice aforethought, sending her back to the wretched desolation from which she came. The heartless fiends!

As someone who argues in favour of an emotional intelligence, seeking its recovery alongside a cognitive rationalism, this manipulation of the emotions is unconscionable, confirming every rationalists misgivings with respect to emotionalism. It’s fake, ersatz, inauthentic, a blight on the real thing.

We are being gamed, groomed, triggered, and trolled by technocrats and psychocrats. They take things that are integral to a truly human life and instrumentalize them.

As an autistic person, I am definitely triggered by seeing this trope of Thunberg the autist doing the rounds again on social media. What is behind it? It’s not a concern with autism acceptance, that’s for sure. On the contrary, the use and misuse of autism here is reinforcing some of the worst stereotypes associated with the condition in the popular mind – mental illness, lack, deficiency, obsession, fixation, monotone repetition and so on. That will be the abiding image of autism for those whose who feel that their legitimate political queries with respect to the specifics of climate action are being silenced or deflected.

To ask again, what role is autism playing in these presentations of Thunberg as global climate superstar with superpowers?

Obviously, autism is being used as a vulnerability that cannot be criticised, effectively allowing a free-hit to be taken in public space.

Cases stand and fall on their merits. You may well argue that the case here is strong. I find little reason to disagree with the science here. My disagreements are elsewhere. I disagree with the way that science is being extended as “the science” in order to do the job of politics and ethics (practical reason).

My point is that, being necessarily political, the questions of climate action are always arguable. I dislike the weaponizing of autism through its use as a sword and a shield. Because it draws a political fire that is properly aimed at climate politics on autism. Because it reinforces negative stereotypes of autism. Because it associates autism with what critics – and members of the public – consider ‘lunatic’ climate actions. Because it reinforces the popular idea that autism is a mental illness (it is not, it is a developmental disorder). And because I know that the vast majority of people who are happy to use autism as a shield for climate politics do nothing for autistic people. They are interested in advancing their climate cause and don’t care how they do it. Autistic people who seek help and support quickly find that people with time and resources to offer are very thin on the ground. My fear is that the association of autism with political campaigning may well reinforce popular negative stereotypes to the effect that autistic people lack a grasp of nuances and ambiguities (political and otherwise) and think in simplistic black and white terms. My autistic 'special interest' is mediation, bridging the gap between theoretical reason (our knowledge of the physical world) and practical reason (what we do in light of that knowledge, ethics and politics). That involves lot more than "telling the truth," stating facts, and demanding "action" from "government." My view is very nuanced indeed. I see very clearly that a sense of fear, emergency, and urgency is being created around climate crisis. It’s a very low politics. In fact it is an anti-politics, an attempt to undercut political engagement and deliberation.

I object to the appropriation and instrumentalistion of autism by the technocrats and psychocrats in our midst. They invite the abuse and incite the outrage. Michael Knowles was taken out by raising the issue of Thunberg’s autism, implying that her unbalanced climate rhetoric was related to her unbalanced mind. That hit was as unwarranted as it was invited. There’s nothing Thunberg is saying that ‘normal’ people haven’t been saying. The extremism of climate politics is indeed unbalanced, as in lacking proper mediation between theoretical/scientific reason and practical reason, but that has squat to do with autism. Autism is the patsy here. Julia Hartley-Brewer used autism as a term of abuse and received tens of thousands of critical comments. She’s been reminded of it daily ever since. My question is where all these people expressing concern for autism are when it comes to extending help and support for autistic people in society, because they aren’t there in anything like the same numbers. They are more excited by the possibility of using autism as a political stick with which to beat their enemies.

And this has all been deliberately engineered by those who have decided to put autism up front in their climate politics, shielding the target from a direct hit.

Hartley-Brewer describes Thunberg as “a half-educated, autistic, doom-mongering, eco-cultist.”

She later removed the “autistic.” But I wonder how many of those who have legitimate differences with this particular species of climate politics will retain the association of autism with the rest of the description, as in the popular stereotype of autistic people as stupid and obsessive.

Autistic people are not necessarily obsessive and monotone.

I am now involved in the campaign for "Autism Acceptance," having seen how little help, support, and understanding there is out there. I see it as entirely independent of my environmental politics.

If you think the issue unimportant, then take a look at the way Thunberg’s critics portray autism. Below is just a snapshot which took me less than a minute to find. “Spastic weirdo without a brain.”

So, yes, I am alive to the way that autism has been weaponised and instrumentalised by people seeking to shield the very contentious political agenda that they are pushing. The abusers are wrong, but that’s the easiest thing to say here. It is the use of an autistic young girl as sword and shield that has revived and reinforced the worst prejudices with respect to autism, with the huge fire that has been aimed at a political agenda coming also to hit the autistic community. Autism has been used as a shield and as a form of emotional bullying in furtherance of a political agenda, not autism awareness. In the controversies stirred up by “autistic climate justice activism,” the understanding of what autism is has been almost completely obscured by myths, misunderstandings, and prejudices (the autist as genius, the autist as moron). The case for climate action stands on its own merits, the science in the first instance, the politics and policies in the second. Autism has got squat to do with it, and to wheel it in in as part of a political agenda does the autistic community no favours. Thunberg’s off-script struggles will not be viewed leniently in terms of a sympathetic understanding of autism by those who dislike her pushing of extensive, expensive climate actions whilst having zero consent and responsibility, effectively making others bear the costs and consequences of her principles. Their negative assessments will reinforce a certain image about autistic people as intellectually challenged. But I suppose we could go along with the cheerleaders and hail Thunberg’s autistic genius.

I’m just a stereotype, as the song goes …

“Greta treats mocking reporters to signature sarcasm during visit to the World Economic Forum.” (Euronews).

That doesn’t sit well with me. Accepting that the autistic of experience is unique and irreducible, the notion of a “signature sarcasm” attaching to an autistic person seems anomalous. If there is a general character trait here, then it is that autistic people don’t do sarcasm and don’t get sarcasm. Cue examples from far and wide to show that autistic people do indeed ‘do’ sarcasm, and have a sense of humour, and communicate and interact with a high degree of sophistication. So much so that the condition disappears into the one amorphous ‘normality.’ I’m not buying it. One autistic characteristic I will lay claim to is the ability to detect lies, deception, and b/s. It might just be that I am naturally anti-social. But for as long as I can remember I mistrusted others in social engagements. I detected that they were wearing masks and reading from scripts in order to look good to others. I believe it is called being sociable, negotiating with others in order to find common ground, and avoid speaking truthfully lest it cause offense. Sarcasm is a fine art indeed. As is lying and deception. Autistic people are said to be at a disadvantage here, their honesty and literalness making them vulnerable in a less than honest world.

My take on this that this ‘sarcasm’ praised by the usual sources – call them ‘globalist’ if you like – is an example of the manipulating, managerial elites spinning a truth. I think Thunberg struggles without a script or struggles to be spontaneous unless she is in a supportive environment of favourable company. My speculation here is drawn from my personal experience of autism. Indeed, I could struggle to answer questions even in a supportive environment. I would prefer to remain silent or, best of all, escape. I would be taciturn and defensive in the first instance, then aggressive if the situation persisted. I think Thunberg was taciturn and defensive and then tried to deflate the situation by appearing to laugh it off. There was a tension and nervousness to the laughter. Her verbal responses were not examples of sophisticated sarcasm. That she responded only to the lamest of questions – those which still conflate weather and climate – beg the question as to why, if they are indeed beneath contempt, she didn’t respond instead to the harder questions. The questions were clear attempts to incite a response and draw her in. She was having none of it. The ‘sarcasm’ here was hardly the height of sophistication, merely recognition that some questions were too stupid to dignify. But what of the other questions? What of the precise ways in which climate policies are impacting on people? Beyond general assertions that clean energy is affordable, accessible, and abundant? The people making the decisions here need to be rigorously questioned, as indeed do the activists. It’s all happening outside of a political process, to be presented to the great public as a done deal, a de facto climate regime that no one actually voted for or can get rid of. It’s not Thunberg that’s the problem, it’s the people who spin her every move as genius. To the non-obscurantist, she comes across as spoiled, entitled, protected, deluded, hypocritical, and as thick as mince. Similar things have been said of me. Which is why I am concerned to separate the autistic angle to this from the political machinations that are so manifestly at work. The more this carries on, the more Thunberg’s ‘signature’ style is going to be associated with her autism, trapping us in a world of stereotypes.

I will end with the words from Autism-101:

“Autism is so often portrayed negatively in the media. The media likes to ‘other’ us. This bullying needs to stop.”

I agree, whilst urging autistic people to stop “othering” themselves with claims of superior intellect and superpowers. That’s the problem with stereotypes: if you celebrate the positive, you won’t be able to shake off the negative.

Addendum

A comment on the gaggle of reporters at the World Economic Forum who peppered Greta Thunberg with questions in the street, “asking the climate prophet tough questions she’s never been asked before.” People are getting very excited over this on social media. I'm not out to expose and destroy Thunberg. I thought this questioning to have all the character of harassment, especially given Thunberg's autism, and I thought that the reporters embarrassed themselves. They followed and cornered her. She tried to laugh it off and has been abused as stupid, flippant, and privileged as a result. Some have questioned whether she is even autistic. Privileged and elitist, maybe, that's the company she is in - power never likes to be questioned. But this is to focus only on the political level.

As much as I want the hard political questions she raises to be answered in practical terms – beyond windy generalisations, pre-political imperatives, and wishful thinking – I don’t know whether to be more worried for her or for those who will have to bear the brunt of the policies her activism inflicts on society. Her importance is so vastly overstated by her supporters as to trap her in an image that is impossible to live up to. Whenever her detractors think they have exposed her as dumb, her supporters claim she is ‘playing dumb’ to expose the stupidity of her questioners. She can’t miss. It’s not that she can’t answer the questions that are thrown at her, but that her contempt exposes such questions and questioners as ‘dumb.’ The questioners set out to ‘own’ Thunberg only to be ‘owned’ by her. At the same time, I’m intrigued by the extent to which Thunberg is praised for making extensive and effective use of sarcasm to destroy her would-be detractors. To the non-obscurantist it simply looks as though she can’t answer a question she has not been given notice of. But, by definition, an off-script question is dismissed a stupid question. She’s untouchable. It’s best to see the game being played and treat it all with contempt. As a climate campaigner I’ve had such questions thrown at me, along with the accusations that I either can’t answer the questions or don’t like and therefore seek to conceal the answers. I would baulk because the hostile political motives of the questioners were transparent. I saw the hostile intent of the questioners immediately and refused to be drawn, which is exactly what Thunberg did here (her laughter diffused the situation, whereas the exchanges I was involved in turned ugly, quickly, leaving a very sour taste). I don’t condemn her for not answering the barrage of questions thrown at her by the Rebel Reporters. There’s no genuine truth-seeking going on here, merely political games. They meant to harm her and she knew it. I do think, though, that her days of making pronouncements without challenge need to end, and quickly. Because we are witnessing a clear attempt to engineer public policy in a way that circumvents politics, a de facto enlightened despotism.

It would be interesting to see written replies to the questions asked by the Rebel Reporters. I note that some of the people praising Thunberg for her silence and sarcasm do at least attempt to answer some of the questions. It leaves me with a strange feeling. A lack of sarcasm is considered one of the most common characteristics autism. To see Thunberg being proclaimed as a master of the art at the tender age of 20 doesn’t sit easily with me. I think she was simply trying to deflect pressure in what was a socially challenging situation for autistic people. The issue for me is the way that adults cheering her on and coming to her defence are forever spinning an image and identity around her, utterly overstating her abilities to genius level. It’s unsustainable, at least when it comes to any genuine public interaction and engagement (as opposed to persistent deployment as a figurehead who claims the right to issue commands without question). People obsess over the words and deeds of an activist whose public pronouncements are shot-through with campaign imperatives. Whatever action is being taken, it can never be enough. That’s the campaign game that gains far too much attention. It is the people who are making actual policy decisions who deserve much more critical scrutiny than they get. Instead, people obsess over what an activist says. One could almost think that her main role is to divert attention from where it ought to be focused. You can waste your own time working out how complicit and knowing she and her family are.

Excited activists pushing for ambitious climate measures get all the publicity whilst actions for the long-term are taken outside of public glare. In the end, we will be faced with a done deal, sold as the only realistic plan in light of the utopian idealism of the activists. That’s the game being played. As for autism, who gives a damn?

People who put themselves forward (or allow others to put them forward) in politics and public life should make themselves available for questioning. This is not too much to ask. It applies in many other areas of life and work, too. Autistic people are not stupid. But as an autistic person I would find being surrounded by people and bombarded with questions overwhelming. The reporters concluded that Thunberg is a “child actor.” That’s the conclusion they set out to draw all along. It is true that other journalists are covering for Thunberg, indicating that there is a narrative. These eporters can be heard answering the questions that Thunberg is avoiding.

But none of this proves that Thunberg is a phoney, a puppet, a child actor.

She is being pursued in the street by reporters precisely because she has never been subjected to close, intensive interview on the key questions. That's why the reporters are getting excited and she is getting afraid - they've caught her and she's been caught.

But this is all decidedly off.

Had I been followed and cornered in this way I would have exploded in a rage and hit out, verbally in the first instance and, should the pursuers persist, physically. I loathe being questioned and need to prepare long and hard before subjecting myself to such an ordeal. I get flustered, overwhelmed, and angry whenever I am questioned, let alone pursued. I will refuse to answer and seek an escape. There are people claiming that this episode proves that Thunberg is not autistic, merely a puppet actor. I would be careful of anyone whose conclusion conforms to what they believed to be true all along. Thunberg is judged suspiciously quiet when asked about her driving. passion. Yes, when asked about my ‘special interest,’ I could talk forever. But, and this is a big but, this is only in a friendly space. This was not a friendly environment at all, it was most hostile, and Thunberg must have felt distinctly uncomfortable. I think she survived by trying to laugh it off. I don't criticise her for being evasive here. In fact, I praise her for keeping calm under pressure. This harassment was very uncomfortable to watch. I would also laugh as an attempt to diffuse an awkward situation, evade conflict, and avoid an angry response on my part. I’ve not always been successful in my attempts here. Even into my fifties, I have been known to fly into a rage when people have not read my discomfort and have persisted in asking questions soliciting information. So I don’t condemn Thunberg for giggling and evading here. She was being provoked.

That said, despite a pathological fear of being questioned and speaking in public, I did put myself forward in public situations. I would prepare hard and face tough questioning in appropriate contexts. That should be expected of a public figure, autistic or otherwise. This doesn't happen with her, hence the excitement of the reporters.

If not among friends, I struggle to speak spontaneously and rely upon copious notes whose contents I have revised at length. I wouldn't answer in the street, I would seek to escape. If people refuse to take the hint of discomfort in my nervous laughter, I can get very angry. Had Thunberg done what I would do, and hit out at the surrounding mob, she would doubtless be criticised. I’ve taken classes and suffered disorientation facing so many talking student heads. It’s the reason that I never became the professional academic my qualifications entitled me to become. She did well to keep her cool. I’ll not join her critics here.

It's the evasion of pertinent questions in any context that is the issue for me. I braved my way through sixth form college, first degree, masters, PhD, the lot. I hated it but I put myself forward for intensive questioning at every stage. I had no protectors and no hiding place. I was told bluntly that I needed to 'earn my spurs,' like everyone else. I did. Tutors will testify to the fact that I was very awkward and tetchy, often uncommunicative, sometimes overly communicative, talking to much to avoid further questioning. Thunberg is far more communicative than I ever was or am even now. I would have burned up long before now. Like other autistic people I suffer from sensory overload.

It’s the use of autism as a screen for politics and policies formulated by others that I abhor.

“No carefully written script, no reply, very telling,” someone writes. Telling of what? Telling of autism, I would say. Such people, instead, think Thunberg’s spiel is all scripted to fit a narrative created by others. Maybe. But I always insisted on preparing extensive research notes before attending a tutorial or a seminar, and would sit holding those notes tight throughout. I think that’s pretty telling of autism. “The real Greta. No script, no clue,” says another. The same could have been said of me.

Such comments are ignorant, they are also cruel. But I don’t simply condemn the reporters for their street harassment. I sense their frustration. Where else are they able to ask the hard questions of Thunberg? When will they be able to properly ask these questions? Because they are questions of energy policy, finance, and economics that need to be answered by someone some time. It is this bit I object to, the lear attempt to develop climate policies and programmes outside of the properly political realm. There are much bigger players than Thunberg who need to be answering questions here.

As for autism, predictably it is getting battered in the criticism. “Everyone is autistic now,” one genius writes.

I did warn that this would be a consequence.

People are being ruthless in their criticism. “Are you saying a 20 year old woman is oo fragile to be questioned about her words and actions and should be protected?” asks one.

Autistic people are going to appear stupid, weak, dumb, and “stone cold” as a result of this cornering of Thunberg. I dried up, literally, in my viva voce. I was scared stiff and drained of energy by the intensive questioning. You can call it fragility. My strengths were elsewhere. My written work was so good that I was told I would be passed even if I fell apart in the oral examination. I’m afraid that Thunberg, having been put forward as a climate prophet, is in the sights of reporters all over the world who are leery of the climate policies and actions she is associated with. There will be no mercy. People can see what the game has been, using an autistic little girl as a screen to advance big climate demands. Reporters will be merciless in their attempts to get behind that defence, and savage once they are in.

This is the bit where the designation “autistic climate campaigner” becomes very problematic for one and all. She will be shown no mercy. I can see it in the criticisms of her reaction to this questioning now. “Greta is hardly a teenager and if you are going to get up on a world stage you need to be able to handle yourself and answer straightforward questions. They did not harass and they were not rude,” says one person. Had I been subjected to such a pursuit in the street I would have felt it to be harassment of the most aggressive kind and hit out violently. At the same time, had I made big scientific claims and issued huge political demands, I would have made myself available for questioning. This hasn't happened with Thunberg, everything has been managed.

People have had enough of the protection. Read the comments on Twitter. People want answers to questions and will not accept autism or youth as a screen.

“She is an adult, and a paid spokesperson for an aggressive internationally funded campaign to change how people live their lives. She deserves to be asked questions from any reporters.”

I think it more profitable to unmask that aggressive internationally funded climate campaign.

Try to preserve questionable climate policies from legitimate questions by using autism as a screen, and there will be huge damage inflicted on the public image of autism and, as a reult, on autistic people. The political use and weaponizing of autism will rebound badly on the cause of autism acceptance. People will associate autism with a scam and a grift, with stupidity and duplicity. The people who thought this a good way to advance climate policies are a disgrace. It is their political ineptitude that should be in the dock. Instead, reporters have Thunberg in their sights. As an autistic person, I would be burning up and melting down under the pressure. I don’t care for the reporters who did this. I don’t care either for the climate cheerleaders who raised Thunberg to the status of prophet for merely asserting repetitively the things they’ve been saying for years. Everyone involved, everyone, needs to get back to doing politics properly, asking the hard questions, and answering them. Fear, alarm calls, slogans, demos, the lot, all of it needs to be ditched.

‘Thank you for explaining exactly why they chose this young girl to be the face of climate change.

Because you can’t question her and the topic without being labeled some overused label…or on this case “harassing “

The classic playbook of the “elites.”’

This may get ugly.

That shows Thunberg has been used. It’s those “elites” who need to be pursued. And ecologists and greens need to reclaim the environment from their clutches, as I am reclaiming autism.

GretaThunberg strikes me as a young woman who is not so much out of her depth as out of her milieu. I spent many years in academia with an undiagnosed autism. I ould be uncommunicative and uncooperative, anticipating questions to answer rather than answering the questions I was asked. I drove tutors to distraction. I found my true metier in research, reading, and writing. For many years at school I was abused as being ‘stupid.’ This followed me around in the years I left school. At the age of 19, I ran into a former pupil in the street, who simply called me a ‘moron’ as he walked past. I see that Thunberg is being called stupid when she is without a script. I was called stupid for the self-same unresponsiveness and apparent slowness. In my written work and in competitive exams I stood at or near the top of most every class I attended after 18. That indicates that I was never out of my depth so much as out of my proper milieu. Thunberg looks distinctly uncomfortable facing the questioning that her handlers have sought to shield her from. This is the danger of using autism as both sword and shield – it is a divisive strategy and builds antagonism over the long term. The people who have been poked repeatedly from a safe distance will not go away in silence. They will resent the fact that they are not given a target to hit and will wait for the day that the defences fall. Thunberg faces a gathering storm. She’s been put in this position. Or, if you believe the right-on claptrap about strong young females, she has agency and autonomy and had put herself in this position. It’s just that she doesn’t cut the image of the self-made strong woman at all. She’s vocal, but only when safe from the right of reply.

I would suggest that she has been manoeuvred and manipulated into serving a political agenda that seems to fit her 'special interest' in climate change. The strategy worked well. She’s still all over the media and social media, with climate campaigners cheering her every word and action. But is there a long-game for her? Because if there is, hard questions of policy, finance, energy, economics, and democratic will and consent have to be answered. A ouple of years ago these questions were deflected with the apology that she’s just a little girl. The response back was that she should maybe get back to school, then. As an autistic person, school and college were extremely difficult for me. But I made my way through. At the same age that Thunberg was moralising about Britain’s industrial revolution bore the greatest responsibility for the Earth’s climate ills, I was top grading in the economic history “A” level. I learned the nuances of industrialisation. I learned from history that nothing is so clean-cut as to fit the division of good and evil. In fine, I avoided the negative stereotype that autistic people think in terms of crude antitheses. I learned that truth, like life in its living, is a package deal and not a matter of some simple, singular Truth. The apology that she is young and it’s up to the adults doesn’t wash. Again, this seems like nothing so much as emotional blackmail, instrumentalising and exploiting the natural human impulse to protect children and the vulnerable. If that is the case, then it is unconscionable. For the result will be to breed a general scepticism, even coldness, with respect to all such appeals in the future. It will be the vulnerable who will lose most. (I write knowing that there is already precious little help for autistic people available in society. I see a crude Darwinism at work, people exploiting the evolutionary advantage that comes with appearing to be virtuous, a performative compassion, whilst the weak are winnowed out and away).

Cui bono. Of everything that costs you time, money, effort, and energy you should ask: “Who benefits?”

It’s an ancient lesson that those responsible for a certain event or demanding a certain ‘action’ will more than likely be the ones who stand to gain from it.

“Who benefits from Green policies?”

We all benefit from planetary health, we all suffer from planetary despoliation.

So far, so deliberately vague as to command common assent. We need to develop the habit of disregarding all statements which all could agree on - they say nothing and are designed to evade the hard questions.

The problem is that there is no “we” in the social environment, neither within nor between nations. “Humanity” exists only biologically, not politically nor socially. Human beings live within asymmetrical relations of class and power, distributing resources in accordance with power structures. These asymmetries also impact on agency. Some people have far more power than others to make decisions (or ensure non-decision). To say that “humanity” in general benefits from green policies has the same quality as the trickle down assertion that a rising tide lifts all boats. That’s the kind of thinking that led to the rise of the superrich. The hing that trickled down most of all was greed and immorality. We now live in a world of technocratic managerialism presided over by a ‘classless’ seemingly politically neutral overclass.

I’m not buying any of it. People who shout ‘emergency’ incessantly are attempting to incite people into an unreasoned response in the direction of those who have some very definite ideas as the precise nature of the ‘action’ to be taken. You can be sure that such people have their own best interest at heart, not yours.

Another way of putting the question is to ask: who has the power, structural and organisational agency, and capacity to push technology to the scale envisaged in the large-scale climate transformations which we are told are required to avert climate catastrophe?

It’s a fair question for one and all to answer.

It’s a question that those demanding “system change, not climate change” are required to answer. I have put that question to green ‘friends’ and climate campaigners only to be unfriended and blocked. They either know the answer and don’t like it or know that it is imperative to keep the answer hidden from view until the public are presented with a de facto settlement.

Those who would transform “the system” need to answer – what have you got? Show your hand. It’s when the ambitions of climate programmes are set against the puniness of small green capacities that you realise that it is the big boys who will clean up. Who else? Marx identified the proletariat as the agent of socialist revolution given that their structural position within the capital system gave hem the capacity to act. Who is the structural agent of the green industrial transformation? And how does that agency take us beyond the accumulative drives and imperatives of money and power endemic to the capital system?

What we are seeing is not a systemic social transformation but one of those internal transformations by which the capital system renews itself for another burst of expansion and exploitation.

‘Progressives’ in every era are suckered in to serve as the footsoldiers.

It is deeply depressing to see Leftists seek to deflect pertinent questions such as this by claiming that big business will lose out by climate transformations, big oil and fossil fuels certainly. Of course! The nature of internal transitions within the capital system is that some business interests will lose and disappear into history and some will win and carry on in further expansion. It is hard to credit such naivety and ignorance on the part of so many Leftists. ‘Action’ and endless activism work like a magic spell, with people in a cause persuading themselves that they are on the right side of history.

My criticism is not that Thunberg is a protected person who should be questioned (still less interrogated and destroyed, which is what these very excited reporters chasing their prey are seeking to do), but that her ‘vulnerability’ is being used to protect a very contentious politics from critical scrutiny. Thunberg’s autism is mere grist to the clean green corporate mill.

This pack of reporters plainly see her as a stupid puppet, someone who is unable to speak without a script. That’s not stupid, that’s autistic. All through the various universities I attended and beyond, I would clutch a battery of research notes tightly. I prepare for everything, writing things down, anticipating questions, revising and rehearsing. As a climate campaigner I’ve been targeted too, hit by a barrage of hostile questions, and had my motives traduced for not giving immediate response. I sensed the hostility and knew I was being drawn into a zero-sum scrap. I guess that Thunberg sensed the very same thing and did well not to be drawn.

My criticism is reserved for those who have put Thunberg in this position (and I accept that putting the point that way could be construed as denying her own agency and responsibility, reducing her to a puppet indeed). I think she is sincere (which doesn’t make her right), and I think she has been inveigled into a political strategy that is not of her making. And I think that in becoming a prominent public figure demanding actions that impinge on people, power, and social interests, she has made herself a target for legitimate questioning – and very hostile interrogation. Such is politics. Or do we want a technocratic tyranny of unquestionable top-down edicts? It makes me suspicious to see other “journalists” seeking to answer the questions that Thunberg sought to avoid. There’s a narrative, script, an agenda, and Thunberg has a role to play. It’s hilarious to hear supposed radicals defend her against critics by saying that they are triggered by strong, autonomous women. Thunberg doesn’t have autonomy within this arrangement, and doesn’t speak off-script either. I have a good idea what strong, autonomous women look like. I come from a family of them and very nearly married one. They speak out of turn, frequently. Thunberg seems too careful and too cautious to be on of those, as if constantly in fear of departing from a script.

There is little point in asking Thunberg questions, other than to expose how little she knows and reveal her as a puppet. The people motivated to do this don't understand how autism works. Her answers are in her written speeches and books. There are indeed question-begging evasions and omissions there, especially on policy and political economy. In person, she tends to pass questions off to ‘the scientists’ and other experts. There is a huge agenda driven lobby behind her. It is that that needs to be questioned and unmasked. It’s as though Adolf Hitler hired Shirley Temple to generate the demand for actions he is preparing to take, and everyone keeps their eyes trained on Shirley’s every word and deed, journalists and campaigners alike. Journalists need to ask the right questions of the right people. And campaigners need to ask themselves whether their cause is being appropriated and diverted. Thunberg is just a shadow on the wall.

Conspiracy theory?

It’s just the view of someone steeped in Marx’s critique of political economy, from the days when the Left was on nodding terms with the working class. Come to think of it, it has been a long time since activists have been on speaking terms with the working class. Besides the strategists, the people who really annoy me in this charade are those who have been cheering Thunberg on so uncritically from the first, her every pronouncement and action hailed as genius. These are the people who went into hysterics in droves at Thunberg’s “razor sharp” wit when cracking a penis gag that pretty most all young teenage girls have cracked. Unkind critics will be quick to point out that that “razor sharp” wit was nowhere to be seen in the defensive sarcasm Thunberg employed in attempt to ridicule questions she clearly did not want to answer. I don’t blame her for not answering. My critical ire is reserved for those who, by praising her for abilities she does not have that, have raised Thunberg so impossibly high that she is now in danger of one almighty fall. Praise someone for their incredible wit and intellect, and critics will feel entitled to put them to the test. It’s the campaigners who have done this who deserve criticism. Such people simply revel in the free hits that Thunberg gives them. I'll guarantee that the only thing about autism that interests them is its 'superpower' quality, but only when it confirms what they already believe to be true. I'm autistic, and my superpower tells me that they are wrong.