A right-wing columnist has stumbled on the real reason for Greta Thunberg’s outsized influence

Andrew Bolt’s tin-eared opinion reflects Australia’s deeply-conflicted relationship with climate change

Environmental campaigner and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Greta Thunberg has incurred the ire of an Australian right-wing columnist, who writes that she is “freakishly influential … a deeply disturbed messiah”, a “priestess of the cult” of “climate panic”.

Andrew Bolt’s highly personal column in the Murdoch-owned tabloid Herald Sun drew particular condemnation for focusing on the fact that Greta has been diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, a form of autism.

The teenage campaigner has just announced she’s embarking on an emission-free trip across the Atlantic to speak at a United Nations climate summit in September, hitching a ride on a high-tech racing yacht fitted with solar panels and underwater turbines which generate zero-carbon electricity.

Bolt rants about Greta’s “unwillingness to compromise” and “totalitarian certainty”.

He claims: “I have never seen a girl so young and with so many mental disorders treated by so many adults as a guru,” adding that “her intense fear of the climate is not surprising from someone with disorders which intensify fears”.

Australia, by contrast, is utterly conflicted about the environment. The aggressive mining and trucking lobbies have seen railways decline and close, with the majority of goods moved by road.

Meanwhile, new mining franchises are approved and wind and solar energy is still at the starting gate.

In a week when Google’s conference on global warming in Sicily was attended by hundreds of celebrities (and – allegedly – Prince Harry) arriving in 114 private jets, it’s not surprising that Greta Thunberg attracts such ire.

She is the real thing, a charismatic inspirational figure who will not compromise. And that is her attraction to hundreds of thousands of people.