Is the Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg just a commercial puppy?

Who is behind Greta Thunberg?

Greta Thunberg was born on January 3, 2003, in Stockholm, Sweden. Her parents are Malena Ernman, who at least in Sweden is a very famous opera singer, and Svante Thunberg, a Swedish actor and artist of minor success. She has a 2 year younger sister, Beata Ernman.

In 2014 Greta suffered a period of depression and general sadness. After an investigation at child and adolescent psychiatry (BUP) in Stockholm, she was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome (autism spectrum disorder),

During her school years before and after the diagnosis, she felt increasingly worried about the future and health of our planet. One distinct occasion was when her class saw a film about the waste problem of our planet in general and the great pacific garbage patch in the pacific ocean right outside of California in particular. At the end of that same lesson her teacher informed the class that the next week, the lessons would be held by a substitute, as she, the ordinary teacher, had to go to New York for a wedding.

According to Greta, this experience was a wake-up call. She understood the inconsistency of the adult community as well as the politicians, who say one thing but do another.

Asperger’s syndrome (autism spectrum disorder)

Greta has stated that being Asperger sometimes is a strength as you tend to look deeper and clearer into arguments. The world becomes black and white, true, and false. As she has said in multiple interviews.

– … but the climate question actually is black and white. In some way, it’s the most complicated question there is… But the solution is simple enough so that a five-year-old can understand it. We have to stop emissions. It’s black and white.

How could she become so famous?

In May 2018 Greta won second prize in a short story contest arranged by Svenska Dagbladet. The topic was the climate threat to our planet. Bo Thorèn, who was, and still is a climate profile in Sweden, contacted the winners and shared his idea of a school strike to sensitize the public view on the subject. He had been inspired by the Stoneman Douglas High School student protests after the shooting on February 14, 2018. The Stoneman Douglas protests eventually contributed to changing the weapon laws in Florida. Of the young writers, only Greta showed interest. And as nobody would follow, she went on strike alone. Bo Thorèn wasn’t involved in the one-person strike at that point.

Actually, Greta had been trying to act in many ways before autumn 2018. She had been a member of various groups of climate activists, she had attended meetings and actions but never felt that her participation had any effect.

The idea of a strike was obviously more engaging. So, on August 20, 2018, Greta initiated her school strike outside the Swedish parliament. And the result of that initiative was to become notably renowned.

The facts about the commercial interests behind Greta Thunberg and wedonthavetime.org.

Who is behind Greta Thunberg – Ingmar Rentzhog?

When Greta Thunberg sat down outside the Parliament, the intention was to sit there until the election on the 9th of September. That would mean three weeks. That same day Ingmar Rentzhog, a Swedish PR consultant active in a variety of fields, tweeted about her and asking people to get down there and show her their appreciation.

– She needs your support now!

Ingemar Rentzhog had started We don’t have time, an online climate company on a hashtag-business-model in April that same year. Rentzhog engaged Thunberg as a counselor. Later that year Greta Thunberg cut all connections with the firm. Rentzhog has admitted that he continued to use Greta Thunberg’s name for publicity purpose until February 2019, without Greta knowing about it.

The facts about Greta Thunberg and the biography book by her parents.

Who is behind Greta Thunberg – Is it her parents?

On August 23, 2018, three days after the first protest outside the parliament, her parent’s book, “Scenes from the Heart” was published. Many argued that the date was just a little too close to the beginning of their daughter’s school strike to be a coincidence. In the first edition, only Malena Ernman and Svante Thunberg, Greta’s parents, were accredited as authors. On later, updated editions, both their daughters’ names are on the cover.

While the first edition had a portrait of Malena, later versions have a photo of Greta Thunberg on the cover.

Watch this video on YouTube

I’ve actually met Malena Ernman (although she probably wouldn’t remember me), and she is a very strong, courageous, and determined woman. My experience tells me that it is beyond any doubt that she knows how to market herself as well as others. And the timing of the release of the book wasn’t random.

All revenue from the book goes to Greenpeace, WWF, and six other Swedish charity organizations.

Flying

One of the first decisions Greta made for herself and her family (… after the experience with the New York-flying teacher), was to stop flying. She actually imposed a family travel ban if traveling included airplanes.

Greta explains that this meant that her mother to some extent had to change her career. Being an opera singer with engagements in many countries, she couldn’t continue as before. She is now progressing her singing toward musical and popular music so that she can stay close to her home. A choice she has made for her daughters and for the environment.

Malena Ernman has always been productive in a more mainstream musical field as well as opera, though. She is one of those unusual singers who don’t respect boundaries. She moves with ease from one genre to another, from one type of music to another. She even has an extraordinary vocal range and has no problems singing in the soprano- as well as the lower contralto register, although she’s classified as a mezzo-soprano.

In 2009 she won the Swedish national qualification for the Eurovision Song Contest. In the final, she finished number 21.

Greta Thunberg, Maliza II, and the Monaco Yacht Club.

Who is behind Greta Thunberg – Is it Pierre Casiraghi, Princess Caroline’s son?

In September 2019 Greta Thunberg was invited to speak to the US Congress, as well as the UN Climate Action Summit. To get to the other side of the Atlantic, she would have to use a boat if flying was no option. She had many offers from various sustainers of her movement but finally decided to go with Malizia II. This is a 60 feet, monohull, extreme racing sailboat. It is one of the fastest single-hull sailboats in the world. It actually didn’t take more than two weeks for them to reach New York from Plymouth, England.

The owner of the boat is Gerhard Senft, an Austrian mechanical engineer. It is sponsored by the Monaco Yacht Club. Pierre Casiraghi, the youngest son of Princess Caroline of Monaco, and vice president of the club sailed the boat together with skipper Boris Herrman. Then there were Greta’s father Svante and Nathan Grossman, a documentary filmmaker aboard. Sponsors of the boat’s racing activity are BMW, the German car manufacturer, and the Swiss bank group EFG (European finance group).

Greta asked that all sponsors’ logos were taken down and in fact, the boat had only logos connected to climate change commitments when crossing the Atlantic. She was also assured that the sponsors were excluded from this particular event. Sponsoring is more general than that, though, and excluding two weeks of traveling from all the rest is difficult.

Going back

The United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP25) was supposed to be held in November in Brazil. When Jair Bolsonaro was elected President, he withdrew the offer to host the event. Chile agreed to step up and organize it in Santiago but social unrest forced it to be transferred again. This time to Spain. When Greta left Plymouth she was supposed to stay at least until the COP25 in November in Santiago, but when Chile was no longer hosting, she decided to go back to Europe.

This time she hitchhiked with Riley Whitelum and Elayna Carausu from Australia and their boat Vagabond. They had been sailing the world for 5 years and now with their one-year-old son, Lenny, they offered a lift to Greta and her father. The British professional yachtswoman Nikki Henderson joined the crossing.

She made it just in time for the COP25 in Madrid.

The true nature of a sixteen-year-old girl.

Acting out is never an easy task for someone with autism spectrum disorder. Greta, herself claims that the decision to do something has helped her in many ways. Firstly, she feels better, she is less depressive, and she has come to terms with her shyness and her selective mutism (another of her diagnoses). It has been a sort of therapy.

The strain on her family was for a period overwhelming. Greta’s younger sister, Beata, also has Asperger’s Syndrome. But she also has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). At a certain point, the family had to face extreme situations when one child refused to eat and was dying from starvation and the other threw bookshelves around. It came to a point were none of the parents could continue working because they both had to take care of their daughters, one each.

Who is behind her? Cause she has to be connected to a person, an organization, or a political group in some way…?

She had a collaboration with Ingemar Rentzhog but she ended that after a short period. She has no contract or loose connections with Pierre Casiraghi or with Gerhard Senft, just as she doesn’t have any collaboration with Riley Whitelum and Elayna Carausu, or with BMW or EFG… Or with Arnold Schwarzenegger, or with Tesla… Or Leonardo di Caprio…

I, myself, am convinced that the book release was timed with the striking initiative outside the Swedish parliament. It was supposed to be released in spring, but because of a change of publishing company, it was postponed until autumn. Another reason could possibly be that it was a better moment to get publicity, timing it with the climate initiative of Greta.

But even if there’s nobody pulling the strings, she still uses her connections and position to claim favors from organizations, companies, and famous persons.

I don’t think there is any doubt that a lot of groups, commercial or non-commercial, would dream of having a small portion of her fame mirroring onto them. She has enormous goodwill in certain layers of the global population. She is also extremely provocative. The things she says make front-page news all over, and she attacks more or less everybody who has any sort of power in the whole world. This obviously creates enemies. And conspiracy theories grow from there.

She is also very young, she is small in stature, and she has a documented developmental disorder. This makes her an even easier target for opponents, political or other, as well as the usual online haters.

Unfortunately, she is sometimes portrayed as an expert on climate issues. Scientists, politicians, and world leaders debate her statements as if they were her’s. She is also given many attributes, emotions, and intentions by others.

The viral photo with President Trump.

One example is the photo where Greta is looking at President Donald Trump with an angry face as if she blamed him for failing to resolve the climate crisis. The truth of the matter is that immediately before the photo was taken, the president’s security personnel had told her to move, and she consequently moved. She was hardly aware of the president at all at that moment. And the angry facial expression, that many newspapers and websites added as close-up, wasn’t there when the president showed up, but immediately before. The photo went viral.

Greta Thunberg writes her own material, but, according to her, there are people who check the manuscripts, and there are scientists who check all the facts to get them right. She has an organization, and she has her parents, and other close friends and family. She is not alone. She is surely influenced by others, by her family, by other climate activists, as well as by what she reads about climate change.

So why does she do it? If it isn’t for the money, for fame… Or for some political group?

There has never been any documented connection between Greta Thunberg and any organization, single person, or company for political or economical benefit. Until now no one has ever been able to confirm a political or economical agenda behind Greta Thunberg’s climate commitment.

So if it isn’t for fame and money, why does she do it?

A 15-year-old girl doesn’t need a motive for trying to save the planet.

One of Greta’s more frequent quotes is “I shouldn’t even be up here… I should be back in school, studying… “

It is not necessary to believe that she is independent and uncorrupt. Greta Thunberg is not at all important. The important issue is the scientific truth about things, and that truth can, and maybe should be found elsewhere. And now I’m going to quote the IPCC because that is maybe the most authoritative organization dealing with climate change…

In the Paris agreement of 2015, all countries agreed to try to keep the average global temperature well below 2°C above pre-industrialism temperature. And pursue efforts to limit the temperature to 1,5°C above pre-industrialism levels.
We are now heading towards a temperature of 3,7°C above pre-industrial temperatures at the end of the century.
To reach a 1,5°C temperature increase, the pathway is 41 GtCO2e in 2025 and 27 GtCO2e in 2030. Carbon dioxide equivalency (GtCO2e) is a quantity that describes, for a given mixture and amount of greenhouse gas, the amount of CO2 that would have the same global warming potential.
The actual figures are 52–55 GtCO2e in 2025 and 53–56 GtCO2e in 2030. We are actually increasing the emission of greenhouse gases instead of decreasing it. These are calculations before the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.

In 2100 the sea level is now estimated at 62 – 110 centimeters over today’s levels. That would mean that by 2100, land now home to 200 million people, could be permanently below the high tide line.

In such a scenario, the sea level will obviously continue to increase even after 2100. Some estimates display a ten feet increase by 2300.

Conclusion

There has never been any evidence of any organization, group, company, or private person with political or economical interests behind Greta Thunberg. She has her family and she has had assistance from individuals, companies, and groups on various occasions. None of which has acquired any quid pro quo from Greta. She has been criticized for some of her choices on this topic, especially for the sailing trip with Maliza II. I assume that she will be more careful in the future.

She was born into an artistic family, her parents are famous, her grandfather was Olof Thunberg, an iconical Swedish actor. That obviously helped when reaching a larger audience.

In autumn, she will start secondary school (Gymnasium), and will probably have less time to travel the world.

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No, Greta Thunberg is not a puppy. She is a teenager concerned about the future of our planet. At one point she decided to try to do something about it.

Climate strike — Courtesy of Eugénie Berger

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