New York Magazine - USA (2019-09-16)

september 16–29, 2019 | new york 31

elections. The Swedish populist Jimmie

Åkesson described her as the creation of her

parents and a PR agency, echoing a puppet

narrative that has become so firm on the

European right that a full-length book has

already been published about the family, The

Manufacturing of Greta Thunberg.

I should say a second full-length book,

because Greta’s parents wrote their own

account of their daughter’s troubled child-

hood and climate awakening, Scenes From

the Heart, first published in 2018, when

Greta’s mother—a successful opera singer

who was once Sweden’s competitor in the

Eurovision Song Contest—was still the most

famous member of the family. This year, they

brought out a new edition with Greta’s name

now on the cover too. When it is published

in English next year, it will be under a revised

title:Our House Is On Fire.

The book is more of a parenting memoir

than a hagiography of a child. In it, many

elements of the Greta conspiracy theory are

confirmed, but only as perhaps the most

normal features of her otherwise nearly

incomprehensible adolescence: She is a

child of relative privilege who was taught

early on about climate change by her singer

mother and her sometime actor father,

himself the son of a quite famous actor, who

first switched to managing his wife’s career,

then his daughter’s. He was one of the four

to accompany Greta on the Malizia II, for

instance, and when she camped out at

Davos, and he helped nurse her through her

black years, a friend of the family told me,

“one gnocchi at a time.” In other words,

Greta has been helped, and perhaps even

stage-parented,inher journey, as teenagers often are even on

muchlessdramaticmissions.

Whenshearrivedin New York, Greta was asked what she thought

shewouldmissabout the boat now that she was back on land. Her

secondanswerwasabout the beauty of the ocean; her first was about

thesolitudeit brought. A few days later, on Twitter, she wrote,

“Whenhatersgoafter your looks and differences, it means they have

nowherelefttogo.And then you know you’re winning!” She added

thehashtag#aspiepower and a photo of herself, smiling, aboard the

MaliziaIIinNewYork Harbor.

“I’mnotpublicabout my diagnosis to ‘hide’ behind it,” she con-

tinued,“butbecauseI know many ignorant people still see it as an

‘illness’,orsomething negative. And believe me, my diagnosis has

limitedmebefore.”

Ina thirdtweet,she went on: “Before I started school striking I

hadnoenergy,nofriends and I didn’t speak to anyone. I just sat

aloneat home,withan eating disorder. All of that is gone now, since

I havefounda meaning, in a world that sometimes seems shallow

andmeaninglesstoso many people.”

I METGRETALATE on a Friday morning in early September near

theU.N.attheFord Foundation—a spectacular mid-century

monolithwitha towering atrium so wet with plant life that the

corridorsallthewayup on the tenth floor smelled like the reptile

houseata metropolitan zoo.

WhenGretaarrived, she was carrying her sign from the strikes

andlookingtired,even a little sad, wearing gray sweatpants printed

FORTHOSERESISTANTtothatconcreteaction,Gretarepre-

sentsa difficulttarget—ateenager,afterall,herhandsclean.For

mostofthepastyear,therightwingstayedquietaboutheraside

froma fewearlyattemptstodismissherbysayingsheandherfellow

strikersshouldjusthavestayedinschool.

Butbeginningwiththeannouncementthatshewouldbetravel-

ingtotheU.N.byboat—whichtheyreadasa kindoftrolling,a

gestureofliberalsuperiority—aphalanxofcriticsappearedand

movedsomuchinunisonyou’dbeforgivenforseeingit asa coor-

dinatedattack.“IsGretaa greenprophetora schoolgirlpuppet

controlledbymoresinisterforcesbehindher?”askedtheBritish

Sun,a RupertMurdochpaper.“Noteenageris morefreakishly

influentialthanThunberg,thedeeplydisturbedmessiahofthe

globalwarmingmovement,”theAustraliancolumnistAndrewBolt

wroteintheMelbourneHeraldSun,anotherMurdochpaper.“I

haveneverseena girlsoyoungandwithsomanymentaldisorders

treatedbysomanyadultsasa guru.”

“ThearrivalofGretaThunberginNewYorkonWednesdaywas

oneofmanyrecenteventsthatillustratehowrapidlymodernenvi-

ronmentalismis degeneratingintoa millenariancult,”NiallFergu-

sonwroteintheSundayTimesof London,anotherMurdochpaper.

AndintheNewYorkTimes,theconservativecentristChristopher

Caldwellcalledherrhetorica threattodemocracy.

“Thisis nota ‘womanoftheyear’butatbesta teenagerwith

autisticprehistorywhois burnedbyher‘advisers’andbywilling

MSMasa newiconforthe‘climatechurch,’ ”wroteonefar-right

PHOTOGRAPH: DDP IMAGES/SIPA USAmemberoftheGermanParliamentintherun-uptotheEuropean

“I don’t wnt you to be hopeful;

I wnt you to pnic.

I wnt you to feel the fer

I feel every day.”