Greta Thunberg’s ideology puts the lives of billions at risk. How dare she?

“This is all wrong. I should not be here,” Greta Thunberg told the United Nations General Assembly. She is right. A 16-year-old Swedish girl should be at school, not holding the leaders of the world in thrall. But her advocacy of a global revolution to avert climate catastrophe has achieved such power over public opinion that nobody dares to contradict her. Yet her refrain throughout her speech was: “How dare you?”

Her message was stark. “If you really understood the situation and still kept failing to act then you would be evil,” she declared. “And that I refuse to believe. How dare you pretend that this can be solved with just business as usual and some technical solutions.”

Greta (or whoever writes her speeches) knows how to cut through the science (“crystal clear” to her, but actually rather complicated). “We are in the beginning of a mass extinction and all you can talk about is money and fairytales of eternal economic growth.”

In reality, it is only the wealth generated by economic growth that enables humanity to adapt to a climate that has never been static. It is Greta’s prophecy of doom that is a fairytale, one that has often been heard since the 1960s. Her family makes no secret of its far-Left politics. Extinction Rebellion’s ideology is totalitarian in its implications.

“You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words.” Greta knows that she can chastise even democratically elected leaders with impunity. She lives in a rich Western country where the right to “speak truth to power” is protected. And in the digital age, power comes from a mastery of social media, not mere elections. When Greta encountered the German Chancellor at the UN, the image was captioned: “Germany’s most influential woman meets Angela Merkel.”

Not content with her role, acknowledged by the assembled leaders, as the supreme representative of her own generation, Greta also claims to speak for posterity: “You are failing us but young people are starting to understand your betrayal. The eyes of all future generations are upon you. If you choose to betray us I say we will never forgive you.”

What really would be unforgivable — indeed, a crime against humanity — would be to squander the achievements of Western civilisation by obeying Greta’s injunctions. To deliberately impoverish ourselves to meet an arbitrary target — zero carbon emissions by 2025, or any other date in the near future — would be the height of irresponsibility. The huge reduction in global poverty of the past generation has been achieved only thanks to the spread of the very capitalist system that Greta wishes to abolish.

“I am one of the lucky ones,” Greta insists. She is of course correct, although she deserves sympathy for her disability (high-functioning ASD). The tragedy of Greta is that she is using her unusual gifts and unique opportunity to turn the young against the old. The challenge for her generation — and it is indeed a daunting one — will be to manage the adaptation to a warmer climate, while simultaneously caring for an ageing population.

This challenge is not insurmountable. Climate change is bringing benefits as well as problems. Regions that were previously uninhabitable are becoming greener; others, hitherto temperate, are less hospitable. There will be migrations and other disruptions, but “mass extinction” can only happen if humanity decides to commit collective suicide by destroying the system that supports prosperity and encourages innovation.

Above all, Greta is wrong to dismiss “technical solutions”. Human ingenuity, not apocalyptic speeches, will “save the planet” — or rather, enable humanity to survive on Earth. We will do so only if our tried and tested market economy is allowed to function without drastic interference by the eco-warriors and their totalitarian ideology.

Greta, go back to school. You are putting the lives of billions at risk. How dare you?