Attacks on Greta Thunberg Come from a Coordinated Network of Climate Change Deniers

This piece originally appeared in DeSmog Blog. It is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of more than 250 news outlets to strengthen coverage of the climate story.

That was how British businessman, Trump ally, and Brexit bankroller Arron Banks responded to the news that Greta Thunberg, the Swedish teen who inspired the school climate strikes movement, was sailing to America to attend the UN Climate Action Summit. His scorn was not unique.

Many people have already spilled thousands of words of commentary explaining how personal attacks on Greta — often lobbed by old white men, sometimes mocking her Aspergers — are unacceptable. But understanding where those attackers come from, ideologically and professionally, casts an important light on some of their dark statements.

That’s because a large subsection of the commentariat driving the abuse of Greta is part of an established network of radical free-marketeer lobby groups — a network that has firm ties to the fossil fuel industry and funders of climate science denial.

Greta first shot to prominence in Europe, and that’s where the earliest mudslinging emerged.

Banks’ tweet was one of the most high-profile. He is among the most prominent funders of Brexit, with long-standing ties to the UK Independence Party and its former leader Nigel Farage. UKIP’s politician, Neil Hamilton, was one of the first to be called out for posting what was perceived by many as a bullying tweet directed at Greta, who is 16 years old.

Farage has now set up a new outfit, the Brexit Party, also bankrolled by Banks. The party has 29 members in the European Parliament, many of them climate science deniers, thanks to winning 30 percent of the vote in May’s elections.

While resisting calls to form an official alliance, the Brexit Party MEPs join other far-right populist parties in Brussels, including Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (formerly the Front National) and Alternative for Germany (AfD). All are united in their hatred for Greta. Two National Rally MPs recently boycotted her visit to France, and AfD representatives have made coordinated attacks on social media.

Those aggressions were orchestrated by the European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE) — an organization known for co-sponsoring events with U.S. free-market think tank, the Heartland Institute.

It’s perhaps unsurprising to find that many of the U.S. commentators verbally assaulting Greta also have ties to the Heartland Institute, given the organisation’s Big Oil funding and long-history of promoting climate science denial.