Contributed by William Walter Kay BA LL B © 2019
“I have not met one single climate activist who is fighting for the climate for the money.
That idea is completely absurd.”
Uppsala native Malena Ernman (b. 1970) received formal education from Stockholm’s Royal Music Academy; Orleans’ Musical Conservatory; and the Royal Swedish Opera. While opera is her mainstay Malena also sings jazz and pop. She’s cut 10 albums and two hit singles. While already a celebrity, representing Sweden in the 2009 Eurovision Contest made Malena a household name. In 2010 King Carl anointed her a “court singer.”
Malena’s fame may be seconded by her father-in-law, Olaf Thunberg – a fixture in Swedish film and television. Olaf graced 39 films and 26 television programs. He also directed two television series.
Olaf’s son (Malena’s husband), Svante, followed Olaf’s thespian footsteps but landed few significant gigs. He manages Malena’s singing career. Both are outspoken environmentalists.
Malena co-authored a climate alarmist article for Sweden’s most-read newspaper in June 2017. At this time she forsook air travel for the sake of the climate. In October 2017 WWF-Sweden awarded Malena their Environmental Hero award. In December 2017 Greenpeace Sweden centered out Malena for praise.
On May 4, 2018 Malena attended an exclusive climate confab in Stockholm whereat the Stockholm Resilience Centre presented: “Welcome to the Power of Capital.” The gathering allowed Malena to connect with Ingmar Rentzhog.
Rentzhog rose to prominence after founding Laika Consulting AB, Sweden’s first crowdfunding site. In early 2018 Laika was purchased by the financial communications agency, FundByMe AB. Rentzhog joined FundByMe’s board; concentrating his skills on the affiliated firm: We Don’t Have Time (WDHT).
WDHT is half climate campaigner, half tech start-up. Launched on Earth Day, 2018, WDHT soon attracted 435 investors who now own 75% of its stock. WDHT currently claims 718,000 member/followers.
Rentzhog’s forte is utilizing all manner of social media to spread messages. Interviewed in a business zine he declared: “our goal is to be the biggest player on the internet.” WDHT sells carbon offsets; provides internet advertising services for sustainable development firms; and prepares climate ratings on businesses and politicians. WDHT’s board includes directors connected to Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft.
One WDHT director doubles as COO of Global Utmaning (GU, aka Global Challenge) – an environmentalist think tank with 90 advisers drawn from the highest echelons of Swedish civil society, government and business (including a Wallenberg family rep). GU was founded in 2005 by the uber-wealthy heiress, Kristina Persson. In May 2018 Rentzhog became GU President. Another GU official adorns WDHT’s Advisory Board.
Also sitting on WDHT’s Advisory Board is Daniela Rogosic: Global Press Officer for IKEA Group. Rounding out WDHT’s boards are two prestigious behavioural scientists and three veterans of Al Gore’s Climate Reality leadership program. Rentzhog, another Climate Reality vet, confers regularly with Gore.
GU advances the interests of Sweden’s climate industrial complex. Arguably more than any other country, Sweden is vested in the climate crusade. Sweden is a world leader in green R&D expenditures and clean tech capital investments.
Swedish electricity is CO2 emissions-free. Swedes rely mainly on 2,057 small hydro-electric plants with the balance of their power coming from nuclear and from 3,600 wind turbines. They are also avid bio-fuel burners.
Sweden’s economy is based on export-oriented manufacturing. In 2018 over 40% of Swedish exports ($166 billion) consisted of machinery, vehicles and electrical equipment. Examples abound of Swedish manufacturers moiling the climate-rescuing energy transition. Electrolux (55,000 employees) is gaming climate-based fuel efficiency regulations to capture larger shares of Europe’s kitchen and laundry appliance market. Volvo (90,000 employees), as of 2019, builds only fully electric or hybrid cars. Capitalizing on their hydropower experience four Swedish companies export turbines.
More generally, carbon-free electricity makes Sweden an attractive venue for transnational manufacturers seeking entry into Europe’s climate puritanical market. A 2019 release from the Sweden Trade and Investment Council pitches:
“As the EU sets binding targets for reducing emissions, businesses need to plan ahead for regulatory compliance. By locating in Sweden, energy intensive companies can go the extra mile to boost their green competitive advantage and save costs.”
Sweden’s mammoth public pension funds are legendarily sunk into renewables. Pension fund managers inhabit the core of the compact network of ministries, businesses, philanthropies and NGOs (SIDA, IKEA Foundations, Wallenberg Foundations, Stockholm Environmental Institute, Tallberg Foundation, CSR Sweden etc.) propelling Sweden toward hyper-ambitious climate goals.
Sweden’s vehicle fleet will be fossil fuel free by 2030. Sweden should hit net zero emissions by 2045. This transformation presumes climate alarmists will maintain hegemony over Sweden. It further requires compelling Europe, in deed the world, to accept climate crisis diktat. While not alone in this racket, Swedes play an outsized role in disseminating climate alarmism. Greta is their most recent offering.
The Greta Project foreshadowed itself on April 21, 2018 with the release of promotional excerpts from Scenes from the Heart written by Malena Ernman and Svante Thunberg. The book revisits problems the couple faced raising their two daughters amidst surging familial resolve to protect Earth’s climate.
On May 30 (three weeks after Rentzhog’s and Malena’s co-attendance at the climate confab) a Swedish newspaper awarded a laureate to Malena’s 15-year-old daughter, Greta, for her climate crisis essay. In June, Twitter and Instagram accounts were set up for Greta.
On August 20 Greta held her homemade “Student Strike for Climate” sign on the sidewalk outside Sweden’s parliament. WDHT’s marketing director took the now ubiquitous “lonely Swedish girl” photos. On August 20, WDHT tweeted their best shot above a text pining: “…imagine how lonely she feels.”
The first tweet tagged several accounts including: This Is Zero Hour (a US-based youth climate org); Gore’s Climate Reality Project; and a 350.org front group. Within 24 hours the “lonely Swedish girl” tweet attracted 20,000 likes, shares and comments.
On August 23 a Swedish daily printed an article under the “lonely girl” photo. By then 20 students had joined Greta’s strike. On August 24 Scenes from the Heart appeared in seven languages. By August 27 six Swedish newspapers, and Swedish and Danish national television, had interviewed Greta. Leaders from Sweden’s two largest political parties paid respects.
On September 1 Sweden’s top newspaper ran the op-ed: The Acute Climate Crisis Requires a Broad Political Gathering – thetakeaway message:
“Although much of the change required is both possible and profitable, vigorous political campaigns are essential to adjust prices, taxes and regulations so that the transition to a sustainable society becomes attractive, profitable and fast.”
The op-ed was co-signed by: Malena Ernman, Ingmar Rentzhog, Kristina Persson, Mats Andersson (former pension fund supremo, current Vice Chair of GU Foundation) and Anders Wijkman (President of the Tallberg Foundation, co-President of the Club of Rome).
By mid-September WDHT reached 18 million social media accounts. They had seven times more followers than all the world’s climate organizations combined; and were adding 10,000 per day.
In December Greta attended COP 24 in Katowice, Poland where she met the UN Secretary General, took in a UNFCCC meeting, and was guest panelist at the World Bank’s “Youth Unstoppable” forum. She did photo-shoots and interviews for Time and Teen Vogue. At Katowice, Greta gave her famous accusatory speech (albeit to an empty hall).
On December 30 Greta finally met Gore, whom she graciously praised. Then it was off to the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos where Greta gilded a panel alongside: Bono, will.i.am, Jane Goodard, Gary Cohn, and Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff.
At Davos, Greta gave her: “I want you to panic… and act as if the house is on fire” speech. Excerpts were immediately tweeted by WEF, WWF-UK and Greenpeace International. The Guardian printed the entire speech. CNN and France-24 broadcast long selections. (The ‘house on fire’ meme has been systematically circulated by behavioural scientists within the climate complex since 2016.)
While much was made of Greta’s speech being impromptu, she gave the same monologue for the e-commercial “Whatever it takes” two days earlier. (Responding to “haters” Greta recently admitted to having “help” with speech-writing.)
On the 32-hour train ride back to Sweden from Davos (like her mom, Greta doesn’t fly) Greta was accompanied by her coach/chaperone, Jennifer Morgan. Jennifer has been a climate commissar for decades. She studied Political Science and German before getting her MA from American U’s School of International Studies. She ran climate programs for WWF and World Resources Institute. She advised Chancellor Merkel and PM Blair. She co-founded Global Call for Climate Action (which churned-out many youth activists). Jennifer is currently Greenpeace International’s Executive Director.
In February 2019, Rentzhog decided Greta’s presence on WDHT’s board made for bad optics. She was discretely dropped. Jamie Margolin, Greta’s American equivalent, is WDHT’s “youth adviser.”
Greta opened an EC session on February 21. With President Juncker beaming down Greta implored the assembled to: “stop sweeping your mess under the carpet for our generation to clean up.”
In March Greta was nominated for a Nobel Prize. In April she toured Rome, addressed the Italian Senate, and met the Pope (who blessed her climate strike). In the UK she addressed parliamentarians and was fawned over by politicians of all stripes. She then walked outside and endorsed Extinction Rebellion’s call for a general strike.
Greta’s student strike’s most impressive manifestation (March 15) saw 1.5 million students from 2,000 locales skip class to protest government inaction on the “climate catastrophe.”
(While mobilizing youth is hardly new to environmentalism, or to the climate campaign specifically, there is ample evidence of a re-doubled effort on this front dating back several years. A plethora of puppet groups have popped up: Sunrise Movement, Fridays 4 Future, This is Zero Hour, Rise Up, Power Shift, US Youth Climate Movement, and Fossil Free Europe etc.)
An authoritarian theme runs beneath innocent little Greta’s blunt statements:
“…change is coming whether you like it or not.”
“…start focussing on what needs to be done rather than what is politically possible.”
The public politely puts up with such pronouncements from an angelic child in a way they never would from the likes of Gore.
When asked how she dealt with “climate deniers.” Greta responded: “I don’t.”
Greta’s naivety and “Asperger Syndrome” are spun into virtuous inclinations toward frank truth-telling. Asperger’s patients – high-functioning/low-functioning kids with a tendency to act up – sound a bit like indirect sufferers of “Monster Mom Syndrome.” Greta’s naivety, however, seems real. Here’s Greta:
“I have not met one single climate activist who is fighting for the climate for the money. That idea is completely absurd.”
Sources
A third of the facts found in this article were first discovered from a single source – Cory Morningstar’s 6-part, 30,000 words (75 page) series which also contains over 100 photos, videos and screen shots, and 36 endnotes. All six parts are sited here:
Morningstar, Cory. The Manufacturing of Greta Thunberg for Consent; Act 1: The Political Economy of the Non-Profit Industrial Complex; Wrong Kind of Green, January 17, 2019.
Morningstar, Cory. The Manufacturing of Greta Thunberg for Consent; Act 2: The Inconvenient Truth behind Youth Co-optation; Wrong Kind of Green, January 21, 2019.
Morningstar, Cory. The Manufacturing of Greta Thunberg for Consent; Act 3: The Most Inconvenient Truth: “Capitalism is in Danger of Falling Apart”; Wrong Kind of Green, February 1, 2019.
Morningstar, Cory. The Manufacturing of Greta Thunberg for Consent; Act 4: The House is on Fire! & the 100 Trillion Dollar Rescue; Wrong Kind of Green, February 3, 2019.
Morningstar, Cory. The Manufacturing of Greta Thunberg; Act 5: The Green New Deal is the Trojan Horse for the Financialization of Nature; Wrong Kind of Green, February 13, 2019.
Morningstar, Cory. The Manufacturing of Greta Thunberg; Act 6: A Decade of Social Manipulation for the Corporate Capture of Nature – Crescendo; Wrong Kind of Green, February 24, 2019.
Additional Sources
Sweden Trade and Investment Council: How Sweden lays the foundation for sustainable manufacturing
https://www.business-sweden.se/en/Invest/industries/Manufacturing/sustainability/
Thunberg, Greta. In response to the lies and hate, let me make some things clear about my climate strike; Eco Watch, February 4, 2019.
https://www.ecowatch.com/greta-thunberg-climate-strike-2627956100.html
Watts, Jonathan. Greta Thunberg backs general strike; The Guardian, April 22, 2019.
Janouch, Katerina. We are making a climate icon; Die Weltwoche, January 23, 2019.
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