Greta Thunberg certainly has a penchant for the mendacious old socialist set-ups.

On her Twitter, she portrayed her travels through Europe as backpacker stuff, miserable rides on cattle cars through Europe, but virtuous, see, much better than jet or car travel, all in the name of saving the planet from the dreaded automobile.

The picture she ran of herself on Twitter glamorized the deal. Look at that soft, soulful focus of the image, as if to say to everyone that riding horrible, overcrowded trains was the height of virtue-signaling, because global warming:

Traveling on overcrowded trains through Germany. And I’m finally on my way home! pic.twitter.com/ssfLCPsR8o — Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) December 14, 2019

One problem: She rode first class, along with her apparently numerous entourage.

Here's the spat update from the German train company, which got mad at its portrayal as a moving hellhole:

A German railway company has taken back an apology they made to Greta Thunberg after they realized the climate activist wasn't schlepping it on the train's floor but instead was treated "friendly" in first class. The rail company was responding to an image Thunberg tweeted of herself sitting amid bags and suitcases on the floor of what she called "overcrowded trains through Germany."

Those Germans take those things personally.

Greta retorted that she rode part of the way in the cattle car way, first class was only one leg of the trip — Google translate is useful:

.@GretaThunberg Greta satt på golvet. DN:s @alexandra_u_o satt bredvid. Och filmade. Absurt att det här hamnar i fokus givetvis men när folk nu sprider myter om att hon egentligen satt i första klass hela vägen så. https://t.co/YpUckVBfOD — Linus Larsson (@LinusLarsson) December 16, 2019

But the essence of the stunt was to virtue-signal. That's obvious enough in this tweet:

Our train from Basel was taken out of traffic. So we sat on the floor on 2 different trains. After Göttingen I got a seat.This is no problem of course and I never said it was. Overcrowded trains is a great sign because it means the demand for train travel is high! — Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) December 15, 2019

Message: All you hoi polloi, be content with crowded train conditions because global warming. Greta rides these things; so should you. But the second message, seen in all socialist dictatorships, was clearer still: when you're one of the elite nomenklatura members in the new era, first class will always be available.

Image credit: Twitter screen shot.