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In a recent comment, Greta described her Asperger’s as a “superpower” that allows her to cut through the haze of uncertainty. Her mental condition, she says, forces her to see things “in black and white,” meaning there is no middle ground, no room for scientific discussion, no justification for political and economic analysis.

All of which may explain her simple portrayal of the climate issue. “You say nothing in life is black or white. But that is a lie. A very dangerous lie,” she told the World Economic Forum in January. “Either we prevent 1.5C of warming or we don’t. Either we avoid setting off that irreversible chain reaction beyond human control or we don’t. Either we choose to go on as a civilization or we don’t. That is as black or white as it gets. There are no grey areas when it comes to survival.”

As for her parents, the official story is that Greta converted them to the climate crusade. She says it was only after her depression and climate panic that her parents — Swedish opera and pop music star Malena Ernman and Svante Thunberg, her actor/author father — became climate activists themselves. Her father, now described as “her PR person” and “chauffeur,” appeared beside Greta at the United Nations’ climate confab in Poland last year.

It’s hard to believe all this was just an ideological family accident produced by Greta’s sudden conversion to climate change at school. Her father, Svante, is said to be named after Svante Arrhenius, a 19th-century Swedish scientist who received a Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1902 for his theory that atmospheric increases in carbon dioxide created a greenhouse effect. Under her parents’ PR guidance, and with help from assorted professional activists, Greta is clearly not a one-girl band. In her speech last December to the UN climate conference in Poland, Greta — then 15 — said “I speak on behalf of Climate Justice Now,” a slick global organization supported by a Who’s Who of the activist industry.