A right-wing columnist has stumbled on the real reason for Greta Thunberg’s outsized influence

Andrew Bolt’s tin-eared opinion reflects Australia’s deeply-conflicted relationship with climate change

Environmental campaigner and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Greta Thunberg has incurred the ire of an Australian right-wing columnist, who writes that she is “freakishly influential … a deeply disturbed messiah”, a “priestess of the cult” of “climate panic”.

Andrew Bolt’s highly personal column in the Murdoch-owned tabloid Herald Sun drew particular condemnation for focusing on the fact that Greta has been diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, a form of autism.

The teenage campaigner has just announced she’s embarking on an emission-free trip across the Atlantic to speak at a United Nations climate summit in September, hitching a ride on a high-tech racing yacht fitted with solar panels and underwater turbines which generate zero-carbon electricity.