In a story headlined “Greta Hectors Davos,” Issues and Insights raises an interesting question in the subhead:

Why Are Elitists Thrilled to Be Lectured by a Child Who Knows Nothing?

Greta Thunberg has just turned 17, and it is legitimate to worry that skipping school to become an internationally famous doomsayer is not the optimum path for the Swedish adolescent. Still, that is a matter for Greta and her parents.

Meanwhile, it is also legitimate to ask what it is that this young woman, who was Time mag’s “Person of the Year” for 2019, has that the world’s elites want.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin opines that the attraction isn't exactly Greta's in-depth knowledge of economics:

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin sharply criticized the financial credentials of Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg on Thursday, saying the 17-year-old should study economics at college before lecturing the U.S. on fossil fuel investments.

Speaking at a press briefing at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Mnuchin was asked whether the world’s largest economy needed to completely and immediately divest from fossil fuels.

“Is she the chief economist or who is she? I’m confused,” Mnuchin said, before adding this was “a joke. That was funny.”

“After she goes and studies economics in college she can come back and explain that to us,” Mnuchin said.

Thunberg, alongside 20 other young climate activists, has called on all of those attending the forum to stop the “madness” of ongoing investments in fossil fuel exploration and extraction and “completely divest” from fossil fuels.

It is truly uplifting to see an adult treat a 17-year-old like a 17-year-old should be treated. I say this with no malice toward Greta. 

Somebody older told Greta she could skip school, tell the grown-ups that they are ruining her life (teenagers always say that—just usually not in front of the United Nations or at Davos!), and in general publicly express a chilling degree of anger.

The horrifying thing about the Greta Thunberg vogue is that she is being used.

Dominic Green of the Spectator USA explains how the elites are making use of the teenager:   

There’s money in misery, so the world’s corporate elite welcomes eco-catastrophist Greta Thunberg to its cult center at Davos. There’s also money in optimism, the fuel of markets and speculation — but Davos doesn’t like Donald Trump.

Strange that a legendary capitalist turned deregulating politician is the odd man out on the magic mountain of money, but a socialist child who calls for overriding democracy and the forced transformation of national economies is a spiritual figurehead for the masters of moolah.

The smart money at Davos is on Greta, because the risks are lower in the command economy that Greta and her drones want. The outcomes are pre-ordained, and all innovation is fixed between business and government. Business wants command of the economy too, because corporatism means guaranteed profit. In this conception of the future, nation-states and democracy are obstacles.

Davos has adopted Greta as a farmer adopts a cattle prod, to shove the producers into the stalls so they can be milked more efficiently. But Greta, it seems, actually believes in the environmental End of Days. Trump has survived the end of his world several times over, usually by the Davos-approved method of drawing on other people’s money. Projections of disaster can mean little to a man who has borrowed massively to build three casino-hotels in Atlantic City but found that only one of them makes any money.

Greta is an oracle because she expresses the belief that only more global regulations and controls can save her from doom. Issues and Insights says something similar:

Greta gets a pulpit and the rock-star treatment because she’s a novelty. She’s a human shield to protect the alarmists from criticism. Adults screaming for attention and the approval of their peers think she provides them with cachet. And don’t forget, she talks back to that mean President Donald Trump.

Greta tells the Davos gathering that “our house” is on fire:  

Of course “our house” – the world we live in – isn’t on fire, though large parts of Australia are, and that generates not only news but wild speculation from the zealots and the political operators that man’s greenhouse gas emissions are responsible. The evidence, however, indicates that green environmental policy is responsible.

The story is the same in California, where wildfire season produced global headlines. It was green policies, not anthropogenic global warming, that charred the state.

Given the magnitude of the exaggerations that pour out of Greta’s mouth, why was she even invited to speak at Davos, and before that at the United Nations? Why would adults name her Time magazine’s person of the year? Why wasn’t the very idea of her being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize laughed at by the Nobel Committee?

Well, because a teenager says what these world leaders say. She simplifies the issue (teenagers do this, don’t they?).

The world elites don’t want to take an objective look at the hard problems such as Australia’s apparently disastrous green policies.

When Greta finally shows up for classes, she should look up “mascot.”

Despite her lack of knowledge . . .

. . . Greta is asked to be a part of the program, in fact a main attraction. What this tells us is the ruling class in the West is exhausted, impotent, and would rather be popular than do the right thing.

To the elites of Davos: Oh, grow up.