Why do old white men hate Greta Thunberg so much?

[MotherOfDragonite]

My 65 year old uncle and friends of a similar age (and also white, though not necessarily all British -- others are American, German and Australian) seem to talk about her an awful lot with great vitriol and hatred.

They seem to have shared views about climate change, but I still can't understand why they hate Greta so much. Not only do they comment on her, but they post unpleasant memes about her. While I understand that they fundamentally disagree with the concept of climate change, I don't really understand why a 16 year old girl with Aspergers, who does not live in the UK and who clearly has good intentions even if they disagree with them, is the focus of so much of their ire.

What is it about Greta that older men find so very "triggering"?

The treatment of AS people somewhat reminds me of the treatment of visibly disabled people in the 1980's - seen as reprobates if people in wheelchairs wanted to do normal things like go to pubs and have sex

I can certainly see that if you like Greta, you’ll be baffled by the fact that others don’t - and you’ll try to find other explanations as to why that might be (some sort of prejudice against AS people?). But honestly, this has absolutely nothing to with it.

If you go around lecturing people about how they have to change their appalling behaviour, then it stands to reason that your own behaviour is going to be widely scrutinised. Exactly the same thing happened to Meghan and Harry when they started sounding off about environmental issues - inevitably the press makes it their duty to uncover hypocrisy, and inevitably they do. Greta has been placed on a pedestal, and her parents have allowed that to happen, and it certainly makes it very difficult for her ever to live a normal, unscrutinised life or, god forbid, change her mind one day. But that is a trap of her own creation, and nothing to do with ASD.

Things is there's criticism where criticism is due - it's when its only one way with no substance in terms of how and why you can do things better/avoid things that I have no time for.

That is probably why I don't have that many friends - I thought that criticism means you respect someone enough but I have had people cut me off even after what I would have thought was good feedback.

I think it depends how you go about it. But I prefer people with integrity who discuss things rather than the type who just demand death and suffering (not mentioning any particular type of Twitter warrior threatening JK Rowling)

By that I mean you might have very black and white views but you have integrity and try to share what you believe to be the best ideas.

Have you asked old white men their opinion on her or is it the typical all men especially white ones are bad rhetoric?

She probably has a point but the presentation of the point comes across as zealotry which isn't going to change people's minds.