James Delingpole is a UK commentator who just really exemplifies everything it is to be a piece of human garbage. Considering that he does podcasts with and writes puff pieces defending a white nationalist while engaging in the occasional bout of Islamophobia, Delingpole’s farcical, offensive, Russia-approved attacks on climate are actually one of his least deplorable topics of interest.
Still, he is very often (like, always) wrong on climate. This is in part because he doesn’t actually do any of his own thinking, but instead just launders the opinion of others. Recall how he once “lazily helped promulgate a lie” because he’s either too dumb or lazy to read the actual studies he claimed debunk climate change, which of course, don’t.
In fact, he doesn’t consider it his role to read actual studies at all. Instead, he considers himself “an interpreter of interpretations,” even once admitting that he relies on what others say to determine his opinions. And that would be fine if those on which he chooses to interpret were credible, honest, or intelligent. Of course, they’re not.
This brings us to Delingpole’s latest target: 16 year old climate activist Greta Thunberg, whose protests have inspired thousands of schoolkids across Europe to strike for climate action. In the column, published last week, Delingpole attacks Thunberg and all the other youth climate activists because the things kids know are “largely dependent on what they’ve been fed by their teachers.”
Apparently learning things is bad. Stupid children only know things they’ve been taught, while geniuses like Delingpole are clever enough to know that a smart person acts merely as an “interpreter of interpretations.”
Which, as it turns out, is what Delingpole does here as well. In the latter half of his screed he gets to his point, which is that kids are just puppets. Writing about a boy who in 2007 warned of climate change, Delingpole says he must certainly have done so at the prodding of his parents, because those adults must think “that green bullshit sounds more persuasive when it’s mouthed by some lad whose balls haven’t yet dropped.”
After that wholly disgusting but at least original thought, he then goes back to what he’s good at by regurgitating someone else’s attack on Thunberg. Apparently, Thunberg’s mother, Malena Ernman, has written a book about climate change Surely, Delingpole claims, that must mean Greta’s protesting is just a PR stunt.
Had he bothered to do any of his own research, and not yet again be guilty of having “lazily helped promulgate a lie,” Delingpole might have found a Wikipedia entry that clears it up: an over-zealous PR person (who, per Vice, had nothing to do with Ernman’s book) used Greta’s name and image on some materials without her permission. Not exactly earth-shattering stuff.
Hey, why waste an opportunity to use your perch at a racism-fueled website to attack a child for daring to speak out about an issue of importance?
But sure, the reason no national newspaper will employ him is that because of his incredible integrity, as shown by his attacking children and defending white nationalists.
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