In a book about her family, climate activist Greta Thunberg’s mother writes: “Greta is one of the few people who can recognize our carbon dioxide with the naked eye. She sees how greenhouse gases flow from our chimneys, rise to the sky through the wind and turn our atmosphere into a gigantic, invisible heap of waste.”
The German quality newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine – who was the first to publish a pre-publication from the book – highlights the passage by Malena Ernman and talks about a “special gift” in a tweet.
According to VRT NWS that called Professor Tytgat to ask if that is scientifically possible: see CO2. But does the mother mean that literally or only figuratively? That cannot be precisely determined from the excerpt – which we present below in its entirety.
That is why we contacted the publisher of the book in Sweden. “I was shocked by the commotion in Germany, Belgium and now also in Italy,” he says. “I can assure you that it is a metaphor; if you read the entire passage, end it with the tale of “The New Emperor’s Clothes” by Christian Anderson. So it is certainly not literal.” In a text message, the mother also says that it is only about imagery.
